The long awaited sequel to IT Chapter One has finally been released as of Sept. 6, and after waiting just under two years, fans were rushing to the nearest theater to watch what happens to their gang of Derry kids. While the movie was well made cinematically, IT didn’t hold up in several crucial aspects.

IT started off with a short recap of the end of the first film when the kids defeated Pennywise and they made their promise to come back if IT did too. It cuts to scenes of the kids grown up and showing their current lives, each faced with a problem established in the first movie that has followed them into adulthood. These issues continue throughout the movie as it follows the pattern of introducing a character, showing what Pennywise does to them, cutting to another character, and repeating while sprinkling in at least three cliche hero pep talks.

Besides the aforementioned pep talks, the dialogue was decent. Bill Hader was utilized well for his great lines, but everyone else talked like they were still the same kids from the first movie. That may have been an artistic choice to emphasize that they hadn’t lost the old them, but it just seemed like bad writing.

There were many issues within the movie production. The movie was dark and shot very well but it could get hard to keep track of every character’s name, much less their backstories, so the viewer has to be reintroduced to the character and their struggles at every cut to them. The writers also didn’t seem to understand how Pennywise’s powers work because he was very strong at certain points and very weak at others.

The weakest aspect of the movie was the writing. It was far too cliche with things like the hero pep talks, of which there were at least three, or the jump “scares”. A classic trope in current horror movies is abandoning the need to make their movie scary. Instead, they substitute the fear that horror movie watchers enjoy with surprise. IT is no exception. Most of the “scary” parts were just a character jumping into the camera with a loud noise to simulate fear, but in reality it’s the same kind of reaction you’d get from a surprise birthday party.

Overall the movie was a solid 7/10 because IT had good moments. Despite the flaws, many audience members rated IT favorably, so IT is worth a watch to at least finish the series.