Quick thoughts on IT (2017).

So I finally got out to see the 2017 adaptation of Stephen King's classic novel IT.  Now, comparing the new film to the 1990 TV miniseries is like comparing apples to oranges.  Yeah, it's the same source material, but still -- one was made for TV with a TV-14 rating and the other for film (first half of the novel, really) with a hard R rating.

Okay, so let's address the elephant in the room: Pennywise.  When it was first announced that Bill Skarsgård was cast as the killer clown, it was met with rightful skepticism...reminds me a lot of when Heath Ledger was announced as the new Joker in The Dark Knight.  For years, Jack Nicholson was the only Joker, hands down.  And we know how that story ended.  So I'll just say it: Skarsgård Heath Ledger'd the fuck out of this.  So no disrespect to Tim Curry, his Pennywise will always be great, but like Nicholson-Ledger, this new interpretation is so different, and yet, so good, that this is just another apples-to-oranges comparison.

Okay, so now the Losers Club.  They're great.  All of them.  I really dug the casting of all the kids.  And the kid from Netflix's Stranger Things totally steals a number of scenes.  The kid's got some acting chops -- and he's hilarious.

Being a father to two boys with roughly the same age gap as Bill and Georgie, I really related to that relationship and couldn't help but feel a little heartbroken after IT's opening sequence.  My god is that gut-wrenching.

All in all, the film is super solid and I loved the hell out of it.  And you should, too!
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