It review

2017 saw the release of the latest adaptation of Stephen King's It.  Having read the goliath text and seen the 1990 mini series, I was keen to watch this remake.

Every twenty-year years, children go missing in Derry, Maine.  After George Denbrough, little brother to William 'Bill' Denborough (Jaeden Lieberher) goes missing, Bill vows to find out why.  He and his friends Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor) Beverly Marsh, (Sophia Lillis) Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer) Stan Uris (Wyatt Osleff) and Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) soon find out that they are up against a supernatural entity known as It or Pennywise the Dancing Clown.  To stop children from going missing, they have to kill Pennywise.  They also have to defeat neighbourhood bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton.)

The book It is 135 pages long (far longer than it needs to be) and to adapt it all, you would need to go down the Peter Jackson route of making three, three-hour films.  Thankfully, Andy Muschietti, only adapted the most relevant parts of the book.  This meant that Pennywise's back story of being an eternal, interdimensional alien was removed, as it would have been too confusing.

This allowed more time to be spent on the children, all of which were great.  All of the child actors gave brilliant performances.  Finn Wolfhard had great comic timing, as he rolled out increasingly vulgar jokes and one-liners.  At times, he had the whole cinema in stitches.  Meanwhile, Sophia Lillis helped to give the film some much needed heart.  In the book, as the only girl in the group, it is implied that all of the boys like her in one way or another.  This idea was dropped in favour of a love triangle between Bill, Beverly and Ben, with the latter being left out in the cold.  This is a struggle known by pre-teens worldwide and Jeremy Ray Taylor played it with humility and grace.  It was sad to watch.

Unfortunately, some characters received less development than others.  I'm speaking about the least developed character: Mike Hanlon.  In the book, he has the most interesting and tragic backstory, least of all because he's the only black member of the group.  Because of his skin colour, he and his family are subject to racist abuse, which lacking in the film.  Although, in today's overly-sensitive climate, it might have been difficult to depict this without offending anyone.

Yet even Henry had some backstory which helped to fill in his character.  We find out that his father is an abusive drunk, and while it doesn't make Henry likeable, we at least understand why he is a bully.

Pennywise the Clown was played by Ben Skarsgard.  In the 1990 adaptation, Tim Curry played It and his performance was lauded.  I think this was because of how he looked like a real clown who had just escaped from the circus.  Whereas I think that Skarsgard's Pennywise looked too obviously like an evil villain.  This isn't to say that Skarsgard didn't give a great performance, but I'd've preferred to see him actually dressed up as real clown.

A common criticism I read about on IMDB was the film's overreliance on CGI and jumpscares.  In terms of the jumpscares, they mostly didn't get me and didn't particularly bother me.  I say, mostly, as because I've read the book and seen the 1990 film, I saw a lot of the scares coming.  But there were a few moments that did scare me.  Pennywise capturing Beverly after she had just attacked her abusive, predatory father was one.  Another is one of the film's few examples of them using special effects over visual effects.

When Pennywise is making Mike Hanlon seeing his fears, he makes him burnt hands reaching out from behind a locked door.  This was a terrifying moment that sent a chill down my spine.  It's scarier if you know the backstory too.  In the book, Mike's family are in a club called the Black Spot, which is largely populated by black people, as a result it's a target for white hate.  A white supremacist group lock everyone inside and then burn it down.  Mike is one of the few survivors.  This is so scary, because of how it is people that cause it, not an alien.

A final example is the visual effect of seeing the dead children float around the pillar of junk at the film's climax.

Another criticism I saw was that the film was rushed and I would agree with this.  While being an hour longer than its 1990 counterpart, a lot of It felt quite squished together.  The narrative doesn't kick off until about forty minutes into the film.  Hitherto, we were just learning about the seven children, and as I've said before, too much time was spent on some and not on others.

And to dispel another common criticism, the reason why the children's parents seem so absent, is that they have been enchanted by Pennywise.  Only the children can see him.

All in all, I think this was a great adaptation.  It was scary and the performances were great.  I can't wait for the second part.  Have you seen it? Let me know what you think in the comments below.  We all float down here.  You'll float too.

2001: A Space Odyssey Review

Number 116 on the top 1000 films of all time is Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey.  It's regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, but is it all it's cracked up to be?

The film opens on a group of primates gathered around a mysterious stone black monolith.  Over a short montage, we see these apes evolve into humans, revealing that the monolith had an influence on their development.  Cut forward millions of years later, an identical monolith has been found on Jupiter.  A team of astronauts led by Dr David Bowman (Keir Dullea) to investigate but when the mission is threatened by human error, the artificial intelligence Hal vows to complete it by any means.

A Space Odyssey is a movie that asks big questions: just what is mankind's place in the universe? Are we part of something bigger? But what interested me more were smaller questions.  What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be human?

I think these ideas were explored well within the characters of Bowman and Hal.  In today's society, AI is a fascinating topic and Hal was no exception.  When Bowman realises that Hal is malfunctioning and conspires to shut it down, Hal takes control of the ship, killing Bowman's crew.  Hal then becomes determined to carry complete the ship's mission.  In some sense, this makes him the film's villain, but he is only an AI.  He's following what he's programmed to do.  Does that make him villainous? Is Bowman the villain for stopping him? No, probably not, but a Space Odyssey raises interesting questions about human morality.

A Space Odyssey also received critical acclaim for its special effects.  While they were great for when the film was released in 1969, it was during this part where I started becoming lost.  After Bowman terminates Hal and discovers the true nature of the mission, he decides to carry it out.  He reaches the monolith which then takes him through a wormhole and into a neoclassical room, where he sees different versions of himself at various ages.

The film ends with a baby in utero knocking against the Earth.  At this point, I had no idea what was going on, but this is more a criticism of my own lack of understanding, rather than the actual film.  Although Kubrick himself never revealed what the end of the film means, I'm sure it's perplexing enough to keep scholars busy for decades.

Yet unfortunately, all of this symbolism and visual metaphors just flew over my head.  While it was intriguing to watch, I would have preferred to have spent more time with Hal and just what it means to be human.  I liked how Bowman outsmarted Hal, demonstrating that imagination can be stronger than intelligence.

But overall, my criticisms boil down to my own lack of understanding.  I'm sure I would have a better sense of what was happening, if I watched the film again.  It certainly is worth a rewatch.  I love the ideas it posited about artificial intelligence.  This is perhaps the ultimate film to watch for sci-fans.