The first It was one of my favorite movies of 2017 so the sequel was one of my most highly anticipated films of 2019.  And it was fine.  Just nowhere near the greatness of the first film which was a disappointment for me coming out of the theater.

Twenty-sever years later, Pennywise, the Dancing Clown returned to Derry, Maine to restart his terror.  The return of the clown brought the, now adult, Losers Club back to their hometown to honor an oath they took to finish off Pennywise should he ever return.

Let’s start with some good things.  Pennywise is amazing once again.  The clown, played brilliantly by Bill Skarsgård, is creepy as can be and he is all over Chapter Two.  Skarsgård does some amazing work as Pennywise and actually provides some humor in the film as well.

The cast as a whole was amazing, especially when you consider that they are representing grown version of the characters that we met in Chapter One.  Each of the actors cast was perfect as an older version of the kid actors.  Jessica Chastain was strong as Beverly and looked just like the only female of the Losers Club should look.  Bill Hader stole the show as the older version of Richie and seemed to be undeniably wonderful as the grown Finn Wolfhard (although as a personal pet peeve, I could have done without the two puke scenes).  Jay Ransone’s Eddie was as troubled and obsessive as Jack Dylan Grazer was.  He looked just like an older version of the young actor.  Isaiah Mustafa’s Mike got to do more in this movie than Chosen Jacobs did as the young Mike.

I will say that I thought James McAvoy, as adult Bill, despite being cast wonderfully, was over-the-top too much and his performance felt forced.  Bill was one of my favorite characters of the first film, but I was not a fan of him here.

I thought this film was more frightening and, perhaps, more disturbing than the first film.  It felt more like Stranger Things with the volume turned up.  This was a much more horror film and it does a solid job of avoiding the cheap jump scares, preferring instead to focus on the atmosphere and the mental anguish.  While some of the scares were diminished some because of some of the failing of the CGI, especially when Pennywise was in other forms than the clown.

I’m not sure how I feel about the ending sequence.  I believe this is the ending that was in Stephen King’s novel too, but, for me, I am not sure if this really works for me.  Of course, the whole third act with the ritual was a bit of a stretch for me and felt too much like a B-movie example.

The part I thought was the weakest was the flashbacks to the scenes that are meant to have occurred in down time during the first movie.  They used de-aging process on the kid actors to make them look as they did two years ago.  The problem was that I thought at three of the kids looked like they were all CGI on their face that did not properly move when they spoke.  I have heard people claim that the de-aging here was undetectable and that made me wonder what movie they were watching because it was painfully apparent that Finn Wolfhard never looked like that.

The film was really long, and it felt as if it were long.  If they had removed most of these flashback scenes, I think it would have helped the flow.  I would have liked to see more with the adult Losers Club instead of so much that makes the first film feel lesser than it was.

There were also a few scenes, including the opening scene of the film, that made no sense and felt shoehorned into the film for no apparent reason.  In fact, I would go to say that some of the scenes held no purpose at all.

I felt that most of the humor was out of place, though some of it struck the proper chord.  I believe that they tried to do too much with the funnies, especially with some of the monsters.

I may see this again before too long and I will be interested if a second viewing helps the film or makes it even longer.  As it is now, a film that could have been amazing, was okay and just nowhere near as epic as the first part was.  Great cast and the iconic Pennywise helped make this movie watchable.

3 stars

The idea of this was intriguing.  The execution of this…not so much.

Police detective Jack Radcliff (David Oyelowo) has a close relationship with his niece Ashley (Storm Reid).  Ashley’s parents have issues and Ashley winds up depending on Jack a lot.  However, she, along with her parents and their dog, end up dead by an apparent bloody murder-suicide.  Jack is shaken to his core when he discovered the bodies of his brother and niece, but he is shaken even more when Ashley called him again on his cell phone…after her death.. from two weeks in the past.  Jack tried to help Ashley solve her own murder to prevent it from happening.

The concept was solid, but the story became so convoluted that it really derailed the film, despite pretty solid performances from David Oyelowo and Storm Reid.  Both of these actors did decent emotional work with what they had been handed, but there were too many negatives to be overcome by just good acting.

I’m not sure the story holds up on any sort of examination of what happened.  The time travel rules do not work and, I think, really mess up the story.  of course, we have absolutely no idea how this happened.  Not that I need a lot of explanation of why this worked, but something would be nice.

Ashley’s dad was played by the wasted Bryan Tyree Henry.  The film also wasted an appearance from Alfred Molina too.  Bubba himself (from Forrest Gump) Mykelti Williamson was here too in a role that made little sense as the movie moved on.

There were some decent moments of the film and, as I said, Oyelowo and Reid were really good together.  A scene in a restaurant in the different time lines was really pretty good, but there was just not enough of that to really recommend this film.  It would not be bad for a TV movie on a lazy weekend day, with the movie playing in the background.  If you think too much, it falls apart quickly.

2.8 stars 

I had no idea what Bennett’s War was about.  When I saw it on the list of films opening at Cinemark this weekend, I was truly flabbergasted because I had not seen anything about this.  Not a trailer.  Not a commercial.  Not anything.

So Friday I went to Rotten Tomatoes just to see a score, but there was no score available.  That’s a bad sign the morning of the film’s release.

But I went in without any expectations to see what this was about.

It was about 93 minutes.

That’s an old joke…and not a very good one, but it matches the level of quality that I got from Bennett’s War.

Marshall Bennett (Michael Roark) was a soldier in Afghanistan in a motorcycle unit.  He and another soldier wound up injured in combat and returned home.  Bennett returned to his wife Sophie (Allison Paige) and their newborn child.  Working in motorcycle repair did not seem to be what he wanted so Bennett decided to give motorcross a try despite his litany of injuries from the military.  He had to score enough points for the ability to turn pro.

Oh, and his dad is Trace Adkins.

Wow, I found this to be really boring, especially in the first act of the movie.  Act number two was a giant montage of the races he needed to place in and act three was his return once again after his motorcycle was sabotaged.

I would say I would not spoil the ending, but if you do not already know who was going to win that final race, then you certainly haven’t been watching any movies in your life.

Sadly predictable, Bennett’s War could still be a plucky crowd-pleaser if these characters had any personality to them at all.  They were all just pretty looking people who have little to no acting skills among them.  While those with some acting chops were given some of the worst dialogue of the year.

Former WWE wrestler Alex Riley (real name Kevin Kiley Jr) was here too in a mostly non-speaking role.  I spent most of the third act trying to remember his wrestling name.  I could remember Riley, but all I could think of was Mark Reilly (who is from the Movie Trivia Schmoedown and Collider Live).

I had no idea that there were this many pretty people involved in motorcross.  Nor did I know that part of being involved in public relations for motorcross to have boobs (not kidding, that was a line).

This was a really bad movie.  I see why there were no critic reviews as of Friday.  Best part of the film…

It was only 93 minutes.

1.4 stars

Previously, Olympus and London have both fallen.  Now it is Angel’s turn.

This is the third movie in the series of “…has Fallen” movies starring Gerard Butler as Secret service agent Mike Banning.  Those two previous movies set the bar for what this movie had to be, a high action, silly, popcorn movie.

The President (Morgan Freeman) is fishing when a massive drone attack attempted to assassinate him.  The president was saved by Banning, but, when they were taken to the hospital, the president was in a coma and Banning was being arrested for turning on the president with help from Russia.  Mike escapes custody and goes on the lamb, looking for help from his paranoid father (Nick Nolte).  Mike has to go to extremes to prove that he was framed and that he was still loyal to the president.

A few weeks ago, with Hobbs and Shaw, we saw a movie that was big and dumb, depending on its action and the charisma of its lead actors to carry a weaker plot.  This franchise is very much in the same vein as that.  It is hard not to think of the Fast and the Furious franchise and how much leeway those films get when you are thinking about Angel has Fallen and its other films.

Unfortunately, there was one major drawback for me with this movie and it was the fact that this was DESPERATELY predictable.  There were two different times in the movie that they portrayed a moment as a huge reveal, when it was painfully obvious that EVERYBODY already knew the reveal.  And while predictability is not always a kiss of death, when it is shown as a mystery, you have to have some level of surprise about the reveal.  I literally knew immediately who the first villain was, and then, when we found out that that first villain was working with someone else, I said to myself in the theater, “Please don’t let it be [insert name]” and, of course, it was.  I held out a slight hope that the film was not going to go where it looked like it was going, but it obviously did.  And that was hard to get past for me.

Gerard Butler was fine.  He is never going to blow you away with his performance, but he is a solid action star and he was certainly believable.  You can get behind his relationship with Morgan Freeman, who plays the president.  I liked them together.

The film absolutely had some scenes that were reminiscent of The Fugitive, which was distracting for awhile too.

There were some really good action set pieces, including a pretty solid third act at a hospital.  Yes, much of what happens really should not be possible, but you let that slide because the film is not trying to be 100% realistic.

However, there are some scenes that deal with real life problems affecting Mike Banning from his life as an action hero.  For example, he has concussions and is addicted to pain meds.  He is shown to be slowly breaking down as the years moved along.  This was a fascinating part of the film that, sadly, did not receive enough of screen time.  I would have liked this to be more of the driving conflict of the film.  Especially since his physical troubles never seem to affect him during the fight or action scenes.

Nick Nolte’s scenes were some of the best in the film, despite really being a different tone from the rest of the movie. Speaking of that, this movie has a mid-credit scene that is completely ridiculous and has absolutely nothing to do with anything.  I sat there watching this mid-credit scene thinking “Why?”.

Implausible?  Yes.  Predictable?  Absolutely.  Fun?  Somewhat.  I did not hate Angel Has Fallen, but these problems did weigh it down for me.  Yet, there have been many worse movies than this out this year.

2.7 stars

I wonder what Mark Twain would thin about professional wrestling?  I bet he would embrace the fantastical elements of it and write a story of his protagonists floating down the Mississippi to reach a wrestling school.

Or not.  However, the idea has merit as it is shown in the new film The Peanut Butter Falcon.

Zak (Zack Gottsagen) was a young man with Down’s Syndrome was being cared for in a nursing home and watching an old VCR tape of professional wrestling and his hero, the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Hayden Church).  Zak decided to take off on a quest to reach the wrestling school, run by the Redneck, and, in order to accomplish this, he had to escape from the nursing home.

After his great escape, Zak comes across Tyler (Shia LaBeouf),a small time crook on the run, and the two of them form a friendship.  Tyler promised Zak that he would get him to the wrestling school.  The are joined by Zak’s caregiver at the nursing home, Eleanor (Dakota Johnson), at first unwillingly.

There is a lot of sweetness in the relationship between Tyler and Zak.  It is funny and engaging as the pair continue their voyage, at first by foot and eventually on raft down the river.  There is an absolute feel of Tom Sawyer in this film and Mark Twain is even referenced during the movie.  You can see how the big-hearted Zak wins over Tyler, who originally saw him as a nuisance, but developed real feeling for the kid as they moved on.

Tyler was also refreshingly positive in his message toward Zak.  He was not afraid to even point out to Eleanor how her manner with Zak was sending a negative message.  Tyler and Zak together certainly made the movie.

However, I am not sure I bought the eventual romantic relationship that developed between Eleanor and Tyler.  It felt like something shoehorned into the film because it was expected.  I take nothing away from Dakota Johnson because she played her part beautifully.

The third act of the film was mostly awesome.  We got to see Jake “The Snake” Roberts appear along with Mick Foley, two of my all-time favorite professional wrestlers.  It was great to see them, even though their roles were minor.  The part involving Jake and Mick was such a fantasy that it felt almost dreamlike.

However, I had a big problem with the very end of the movie.  It is hard to talk about it without spoiling the film but let’s just say that the section where they make it look like one thing had happened only to reveal that it had not was too emotionally manipulative for me and left a bit of bad taste in my mouth.

I had a few other issues.  The film started a little slow and it had some conveniences that happened to move the plot forward. These were moments where the really great film took a few steps back for me.  But these were few and far between in an overall excellent movie.

A huge shout out needs to go to Zack Gottsagen who does an exceptional job overall in the role of Zak.  Gottsagen does have Down’s Syndrome and can really be inspirational for anyone who may be inflicted by something that they cannot control.  His performance was the heart of the movie and was very impressive.

On the whole, I really liked this heart-warming movie.  While there are some issues that knocked down the score, The Peanut Butter Falcon provided some great performances and a story that could be inspiring.  It is one of the best Shia LaBeouf performances in a long time.

4.35 stars