IT: Chapter Two 4DX Review: It’s Time To Literally Float

My first horror movie experience in 4DX and I have set the benchmark high with It: Chapter Two.

Whilst this movie is a strong stand-alone horror flick it certainly doesn’t fill the shoes that the previous movie set before it.

The film takes place 27 years after The Losers’ Club last defeated Pennywise.

They’re all grown up and moving on with their lives, seemingly all with memory lapse after moving out of Derry whereas Mike who stills resides there remembers every last spooky detail. Bill (James McAvoy) is now a successful horror writer.

Richie (Bill Hader) is a successful stand-up comedian and is also the stand-out actor in this entire movie. Eddie (James Ransone) is a successful insurance risk assessment advisor.

Ben (Jay Ryan) is a successful architect. Stanley (Andy Bean) is a happily married man. Beverly (Jessica Chastain) is wealthy but married to someone very abusive reminiscent of her father.

“You can tell this is a movie can’t you? Every single one of the characters are successful in later life! What about something more realistic like Ben working at Starbucks, Bill being a bin man and so forth. Everyone is living the life of luxury, The education system in Derry must be world class!”

Mike (Isaiah Mustafa) calls in The Losers Club to reunite as recent murders have occurred in Derry reminiscent of previous Pennywise killings. The group reunite and group together to fight this clown.

In order to do so, the group must partake in a ritual where they split up to find artefacts from their past to use against Pennywise. Yup, it’s like Scooby-Doo all over again. Isn’t one of the first rules of a horror movie, NOT to split up?

IT: Chapter 2 4DX Video Review

What follows is a film of flashbacks where we flick back and forth between past events and present. I didn’t quite understand the constant flicking and importance of these flashbacks. If they were so important they’d have surely been mentioned in the first movie. They weren’t. It seems very out of place and disjointed much like the first 60 minutes of this movie. Completely unnecessary just like the first 60 minutes of Avengers: Endgame.

Repetitious scenes trying to force nostalgia when it really isn’t needed or called for. I understand the book is written in flashback sequences but stuffing the second chapter with them to wrap up some plot points was overdoing it.

Enter our IT: Chapter 2 Competition

Sadly the remaining run-time the story never fully gets going. There is so much comedic relief during the film that the scary scenes are dubbed with one-liners that make everything much less sinister.

It’s like Pennywise has inhabited the body of every ‘Loser’ and is forcing out these corny (yet mostly funny admittedly) jokes. But they completely distract from what should be tense and scary scenes.

The final scene of the movie is epic and the special effects throughout are still incredible.

Pennywise is still hauntingly creepy yet with a more comedic edge in this particular film but 4DX came to the rescue and uplifted this flick.

The movement of the seats has you literally floating throughout this movie.  A certain scene involving gallons of blood has the audience soaked in water. We have epic strobe lighting effects put to incredible use that light up the auditorium and really bring an added immersion and the chair movements are perfectly calibrated to each camera pan.

The IT: Chapter 2 4DX wasn’t as in your face as Hobbs and Shaw it added a subtle immersive element to proceedings and was a lovely little addition to the spooks.

Every Pennywise bite was met with a gory spray to the face which was great and seat vibrations from various car driving scenes to full-on chase sequences were truly great.

Overall

For all of its flaws IT: Chapter Two is a good little horror flick with incredible visual effects. The rather bloated 3-hour runtime still flies by rather quickly (despite some sluggish overextended scenes) but it certainly doesn’t lack imagination.

It’s an easy watch even if we’re albeit a bit disconnected from these adult characters.

It’s not a worthy follow up but as a stand-alone feature, it’s pretty great!

The Lion King however still stands head and shoulders above anything else i’ve seen in 4DX.

Hope you guys liked my IT: Chapter 2 4DX review. CLICK HERE to book your tickets and thanks to 4DX for inviting me to come down and see the movie!