For a long time I have avoided watching the newer IT movies because I am such a fan of the 1990 version. Today I decided to grab some popcorn and watch the 2017 "IT Chapter one" and give it a review. Let's take a look.
Right away I knew I would enjoy the cinematography. The establishment shot is zoomed professionally with a nice handling of the lighting. The shot is a pan to a house during a rainstorm while the camera falls downwards. Very cool looking and professional exposition shot.
As the movie progressed I really fell in love with the way the movie is filmed. They let in a lot of light while keeping the overall composition dark enough. It reminds me of professional film photography. There are some really grainy looking scenes. But it's also very sharp and contrasted. It almost looks like Kodachrome.
Personally I am not a big fan of complete darkness in movies. And of course they have to hit you with at least 3 jumpscares while the kid is in the basement. I can't say I'm a fan of these type of pre-monster/pre-plot jumpscares either. If you haven't seen IT before literally all you know is there is some kid named Georgie who has a brother and they want to make a boat during the rainstorm. So the scary basement scene early on is kind of lame.
The color of the film does seem to be made to mimic the old 1990 movie style. I think it's a nice stylization. It almost looks like film. Very charp manual zooms with grainy, low light shots.
Georgie gets eaten on WITCHaw street ... super spooky easter egg!
I'm not really sure how to feel about Bill Skarsgård's performance. When he is being the silly clown version of his personality that tricks Georgie, he almost sounds like a retarded person. His silly, goofy and playful voice is very strange. Perhaps he should have copied Tim Curry's voicings.
The C.G.I in this movie is sort of a mess. The famous still shot of Pennywise biting Georgie with the googly eyes shows how bad the C.G.I is. Look how Pennywise is just smiling: He isn't even biting him! And they just digitally created teeth over that! It looks horrible. And the next scene with Georgie's arm bitten off is also horrible. His whole arm was taken off at the base and there is barely any blood? Not to mention he is just crying like a baby and crawling away. It's not a very realistic scene.
I think this movie would be better in general if they got rid of the C.G.I. It just looks strange with the cinematography style. This movie would have been a lot scarier with live action prosthetics, Start stop animation etc. The scene below it looks like someone [wearing all black] is holding a piece of ceramics and moves it in front of the screen. It would have been much scarier if a person was wearing a mask instead.
They did a good job making sure the movie actually looked like it was set in 1988. It's nice to see this movie isn't a silly modern remake with texting and tons of modern references. [Imagine if IT wasn't in a small town anymore for example] You don't want to be too inventive with a Stephen King movie. Especially with relation to the writing of the script.
Overall I would give this movie a 7/10. The cinematography is excellent. The script matches the book close enough. The acting is okay. The choice of Pennywise being a doll is horrible. Bill Skarsgård's performance is scary, but not quite as good as Tim Curry. The jumpscares and C.G.I monsters aren't as scary as the original.
This movie tried too hard to be an Alfred Hitchcock flick. The suspenseful piano music, the slow pacing, the panning exposition shots etc. This movie is like IT combined with Psycho. The pacing is a bit strange. It's more suspenseful than scary. Of course that has to do with the fact that this movie is half the timeline of the 1990 version. It's still a bit less scary than I would expect and it's a bit slow.
Push comes to shove I'd recommend this movie. It's not the scariest movie or the best dramatic horror though. The 1990 version is better in general, but the cinematography is better in this one [2017]. It's a watchable remake, but don't expect something life changing.