we spent more time with the newer cast.   Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Andy Bean are amazing as the grown up versions of the characters.  The relationships are still there, so is the pain from their youth.  This cast is awesome.  But to me the big take away from this is Bill Hader.  Every scene he is in he steals.  He is the star of this movie for sure.  

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What doesn't work?  Well, the biggest thing I would have to say is that I didn't think it was as scary as the first one.  I did have some moments.  The best one was the scene in the funhouse where James McAvoy's Bill is trying to rescue a kid whose family moved into his old house.  He gets trapped between some glass and the kid is stuck between him and Pennywise.  Pennywise licks the glass then starts slamming his head into to till it splinters, morphs into his monsterous self and eats the kid in front of Bill.  This was a crazy scene and really got the heart racing.  But this was really the only scene that did that.  I wish there was some more to it and especially with it almost being a 3hr movie, at some points it felt really long.

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The only other thing that I felt didn't work as much as I wish it did were the constant flashbacks.  When the characters where in a certain situation all of a sudden we are back to when they were kids.  Sometimes I felt as though it pulled me out of the moment and then it was hard to get back to it.   I enjoyed seeing them as kids again, but I don't think we needed as much as we got on it. 

 

The only time I felt as though it really pushed the story along is when we got to see more of Richie as a kid and learned that he was struggling with who was as a kid and that he also had feelings for his friend Eddie.  So, when the end of the movie hit and Eddie didn't make it, the impact that the death had on Richie you really felt.  You felt his heart break and that made the moment even stronger.