Half in the Bag: IT Chapter Two

half in the bag it's me Mike yeah it's back your VCR from the manufacturer we had to send it off for repairs we didn't have the parts yes yes you can pick it up anytime oh my god what are you reading huh I was reading Stephen King's it I started reading it back when we reviewed the first movie and now two years later I've finally finished it and was it all you hoped for no spooky Oh we just saw it Chapter two we did what did you think J how does a movie with absolutely no story end up being three hours long I don't want to say I hated it but I did not like it and I wanted to leave really yes the weirdest thing to me it felt like like the first movie and then this is it chapter two but it felt more like just an adaptation of it because in the original book it's bouncing back and forth between the kids and the adults this movie does that and it gives you enough with the kids where you didn't even have to have seen the first movie that's true yeah and I want to ask you something sure let's see if you notice something everybody loved the kids in the first movie I think that's a big part of why it was as popular as it was it cast very good casts this movie also has a good casts although I don't think they gelled as well but great casting of the adult versions of those kids sure but everybody loved the kids so they're like we got to put the kids in the second movie too we got to bring them all back and and shoehorn him in and to make the movie even [ __ ] longer but there's a big difference between a 12 year old and a 14 year old and I'm pretty [ __ ] certain they digitally de-aged these kids whoa and and and altered the pitch of their voices oh I noticed that especially with Eddie the hypochondriac kid like his voice was so distracting to me what was they they altered it someone someone working in a in a cubicle sea of cubicles did you that was 1,500 visual effects artists job for the last year huh well see you just re-watched chapter 1 like I I haven't seen it since it came out in theaters so I was not as observant of that as you probably work I yeah there's a nursing thing many shots where the other voices especially Eddie and Finn wilford's voice or is like they altered that voice okay okay eagle-eye J this is what we do with movies now we don't just make a movie we have to throw in all sorts of needless subplots and special effects to justify them you know I was thinking about that while watching this because spoiler alert not for it chapter two but for our own content we recently shot a review of gremlins 2 the new batch yes and coming soon coming soon here's still we talked about how that movie is basically the structure wise the exact same beats and plot points and then I was I was watching this and I'm like yeah you know that 30 minute marks important in movies 10 first 10 minutes are important there's a 30 minute mark there's there's there's acts lots of big movies like these kind of movies are just like like I'd like I always say movies are just gonna be carnival rides yeah where there there is no like it's just like this thing happens this thing happens this thing the first it was very well structured it has a moment the low point in the second act or the kids all get into an argument yeah they all go their separate ways before reuniting for the for the third act and this movie kind of retcons that or it's like oh when they had that fight here's flashbacks to them all going off and more spooky things happen that don't forward the story in any way but we have to have more spooky things yeah the the are you talking about the part where all the adults go off to find their their tokens or their trinkets or well let's see how that's when we get more flashbacks to them when they when they all broke up as children right right right and much like the first one this felt very I thought it started off very promising and yeah they guess that scene that's in the book yeah the opening scene was pretty brutal the camera or the kids name but yeah the gay couple right with the I love dairy hat and that is straight out of the straight out of the book and that was actually they throw the bullies throw them in the water you see him bobbing up and down kind of his point of view underwater above water and then when he comes up one time you see Pennywise and the distance it's creepy it's the only moment of subtlety in the entire film stuff that interests to me the least is the spooky clown stuff yeah but that's like the first movie to I was the least interesting stuff yeah and will probably repeat a lot of the things we said in the first review it's very applicable to this movie although there's a lot of great visuals and really kind of neat stuff in this but I like all the character stuff more and I wished more than the first maybe well I'm just focusing on chapter two right now I haven't seen the character adults in this movie is that kid stuff I like the idea of seven people coming back together as adults and then kind of like how they've grown up and the the love story between Beverly and Ben see that felt completely abandoned for most of the movie well it becomes like at the very end yeah but I'm just saying those things are things I like I say weren't developed yes but those are the kernels that's that's the problem nothing felt developed they weren't developed because we need scenes with the spooky ecology that's frustrating and that's what I'm saying it started off with promise I think there's there it's balanced better in the first movie where you have some good character stuff and then a scary scene then some good character stuff this movie was like in good character stuff spooky stuff happens for two and a half [ __ ] hours and then we get back to character stuff at the very ends right and that stuff felt really underdeveloped as a result of that Richie Tozier grown-up Finn wolf fired in this is Bill Hader it was kind of the protagonist it's supposed to be Bill but he has the most to do he has the most growth in this movie yeah they subtly hint that he's gay and kind of pressing it and they never go too far with that it's at the end that's handled very tastefully and well done yeah as opposed to the TV movie which I recall him just like laying there you guys I'm gay no no that's not in the TV movie it's not Eddie the hypochondriac says that he's a virgin I could never sleep somebody that I didn't love and I've never really loved anyone you guys oh yeah it's a similar but that's right that's what happens I remember something someone says some kind of secret yeah and they're all like what oh that's okay you know yeah like patting him on the back oh right what is is that stuff in the book not him being gay no okay and and Eddie's not a virgin cuz he's married to a woman that's just like his mother right in this movie and and in the original book they didn't do that in the TV movie he just still lives with his mom so in this they and that's that was the frustrating thing they set up all this stuff early on Eddie's married to a you know overbearing overweight woman that is exactly like his mother and then Beverly marries an abusive man and like you know this later cyclers is repeated right and so it's like they set up all these things and it could be a good story about people kind of as adults confronting their trauma from when they were kids but it's not really about that it's not really about anything in the movie it's just I hated all the horror stuff in this and it was more prevalent than the first movie hmm it felt like a like a kitty goosebumps movie [Music] I think people like it because it's it's obviously an important big horror novel that was kind of like something different at the time it is it is a giant cocaine-fueled mess yes so we went over all that we talked about the first thing and and and I guess this is maybe the closest that they could come to putting it on film I'd be curious to see it's like a TV like a miniseries or yeah you'd have to be longer than two parts the the original miniseries was George Romero was attached at one point and who's gonna be like six parts and then it just kept getting whittled down whittled down and so George Romero was like [ __ ] this and he left and it's two parts this movie's two parts and it's the same thing where the first part is the kids the second part is the adults and the book it's more bouncing back and forth between them and I think that works better because just like the TV movie this one the stuff with the adults just isn't as interesting isolated I think cutting back and forth more between the kids and the adults and their experiences that is it altogether yeah I think I think it ties it together in a way that neither of the adaptations I have yeah I mean this this book you take it and you do it like very faithfully as like a 13-part Netflix thing yeah or Amazon thing sure I mean cuz you know T it's not like not like in the in the 80s when the TV movie look like junk for a while there the first like I don't know our there wasn't too much clowns stuff or spooky stuff and I remember like you know they go to the Chinese restaurant and they're talking and there's a lot of talk and I'm like oh my gosh teenagers gonna be so bored and then I then I had this like overwhelming sense of dread that I was gonna have to sit there and how long how long the special effects banan's at the end in order to make up for yeah the the effort that you had to sit through of watching people talk and I'm like I like the parts where people talk more oh yeah because it's it's unfortunate great yeah it's it's unfortunate that in the middle of the movie they all split off and then we have the same scene over and over which is one of them goes to a place and then spooky thing happens and they run away from the place it's very Nightmare on Elm Street ish except for they just don't die at the end of that scene yeah you know what I mean yeah and which also knocks the it character down a peg Freddy at least offed his victims which which intensified the drama yeah the fear I mean that I was in the first movie too and it makes sense from their kids because the whole idea is that it's you know he feeds on children and they taste better this the more scared they are yeah so he scares them lets him get away and maybe eat some next time beep beep lychee so why is this look in the adult I don't know cuz that's what happens because even King look is a crazy person yeah I think he knows they're back to get him so he's yeah they're they're more in the know of his origins and stuff which they went into a little bit in this they didn't have such a space alien they didn't have the space turtle but they do acknowledge that is some weird thing from space [Music] but it's it's again like how do we justify this be in another movie everybody goes off and does the thing I don't know things happen they have to go to their Clubhouse that they built when they were kids that was not in the last movie at all we're just gonna put that in here now man you're so filled with hate I just it just felt like it's so much filler for not any payoff I hated I'm not gonna say that CGI monsters can't be scary but I'm gonna say in this movie the CGI monsters are not scary well I know the conversation that was had at the studio here it goes okay ready yeah in the book there's a giant spider but people like the clown clown spider yeah that's called compromise sure sure what about okay if like Pennywise went away at that point and they just came up with some really cool design for like an alien spider monster i think they were worried about repeating the first the TV movie because everybody talks about how lame that Andina is it was like those like the gut ray harryhausen out of retirement which would be fine if that was like the only big thing but there's just so many that Paul Bunyan thing there's the part where that goes into the her old house her old apartments oh yeah that's the big goofy-looking it's not scary is it and I there were parts where I was wondering if it was supposed to be funny walk I mean some of it's intentionally funny but then there's a there's the part when Eddie goes down to the basement of the pharmacy yes and there's a bizarre moment when the leper from the last movie shows up again and it starts vomiting on his face and I felt like they start playing that just call me angel in the morning song is it's vomiting on him yeah for just a second yes and I was thinking I was like did they shoot this to be scary realize and editing it wasn't scary so then they tried to manipulate it to be funny just to set it up real quick because I was baffled - Eddie is a germaphobe a possible victim of Munchausen's syndrome by a mother and so he's all like panicked about everything and then that they the leper is in the first one he's really grossed and that's right from the book yeah and then the leper vomits a black sludge all over them and and it's this cool shot it kind of turns any evil dead it's it yeah and it's just the and it's not funny but but it's like a hard edit almost like the music doesn't fade up it just comes in it's so hear me angel and then BOOM ah after the cut hard cut the black sludge that song some it it was like a mistake every time like it's it's it's some when you have a horrific image with with Becky music or vice versa it produces the laughter sure but then have that song score the whole scene it was just just that five seconds yeah it was so weird yeah or you have like the there's like a radio on the desk that falls over and turns on sure and that song is playing and they all stop you know don't calm and display and say oh my god this horrific yeah monsters trying to eat us but this song is playing on this radio and it's really awkward for everyone involved he's trying to get him in the songs playing that's like that makes sense yes but it was it was not a Dietetic music track it was part of the soundtrack inserted intentionally at a strange moment for I assume a laughter effect well yeah but that's what I'm wondering is like was this supposed to be scary they realized it looks kind of silly it looks very like Evil Dead 2 so let's just drop the song in we've got more questions than prometheus you mentioned the old lady turns into like a goosebumps monster yeah I got big googly eye yeah but the creepier stuff is when she peeks around the corner oh yeah that's we're out of focus in the distance it's great same with the the part with Ritchie in the park before the giant Paul Bunyan thing comes up or maybe it's after that oh and all the people in the background are like frozen yeah it's like oh these little background things are creepy yeah and he and Pennywise is sitting on the Paul Bunyan right yeah that's me float sir yeah yeah and then he's just taunting [ __ ] like stuff like that I prefer the simpler kind of horror stuff there's the dead Stan his severed head it turns and turns into spider which is very obvious homage to the thing it's even like the same shots or it's in silhouette and the spider likes come out and then Richie says you got to be [ __ ] kidding me it's like identical to the thing you gotta be [ __ ] kidding and then of course it runs around I was so bored during all of it like in an action movie when you don't care about anything that's happening then the action goes on it's like Man of Steel this is like the horror version of Man of Steel for me wow yeah not that bad I didn't hate it as much as Man of Steel but I was just so bored through most of it I just really wanted more character stuff yeah I wanted that beefed up but people are going for the thrill ride of monsters and spooky clowns and jump scares that's the point of it the first part did a better job of balancing all that stuff this movie is like the things that worked in the first one are lessons and the things that didn't work or cranked up I like the premise of an ancient evil that crashed to earth billions of years ago that kind of like can change forms and and feeds on fear and yeah but through until the very end and and they've not they never really like solidify that like that I mean they do it's so everything so like like unfocused like what what you should and shouldn't do it really likes fear it wants to eat children the scene under the bleachers if the little girl was a good see it was a good scene yeah Pennywise was very creepy they're very intimidating and then he's like 1 or 3 2 1 and then he's like drooling yeah and I that stuff was really good night like the idea that this evil either just feeds on children and their fears and and it's all its weakness is that you you aren't scared right and that's that's there but it's not very like like solidified like you just you know don't be scared of it don't be scared of image and then it goes away it just sort of seems just sort of end yeah and then it's like okay we have this spider head that's running around and then they they're like they stabbed it been stabs it like a hundred times and then I guess it's dead but if it just made itself how did it die you know yeah and I've always said like horror movies really need very very clear rules so you can relate it's like Pennywise is over here when there's monster it's making monsters and there there's a but if if they were so so focused on saying you have to close your eyes and you know mentally wipe yourself of fear and then it just shrivels down that's kind of like the ending when they're just like they realize that all spoilers this whole things if it spoilers it's fine um they realized the way to defeat it is to like reverse to not be scared of it and they start shouting at it and calling it names and you know shrivels up into nothingness I mean that's the problem is that's basically what they did at the end of the last movie as well only they didn't kill it in that one it just sunk into the drain or whatever so it's like this is just an elaboration on that but it takes him the whole movie to figure out that that's how you kill it even though that's what they did when they were kids now you're the one who's afraid what they call a mess it's a big loud spooky mess yeah I do like the running gag though of Bill is of course a writer because every Stephen King story has to have a character that's a writer the repeated thing of this movie or everyone's saying that his endings suck because that's the big complaint about Stephen King is that his endings always suck and Stephen King has a cameo on this movie and he says himself that the endings always suck which is wonderful it was a nice little like because I always remember the Stephen King adaptations from like the 80s and 90s he would always have his little cameo it was like Stanley before Stanley you know he show up in his movie so it's nice to see him in this again it's not a very good actor that's fine he got run over by a car he gets a pass yeah he gets a pass it's not it's no it's not his performance and Creepshow [Music] also additionally I wanted to say in the first part chapter 1 of this or even in the book there was this like energy in the town they're just there they want to keep to themselves ignore the waters that's that's a part of the original story and the TV movie I saw mr. Ross across the street he looked so concerned I thought he was going to help me but I couldn't believe it he he just turned around and went inside and kind of the first part of it it's chapter 1 blood but that's completely abandoned in this movie there's no citizens of Derry in this movie all the streets are empty they're at that hotel nobody's working there it's like where is everybody people at that carnival some people to carnivals some people at the Chinese restaurant I guess but the people at the Chinese restaurant who if someone was smashing a table with a chair that was a very private room that they had at that show does you see people through the like the way the window wood slats and they're just like extras like doing the extra thing and then wouldn't the whole right nobody knows yeah also in that scene we were talking about sound editing and that you're talking about the song that awkwardly played there is a part where I think it's McEvoy and Chastain they kind of you know that's a table of the six characters they kind of focus on them and everybody else is there their soft focus and there's looping audio of them like chit-chatting yeah and and it's it's very badly mixed it's it's like um you know clearly you're supposed to focus on those characters and where the the other characters are chit-chatting right and it's like their volume just drops dramatically and obviously so we're supposed to focus on that I get that sir but if you hear like Bill Hader talking and he's like yeah something about something something and then their cameras kind of and then you see Bill Hader and he's not talking I noticed that yeah it was very confusing as film editors ourselves we tend to notice things like that and I was like there was like just two characters talking yeah and it was like whoa all the things you should be focusing on on a movie well we're we're weirdos you know I don't I don't focus out that stuff if I'm engaged by a story I don't even think about those things but that's true when you're bored your mind wanders if your details [Music] this movie felt it was weird because it felt overstuffed but also underdeveloped I don't know I but this is so changed from the book that's the thing there's so much from this that isn't in the book J and there's the stuff that's in the book that's loud spooky clouds with scare you get your popcorn watch and leave why are you still talking he needs to know but if that's the case why even put it in the movie like Bill having a wife she has much larger role in the original story she's in one scene in this the very beginning never brought up again doesn't show up at the end they bring the bully back you know Pennywise those breaks him out of his insane asylum with the help of corpse is this real what's happening he has a bigger role in the story and here he just kind of vanishes from the movie gets murdered they kill him no he's gone no nothing to do with anything almost a Native American axe yeah why is he even there like Pennywise needs his help to stab people because any wise can can't do it himself I don't know in the original story it's like he takes one of them out I want to say it's Mike and some Mike can't go down into the sewers with them so it's like they're not as strong because they're right all together but here they all go down to the sewer so it doesn't matter it's just like a gigantic waste of time even putting that character in the movie well your number one priority is spooky clown scene and that's that's what you build that's your framework yes it's not a plot it's spooky clown scenes and you have to have them strategically placed throughout the running time yeah and then you say how do we fill this gap between these 2 spooky clown scenes well how about this this scene from the book that'll be kind of shoot we put over here I don't know you know it's it's a mess this book is 'm is a mess it has great ideas it has 38 different great ideas that are all not developed into perfect ideas I think the bigger issue is that the movie is just not scary at all it's it's jump scary it's it's scary to you know your teenager eating popcorn I guess because there's creepy there's creepy imagery every so often and there's it's it's the jump scare version of scares you you want that overarching dreadful terrifying horror movie that has deeper implications well I think I suppose like scares are like horror films what makes things scary is like an intimacy and like doing like epic horror like this where it's like like an Avengers movie but for horror like I don't know rest it doesn't work for me I know a lot of people of the first movie and I like a lot of stuff in the first movie but this one was like all the worst things about that one just just escalated that's for this service I found it boring and exhausting at the same time we need to finish that's speaking of ADR there was another thing when the bully shows up in Eddie's bathroom and like stabs him through the cheek and then Eddie's hiding in the the shower stabs him as Eddie's leaving it's like they eighty aired a line where he makes fun of the bully still having a mullet oh yeah yeah and it's like he's like yelling it as he leaves the bathroom it was incredibly awkward and that was another moment like the vomiting thing or as like did they do that in editing to try and make it funny because it wasn't scary yeah yeah maybe they like you know test audience said like oh that part was weird it was there's a lot of door just a screenings of people said yeah it's a little weird he's just standing there you should say something to him you should make a like a funny Marvel esque joke at the end of your horror scene mode off I don't know can you imagine like a test audience today like a modern audience there go there go to an advanced test screening of like The Shining what a [ __ ] nightmare that would be so boring just keeps typing that one sentence over and over again what kind of book is that gonna be no no no that's cuz he's crazy he should be typing some kind of poem that's what I say maybe we can ADR Shelley Duvall saying oh my god you've gone crazy so that they understand what's happening in the film Jack Nicholson's performance did not indicate he's way too subtle I thought he had some kind of problem [Laughter] if there's 50 scary moments in this movie there's 12 to 17 ones that really worked little girl under the bleachers getting tea from the old lady there's a couple of them and then there's ones that just took it too far yeah Paul Bunyan and dad big man landing with the spider but then it's like kind of works it was to me it was like this the stock market graph it wasn't like like this just just just decline of like Oh God when does this end it was like a like a hospital monitor like Harley's you know what I mean like just hanging in there until the end and then as a whole looking back at it than just going what a big big mess we don't have a choice I'm done talking about this film I don't want to talk about it anymore Mike would you recommend it chapter 2 I I would I think it's dull it's it's dull to you you have a different sense of horror I think even as far as because I like some of the bigger like I like the insidious movies because they're like inventive and they always bring that up my characters I like some like I like the conjuring stuff just fine let less less big big horror set pieces and more character stuff I know you are more of a black coats daughter kind of yeah have you seen the trailer for his new movie no how's Perkins know I've leaned up the girl who played little Bev from it isn't it oh it looks great what's a coat it's called Gretel and Hansel oh is it what I think it's about yep okay all right you know who plays the witch brie Larson so I don't know I'm kind of like on the fence on a recommendation it's a and you say no I'm gonna say no and I've actually grown to like part one more because I was kind of like mixed on that when we first reviewed it the stuff I liked about it I've grown to kind of is outweighed the negative for me so I was kind of mildly looking forward to this one but they were half the length maybe that would help a lot it's just filled with so much extra junk yeah but no just feels like the extended version that they re release in theaters more cash the midsummer director's cut that recently came out I don't want to watch more of that anyways I have some more phone calls to make okay I'm gonna start reading it again we're starting over from the beginning I'll see you again in three years see if there's anything you missed yeah hello it's Mike yeah it's back yeah the monster from space that eats children yeah it's back wait we have to go down into the sewers and then find where it's spaceship crashed and perform a Native American ritual that doesn't work and then yell at it until we rip its beating heart out and squeeze it yeah yeah can you do next week next two Thursdays from now okay all right bring some flashlights [Music]

Channel: RedLetterMedia

Views: 1,746,435

Keywords: redlettermedia, red letter media, red, letter, media, plinkett, half in the bag, mike stoklasa, jay bauman, rich evans, it, it chapter 2, chapter two, chapter 2

Id: xIxCrkR5FPQ

Length: 32min 5sec (1925 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 08 2019