ES: Kapitel 2

Das Erzählen der dramatischen Geschichte und die Schilderung der Figuren hält nicht so wie beim ersten Teil beisammen. Es ist zweitklassiger und hat nicht so viel Inhalt (die Suche nach persönlichen Artefakten ist der schwächste Teil des Films). Andererseits sind die Ereignisse dichter, mit mehr Monstern, obwohl sie unsinnig eingegliedert oder von irgendwoher geklaut wurden (der Spinnenkopf bekam wenigstens endlich mehr Raum). An manchen Stellen hat es mir Spaß gemacht, an manchen war es langweilig. Im Großen und Ganzen ist es mir eigentlich egal, dass ich den dritten Teil nicht mehr sehen werde. (13.09.2019)

It: Chapter Two was supposed to be a sure-thing 4-star horror film this year. But the creators said NO! Sod it! Was there anyone aware of what the strengths of the first one were that made it so well received? Obviously not. So I will tell the creators. The performance of Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise the Clown. But in the second one, “IT” in its unmodified clown form appears in only about thirty seconds in total (in a three-hour movie!!!). That’s not much time for Bill to do anything. All the other appearances of IT are a stupid and surprisingly poor digital mess without any acting. A digital mess isn’t scary! Then there is the chemistry between the characters. It worked perfectly for the children versions. It had that Amblin’s atmosphere of childhood adventures, where the viewer wants to be part of the gang, even if they would have to face unpleasant things. In the second one? Zero chemistry. A heavenly cast that isn’t used at all. Bill, Eddie and Beverly are useless, Richie holds up a bit, but he fell from a different film (a comedy, actually), the rest are just there. And thirdly, the well drawn relationships between the characters, which in the second chapter is non-existent. They don’t speak like people, they just throw one-liners because there’s no time for anything in this special-effect circus (which is a paradox in a three-hour film!!!). The film has no main theme that the words from the characters could address. Everything moves boringly and linearly at a striking pace to the mandatory final underground. The three-hour run is really indefensible. Especially the last hour, that is monotonous and repetitive to death. When I realised that I will have to put up at least five times (it didn’t get to the black guy) with the obligatory wheel of “a character goes somewhere in Derry, they remember an incident from their childhood that happened there – IT scares them in a flashback – and back to the present, where IT scares them again”, I felt like getting up and get a snack at the McDonald’s next door, sure that I wouldn’t miss anything. And the worst is that I didn’t miss anything – this in fact happened. But damn it! If it was at least a good horror film. But in this respect, they wanted to make a blockbuster out of It and every single potentially scary scene is ruined by some stupid joke. In short, the disappointment of the year. Thank goodness King’s book was split in two films, so we got at least one solid piece, and we can pretend that this one doesn’t exist. (04.09.2019)

The problem with the second part of It lies in the fact that the director wants to make it in the same way as the first part. The adults, however, cannot work as well as kids in the similar world, because that world was created with kids in mind. The mysterious and fantasy atmosphere stems from the fact that we perceived the world exactly the same when we were kids. That’s why the first It and Stranger Things turned out so well and are so popular. In It: Chapter Two, there’s no reason to believe the craziness on the screen; it just seems like the screenwriter got high and wrote down anything that came to his mind. (06.12.2019)

If it wasn't almost three hours long, it would be stupid and boring. As it is, it's a stupid, boring and long. (10.09.2019)

The anticipated It: Chapter Two didn't live up to the high expectations, according to the reviews, and didn't surpass the first part, but it is still an outstanding horror experience that comes out as a clear winner thanks to this year's weak competition. The film may be three hours long, but it passes by quite quickly, is entertaining enough, has drive and enough horror attractions to keep your attention, something that can't be said for the new Tarantino film, which has a similar running time, but only the last 10 minutes are interesting. Pennywise could have been in the scene more times, but I enjoyed other forms, and one there was one scare that gave me a heart attack. It's not that scary, but I felt uncomfortable with all the scenes. The best sequence is definitely when the group starts looking for their tokens. I had a great time with the film, it looks expensive, the humor works at times, the references are amusing and everyone involved plays it to the hilt. James McAvoy rules! 80%! (12.09.2019)

Negative feedback after the premiere led me to the decision not to spoil the positive impression of the first part and instead avoid the sequel. I should have stuck with that choice because the result exceeded my worst expectations. It and Chapter 2 are like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is incomprehensible how the success of the first part caused Muschietti to lose all his sanity. The first film was not flawless by any means, but it was a dignified and sympathetic adaptation of brilliant source material. Chapter 2 looks and functions like an overpriced low-budget B-movie with an absurd runtime, cringe-worthy dialogues, terrible visual effects, glaring directorial clumsiness, and unremarkable acting, even considering the talented cast. (Jessica was indeed perfect for the role of Beverly, but her presence did not help the film.) The director lost control of the film, failing to capture even a hint of atmosphere and impressiveness. It's sad to say, but Stephen King is used to similar endings regarding his stories. Overall impression: 20%. (31.12.2021)

The reason that the book It was so exceptional was that it linked the past and the present and their simultaneous build-up, which is logically missing in the movies. A miniseries would be the right medium for an adaptation. But if I have to evaluate how the adult Losers did the second time around, it wasn’t so bad. That the cast is excellent is obvious from the outset in the restaurant scene, where everyone thinks back to their young selves. The problem begins with the approaching climax and the compromises in relation to the book (they make a mush out of it), but they make sense from a visual point of view. The change in the origin of the evil that the clown represents is probably the most painful. And the spider should look like a spider – it’s scarier that way. But the biggest problem is the length, because even though the movie is dreadfully long, a couple more minutes would have been fine… It should have been a miniseries. (10.09.2019)

Alles, was in der ersten Folge nicht geklappt hat, kann hier beantwortet werden. Was schön ist. Natürlich komme ich mit erwachsenen Helden besser zurecht als mit Kindern. Aber die ganze Geschichte von der verfluchten Stadt Derry ist so schrecklicher Blödsinn, dass es nichts zu retten gibt. Es ist zwar schön, dass King auf der Lovecraft-Welle reitet, aber seine klassischen Weltraumängste auf die Kanalisation einer Kleinstadt in Maine zu übertragen, ist einfach ein Fehler. Außerdem ist die Vorstellung, dass ich zwei Jahre zwischen den Filmen warten müsste, eher unsinnig, was hier auch für das nachlassende Interesse spricht. (23.06.2020)

Ich bin maximal zufrieden. So wie letztes Mal. Eine Sache hat mich aber besonders überrascht. Ich habe damit gerechnet, dass der zweite Film den ersten braucht. Dass es aber jetzt auch den ersten ohne den zweiten nicht geben kann, das hätte nicht gedacht. So schlau ist ES: Kapitel 2. In diesem Teil vermischen sich die Gegenwart und die Vergangenheit. Der zweite Teil hängt mit dem ersten zusammen und erzählt Vieles zu Ende, was in ihm offen geblieben ist. Nur wenn Sie sich gut an den ersten Film erinnern oder noch besser beide Filme schnell hintereinander gesehen haben, werden Sie nicht den (falschen) Eindruck bekommen, dass in dem zweiten Teil Bowers überflüssig ist, dass von Pennywise zu wenig da ist und dass die erwachsenen Figuren nicht funktionieren. Wenn Sie zu ihnen die Beziehung haben, mit der die Autoren völlig berechtigt rechnen, stimmt das alles nicht. Und der kritisierte Humor? Der Stimmung schadet er überhaupt nicht. Man kann beobachten, dass ihn die Figuren vor allem als Schild gegen die Angst benutzten. Ich bin wirklich zufrieden und denke, dass trotz allen Änderungen, die im Vergleich zu der Vorlage vorgenommen wurden, ES: Kapitel 2 nicht besser ausfallen konnte. _____PS: Der Auftritt von Stephen King ist fantastisch. _____PPS: War es nur bei mir so, dass ich bei der Anspielung auf Shining Jack Nicholson gesehen habe oder war er wirklich (irgendwie digital) da? (05.09.2019)

The second chapter showed in full view how hard it is to pack in a feature film all the 1000 pages of a novel that is so multi-layered in terms of ideas and space-time. The first one smartly stuck to the perspective of the kids and presented It as the manifestation of the natural fears that reside in the soul of every child. The second one had to portray what the adult versions of the heroes had taken from the confrontation of their past demons, and also to bridge their motivations and memories into the tightly connected shells of their characters, and it doesn’t do a bad job at it. It’s mostly a tale about returns; a return to childhood to revive lost memories (which in the middle they have to literally look for), a return to the roots of their characters and their fears, which the hated clown will again incarnate through an almost childish perspective (therefore the criticised CGI monsters), and a return to the old rituals that are supposed to defeat evil, but are in fact only a pretext for that simple return and to be released from its grip and the grip from the past. The film manages to capture all this without offending the fans of the book, as its spirit and the relationships between the characters are relatively well portrayed. To intertwine the past and the present, Muschietti uses imaginative smooth transitions and conversational planes regularly interspersed with digging into more or less fertile horror soil. The main weakness when compared to the novel (which is simply unattainable) is that, whereas in King’s book all the switches between the several characters doesn’t exhaust the reader, but actually increases the tension and the level of information, in the film things become repetitive and the constantly recurring CGI scares loose their power. This is also applies to the long climax, which can never hold your full attention. However, if we consider the scope of the material the screenwriter and the director attempted to cover, the result was ultimately successful. Some of the horror moments are truly good (for instance, the opening scene at the bridge) and it’s a pity that most of it is so accessible and fun – they shouldn’t have spared on realistic violence, and since the film is already R-rated, someone could have though of making Jessica Chastain take off her bra. In any case, as an adaptation of a great book, this is solid work, but I should warn you, if you didn’t like the first one much, don’t expect to love this one at all. 70% (14.09.2019)

Wenn King's Buchvorlage eine kulinarische Spezialität wäre, dann wäre der Film Kapitel 2 wie ein Eintopf aus den gleichen Zutaten zubereitet. Es schmeckt nicht schlecht, aber es fehlt ihm an gastronomischem Erlebnis. Während der erste Teil solide die Geschichte des Erwachsenwerdens mit angemessen gruseliger Horror-Ebene eingeführt hat, wirkt der zweite Teil eher wie eine Horror-Komödie, die selbst von den Machern nicht ernst genommen wird und die ständig alle ernsthaften und gruseligen Momente durch komische Einschübe und andere fremdartige Mittel (Filmzitate, unpassende Musik) untergräbt. Die schemenhafte Handlung leidet unter einer Reihe dramaturgischer Mängel, die Horror-Szenen sind oft lächerlich bis parodistisch und selbst "Es" lädt eher zum Lachen als zum Entsetzen ein. Es handelt sich um einen durchschnittlichen Genre-Routinefilm, der die Motive nostalgischer Kindheit und freundschaftlicher Gemeinschaft nach seinem Vorgänger recycelt und das Aufbauen von Spannung durch Keuchen, Erschrecken und digitale Effekte ersetzt. Abgesehen von soliden schauspielerischen Leistungen und einigen bemerkenswert umgesetzten Szenen gibt es leider nichts weiteres, was es verdient, gelobt zu werden. Daher stellt sich erneut die Frage, ob es nicht besser gewesen wäre, "Es" als aufwendige Serie zu adaptieren, die im Gegensatz zu den Filmen wirklich kompromisslos, inhaltlich umfangreicher und erfinderischer im Umgang mit Spannung und Angstpsychologie wäre. (05.09.2019)

The short horror episodes and the sensible monsters are cute in places, though Muschetti has been proving since his debut that he can't even brush his teeth without CGI. But it utterly fails on that hometown flashback level, where unresolved childhood traumas and a sense of undivided camaraderie return. And the film is panicky about this, so we go through one flashback after another, constantly naming what it's supposed to feel like, with the central five actors ripping their shirts off and one feeling like he's sitting in the front row at the National Theater. The few themes that go nowhere (Beverly's husband, the murdering Bowers), the overwhelming amount of footage, the inability to link the five protagonists into a coherent whole so that they each carry one unchanging type of character, and half the scenes have new information placed before them and we all immediately know what each of them is obliged to say to it – all evidence that there was some painstaking back and forth between the writers and the big-shot director who managed to get it to this point. And I believe (and the presence of cameos by Peter Bogdanovich or Xavier Dolan) that Muschetti was confident here in making a giant piece of filmmaking. I won't lie, somewhere past the halfway point I had a panic attack that it might never end. (03.12.2019)

After almost three hours, these were my two major impressions - it was stretched out beyond reason, and it wasn't a horror film. The grown-up version of It seemed rather bland and I didn’t find it very enjoyable. The character of Pennywise was sidelined (I don't even count the inflated one in the end) and I have no idea why It had to be so long. (28.02.2020)

It: Chapter Two is an American-Canadian horror movie that fell far short of people's expectations. It is unbelievable how the legacy of the first installment could have been tarnished when people felt like nothing could go wrong even though it did. You get a nearly three-hour-long behemoth that starts to bore you after just a few minutes. Ignore this sequel and get the book instead. (29.01.2020)

Nach dem hervorragenden ersten Kapitel habe ich mich auf die Fortsetzung gefreut, aber leider war sie eine reine Enttäuschung. Fast nichts funktioniert. Keine gruselige Atmosphäre, viele lächerliche Kreaturen, die an unsinnigen Orten auftauchen und deren Behandlung oft eher Gelächter als Angst hervorruft, eine langwierige Handlung... Auch die freundschaftliche Chemie zwischen den Darstellern funktioniert nicht, und manchmal hatte ich das Gefühl, dass die Filmemacher versuchen, aus nichts etwas zu machen. Der bravouröse Clown aus dem ersten Film ist in der Fortsetzung nicht so furchterregend und manchmal sogar dumm. Die Einbeziehung eines Feindes aus der Kindheit und einer psychiatrischen Anstalt war völlig unnötig. Es gibt einfach eine Menge Negatives und Dinge, die nicht funktionieren. Trotz der langen Laufzeit war der Film erträglich, und es gab ein paar lichte Momente. (05.02.2021)