Review for
It
SPOILER
ALERT
We’ve come to another adaptation of
Stephen King’s work. As I’ve read ‘It’ and I've heard that the adaptation is supposed to be great, I thought I would it a go.
What’s it about? ‘It’ is set
in mostly Derry, Maine and in two different timelines, one in 1957 and the
other in 1984. The 1957 timeline follows
the protagonists’ narrative as children.
There are seven protagonists: Bill Denborough, the stuttering leader of
the group, the fat but good-hearted Ben Hanscom, the asthmatic Eddie Kasbarak,
the wisecracking smartarse Richie Tozier, the sceptical and rational Stan Uris,
the only girl in the group Beverly Marsh and the only black member of the group
Mike Hanlon. These seven children do
battle with the child-eating, inter-dimensional monster known as Pennywise the
Clown or It. When they fail to kill
Pennywise in 1957, they return in 1984 to do battle once again. One prominent subplot also sees them facing
off any times with the neighbourhood bully Henry Bowers. Henry serves as a human and therefore more
relatable, but no less psychotic antagonist.
The good: The
length. ‘It’ was released as a two-part
TV movie, each part being 90 mins long.
Seeing as the book is over 1000 pages long, I would argue that this is a
reasonable length for a film, which they achieved by cutting out some
unnecessary secondary characters and some lengthy character development. I’m glad they did this, as I thought the book
had far too much backstory for its characters and I got very bored reading
through parts of it. The film also
worked well as a horror. It did well in,
rather than showing the murders themselves, it showed the effects on those left
behind. Pennywise has the powers to
shapeshift into a character’s biggest fear or make them see what they fear most. The film depicted these different images
very well, which all added to the scariness of it. I also quite liked the child cast, although
it was weird seeing Seth Green, who played the young Richie Tozier, as a
sixteen year old.
The bad: There were a
couple of scenes that were in the book that weren’t in the film, which I felt
should have been. The first focuses on
Beverly in the 1984 timeline. In this
timeline, she is married to the abusive and possessive Tom Hagen. When she tells Tom, she wants to return to
Maine, they get into a bloody and physical fight with Beverly being the
victor. In the film, this is mostly
omitted, which I didn’t like, as in the book we see Beverly’s inner strength
and power as a character, which isn’t conveyed in the same way within the
film. The second scene focuses on Mike
Hanlon’s past in 1957. Within this
scene, Mike’s father tells him how he and some of his friends created a club
that was originally just for black people, but soon expanded to encompass all
races, but the club was burnt down by white supremacists. I felt that this really highlighted the
racial prejudice that black people experienced at the time and by omitting this
scene, I felt that the film glossed over this issue. I’m also not sure how I feel about Tim Curry
as Pennywise the Clown. Whilst, he
certainly looked the part, I felt that he was very over-the-top and I didn’t
like the gruff and rough voice he used.
I think that a smoother, more melodic voice would have been more
suitable.
The ugly: Once again
we encounter a character with a bad hairstyle.
This time it’s the adult Bill Denborough’s ponytail. Some people can pull off ponytails, some
can’t. Bill Denborough cannot.
Rating: Good
Overall, this was an enjoyable
film. It was certainly very creepy and
horrific and for the most part, it was a faithful adaption of the book it was
based on. However, I felt that the
filmmakers could have been a little wiser in the scenes that they omitted,
which is why this film is only ‘good.’ That notwithstanding this film
brought us a villain so scary that it only needs to be referred to as ‘It,’
much like how V for Vendetta has an anti-hero that is so epic he only needs to
be referred to by the single letter V.
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