By Travis Johnson
First up above, we have little Georgie Denbrough’s first fatal encounter with the titular child-eatin’ beastie, in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard). It’s worth noting that Skarsgard is definitely bringing a different – and much creepier – energy to the role than Tim Curry did in the 1990 miniseries, which is sure to upset “purists” who fail to acknowledge that what they saw as kids was about through hours of driudgery wrapped around a pretty good Curry performance.
Next up we have studious young Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) laying out for the Losers Club what we already know: that the town of Derry, Maine is cursed. Note poor Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier (Finn Wolfhard) admitting to a fear of clowns – that one’ll cost ya, Trashmouth, betcha fur.
Finally, we have the Losers descending into the sewers to confront It, and a bit of business with a missing kid’s shoe. What sines in this sequence is how well drawn all the characters are. They feel like the kids from the book. While the timeframe has been moved forward about 30 years to the mid-’80s, tonally speaking, director Andy Muschietti is on point.
It hits Australian cinemas on September 7, 2017.
