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Common sense media reviewers.

Terrifying evil clown movie based on Stephen King classic.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Teaming up with others can help you beat seemingly

The lead characters are troubled outcasts prone to

Most lead characters are White, except for Mike (p

Very scary stuff; children are in constant peril,

Young teens make sex-related jokes with terms like

Very strong language, much of it spoken by 13-year

Many empty beer bottles near an adult's chair in o

Parents need to know that It is a horror film based on Stephen King's 1986 novel, which was previously adapted into a 1990 TV miniseries. It's very scary, and things get pretty gory: characters are stabbed, impaled, and beaten with rocks and blunt objects. A boy's arm is bitten off, teens shoot guns (once at…

Positive Messages

Teaming up with others can help you beat seemingly impossible odds and achieve a common goal. But bullying is shown in different forms, from emotionally abusive parents to physically abusive teens -- and the ways it's dealt with sometimes involve violence.

Positive Role Models

The lead characters are troubled outcasts prone to iffy behavior or lying -- but they step up and are at their best when working as a team.

Diverse Representations

Most lead characters are White, except for Mike (played by Chosen Jacobs, who's Black). Bill's actor, Jaeden Martell, has a Korean grandmother, but he passes for White in the film. Main lead Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) is larger than his peers and avoids weight-based stereotypes, characterized as being smart. (Everyone else in the cast is thin.) Though Beverly (Sophia Lillis) is the only girl among the group, she's resilient, courageous, and unafraid to face the clown. Bullying language includes "f--got" and, given the film's setting in 1989, there's mention of the AIDS epidemic (plus misinformation about how it's transmitted -- a character says someone got it by "touching a dirty pole on the subway").

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Very scary stuff; children are in constant peril, with a flat-out terrifying clown who threatens the main characters. Lots of bullying, including a scene in which a teenager carves a child's stomach with a knife, and another stabs a man in a very bloody scene. Teens bully a classmate by spreading rumors about how she's slept around. A bathroom is covered in blood, and characters spend a scene cleaning it up. A sheep is killed with a bolt gun. Rock throwing, with injuries. Broken arm. Clown stabbed through the face. Characters shoot guns, taking aim at a cat. Kicking, smashing in head with toilet tank lid. Kids beat the clown with many kinds of blunt objects. A father psychologically abuses his teen daughter -- rape is implied. The evil clown has supernatural powers, including shape-shifting and removing his own jaw.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Young teens make sex-related jokes with terms like "tickling your pickle," "period," "vagina," "birth control pills," "crabs," etc. Teens go swimming in their underwear. A kid tells another kid to "blow his dad." Two kids share a consensual kiss. Nonconsensual sex is also implied -- see Violence & Scariness for details.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Very strong language, much of it spoken by 13-year-olds, including "f--k," "motherf----r," "s--t," "bulls--t," "t-ts," "ass," "damn," "d--k," "f--got," "piss," "you suck," "my wang," "bitch," "retarded," plus "Jesus" (as an exclamation).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Many empty beer bottles near an adult's chair in one scene. A girl steals cigarettes and later smokes a cigarette in a bathroom.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that It is a horror film based on Stephen King 's 1986 novel, which was previously adapted into a 1990 TV miniseries . It's very scary, and things get pretty gory: characters are stabbed, impaled, and beaten with rocks and blunt objects. A boy's arm is bitten off, teens shoot guns (once at a cat), and a sheep is killed with a bolt gun. There's lots of bullying, and it's implied that a father sexually abuses his teen daughter (who is also bullied by her classmates who spread rumors she's slept with many guys). Pennywise, the evil clown played by Bill Skarsgård , uses supernatural powers, including shape-shifting and removing his own jaw. Characters, including 13-year-olds, say "f--k," "s--t," "bitch," "f--got," and more. You can also expect a fair bit of sex-related talk among teens, though much of it is naïve and meant to be humorous. Two kids share a consensual kiss. Empty beer bottles are seen, and a girl steals a pack of cigarettes, later smoking one. Though the leads are mostly White boys, Mike (Chose Jacobs) is Black, Ben ( Jeremy Ray Taylor ) is larger than his thin peers and isn't defined by his weight, and Beverly ( Sophia Lillis ), the group's only female character, is resilient and courageous. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (289)
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Based on 289 parent reviews

Get Ready to Scream: Why 'This' is the Perfect First Horror Movie

A good start before going with overuse of jump scares and poor direction, what's the story.

IT begins in 1988 in the town of Derry, Maine, where little Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) goes outside in the rain to sail the toy boat that his older brother, Bill ( Jaeden Lieberher ), made for him. The boat goes down the drain. Looking into the sewer, Georgie encounters a scary clown called Pennywise ( Bill Skarsgård ) and disappears. The following summer, as school lets out, Bill and the other town outcasts -- including Beverly Marsh ( Sophia Lillis ) and loudmouth Richie Tozier ( Finn Wolfhard ) -- are beset by teenagers. They start to experience terrifying events of their own and notice that other kids in town are disappearing. Thanks to their new friend, Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), the teens discover that the waves of evil things seem to happen in cycles of 27 years and that all of it leads back to a well in the basement of a creepy old house. Bill vows to stop whatever it is that killed his brother.

Is It Any Good?

Based on Stephen King's 1986 novel, this terrifying clown movie builds its fright from fear itself. In that respect, It is more aligned with The Goonies , Stand by Me , and Stranger Things than it is with slasher movies or jump scares. Director Andy Muschietti , whose disappointing horror movie Mama never would have indicated anything as good as It , keeps things simple by focusing on the bond between the outcast kids -- there are plenty of scenes that could have been taken right out of any summertime coming-of-age movie -- and by using a slick combination of practical and digital effects.

The result feels like it could have come right out of the 1980s. Few of the familiar, overused clich és of more recent horror movies are here, and, with its effective use of music, editing, set design, choice of angles, and overall rhythms, It generates honest-to-goodness tingles, rather than quick shocks. And Pennywise (a chilling Skarsgård) is an iconic character, based not on a simple fear of death but on something more primal and unexplainable, the thing nightmares are made from.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about It's violence . What's the difference between the violence committed by abusive parents and classmates and the movie's supernatural forces? What's the impact of media violence on kids ?

Clowns are often seen at the circus or children's parties. Why is the clown here so scary?

How are the teens who bully their peers depicted in the movie? What are some ways to deal with harassment? How would you deal with them?

How does this movie compare to the book? To the miniseries ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 8, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : January 9, 2018
• Cast : Bill Skarsgård , Finn Wolfhard , Jaeden Martell
• Director : Andres Muschietti
• Inclusion Information : Asian actors
• Studio : New Line Cinema
• Genre : Horror
• Topics : Book Characters , Monsters, Ghosts, and Vampires
• Run time : 135 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : violence/horror, bloody images, and for language
• Last updated : March 20, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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It Review: An Excellent Coming-of-Age Movie, Until That Clown Gets in the Way

By Hillary Busis

The most appealing parts of Andy Muschietti’s splashy It channel another classic Stephen King adaptation—but not the 1990 miniseries version of It , featuring an iconic Tim Curry performance that sent scores of terrified children straight to the therapist’s couch (according to schoolyard legend, anyway).

No, It is at its best when the titular shape-shifting demon—which, as if you weren’t aware, most often takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown—is nowhere to be found. The first It was anchored by Curry’s gleeful menace; the second focuses on the bond formed between a group of young misfits one crazy summer. There’s more than a whiff of Stand by Me about the newer movie, not only because of thematic similarities between that film’s source material and It, but also thanks to Muschietti’s killer cast—a deft collection of teenaged talents that seem destined to break big à la Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell.

When It ’s seven-core performers— Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, and Jack Dylan Grazer —are arguing about the merits of loogie mass vs. distance or bashfully exploring their first flashes of puppy love, It is a delight. Every member of the gang that comes to call themselves the Losers’ Club is natural and charismatic, especially the luminous Lillis as Beverly, the only girl in the group, and Wolfhard, whose wisecracking Richie easily walks away with the movie. Their ensemble scenes display the same sort of easy camaraderie that made Stranger Things (which also stars Wolfhard, and was heavily influenced by the original It ) such a hit for Netflix last summer. Sure, the movie’s R rating allows Muschietti to get gorier than the 1990 It —but more importantly, it gives the kids the freedom to say “fuck,” not gratuitously but with a studied nonchalance familiar to anyone who’s ever been 13.

Alas, It isn’t just a coming-of-age story; it’s also a movie about a killer clown. And while its revamped Pennywise, played here by Bill Skarsgård (brother-of- Alexander, son-of- Stellan ), has his moments, his scenes often feel more distracting than essential.

#cneembed: script/video/5981d176be10344717000000.js?muted=1 ||||||

Though King’s novel crosscuts between its characters as children in 1958 and as adults in 1985, the new movie takes advantage of current nostalgia trends by transporting the kids to 1989 and nixing material about the grown-up Losers entirely. (That’s all coming in the sequel .) The shifting timeline doesn’t affect the Losers’ dynamic, but it does force It, which can take the form of the thing that scares each child most, to reach into a new bag of tricks.

When he’s not japing as Pennywise, King’s It loves to impersonate old Universal creatures like Frankenstein’s monster, the Mummy, and the Wolfman. Because those beasts don’t hit the same beats for modern audiences, Muschietti’s It opts instead to transform into a series of grotesque computer-generated spectacles, which are usually punctuated by a wordless appearance from Pennywise himself. While the film sometimes uses suspense as a tool, it more often dives head-first into dramatizing King’s grislier flights of fancy, from a child’s arm being ripped off to a fountain of blood that puts the bucket in Carrie to shame.

Though the filmmakers claim to have relied on practical effects whenever possible, there’s still a C.G.I. slickness here that robs It itself of its urgency. Tim Curry’s version of the clown was all chalky greasepaint and bloodshot eyes and horrific yellow teeth—a creature of fantasy, sure, but a tangible one. By contrast, Skarsgård’s preternaturally baby-smooth face and generic horror-movie growl fail to make much of a lasting impression, especially because he has fewer lines than Curry did. And though some of the film’s bigger set pieces show the same irreverent wit as the Losers’ ensemble scenes—at one point, two of the kids are faced with a set of doors reading “SCARY,” “VERY SCARY,” and “NOT SCARY AT ALL”—those overlong sequences are often dragged down by clichés, all swelling music cues and jump scares and shots of a child walking slowly toward something he should logically be running away from.

By Savannah Walsh

By Julie Miller

It’s the human monsters in It that end up leaving a more permanent mark, from the adults who consciously ignore the strange and violent happenings in their sleepy Maine town to the father who sexually assaults his child—though the movie decides to soften the mortal bullies who also torment the Losers. (There are a lot of people tormenting the Losers!) In the book and miniseries, those cartoonish thugs are virulently racist and anti-Semitic; in the movie, they’re just sadistic jerks. While the impulse to avoid using racially charged language is understandable, doing so also gives Jacobs’s Mike, the only Loser of color, even less of an arc than the he has in the flashback half of the book—especially since his role as the gang’s chief expositor has also been handed off to another character. Together, these decisions have the unfortunate effect of making Mike the least well-defined member of the group; perhaps the sequel will flesh him out a bit more.

If It were just a flashy horror spectacle, issues like that—and the film’s treatment of Beverly, whose main personality trait is the desire she sparks in others—wouldn’t stick out quite as much. But like King’s best work, the movie wants to be greater than the sum of some cheap scares. Often, thanks to its strong cast and quieter moments, It succeeds in this goal—but there’d be a lot more time for character development if the film didn’t feature quite so many long, frenetic scenes of animated mayhem. As a seminal entry in the analog “kids on bikes” genre , King’s It successfully married real terror (and a magic turtle!) with a lovely meditation on innocence lost. The new It almost makes you wish for a story that ditched the clown for a less literal metaphor.

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Multiple “wow” moments permeate the landscape of “It Chapter Two” like so many ominous, red balloons floating across a New England summer sky.

Some will make you say “wow” for the sheer daring of their surrealism and the startlingly graphic nature of their execution. Others will make you say “wow” because they really do not work. Either way, director Andy Muschietti has absolutely gone for it with the sequel to his 2017 smash Stephen King adaptation, taking big swings and displaying both a muscularity and an elegance to his craft.

And given that his film stretches nearly three hours, he gets more than ample opportunity to show off all those tools. “It Chapter Two” can be a sprawling, unwieldy mess—overlong, overstuffed and full of frustrating detours—but its casting is so spot-on, its actors have such great chemistry and its monster effects are so deliriously ghoulish that the film keeps you hooked. You won’t check out entirely, but you will check your watch several times.

In adapting the second part of King’s nearly 1,200-page tome, returning writer Gary Dauberman is in a tricky spot: What to keep? What to cut? He does a bit of both while also incorporating moments from the first film as well as new scenes featuring the characters as kids to fill in some gaps. As in the original, “It Chapter Two” works best when the members of the self-proclaimed Losers Club are bouncing off each other, their banter infused with a sparkling mix of hormones, humor, insecurity and camaraderie. Unfortunately, Muschietti and Dauberman spend a lot of their time keeping their perfectly picked actors apart on individual adventures, which drags out the drama and slows down the momentum.

Just as the ending of the first film foreshadowed, though, the kids who escaped the villainous grasp of the evil clown Pennywise during the summer of 1989 have found themselves back in Derry, Maine—right on cue, 27 years later, to fight him again. They’d all gone their separate ways and carved out vastly different lives, and in introducing us to these characters as adults, Muschietti makes some gorgeous transitions that are smooth and inventive. But returning to their seemingly idyllic small town instantly revives their old rhythms and relationships.

Mike Hanlon ( Isaiah Mustafa as an adult, Chosen Jacobs as a child) is the only one of the bunch who stayed in Derry; he’s the self-styled historian and the one who makes the fateful phone calls to round up his old pals when Pennywise resurfaces. Bill ( James McAvoy / Jaeden Martell ) has gone on to become a novelist whose latest book is being adapted into a film, one of several meta bits scattered throughout. Beverly ( Jessica Chastain / Sophia Lillis ), who endured a controlling, abusive relationship with her father, is now in a controlling, abusive relationship with her husband. Richie ( Bill Hader / Finn Wolfhard ) is a hard-drinking, trash-talking stand-up comic who’s as acerbic as ever. (Hader’s performance is the highlight within this terrific ensemble as he shows off his perfect comic timing as well as his deep dramatic chops.) Eddie ( James Ransone / Jack Dylan Grazer ) remains a neurotic hypochondriac who’s married to a woman who looks and sounds an awful lot like his smothering mother. And Ben ( Jay Ryan / Jeremy Ray Taylor ), who was both the poet and the brains of the group, shed his baby fat and transformed himself into a hunky, wealthy architect. Other than that, his defining character trait is the secret crush he still has on Beverly nearly three decades later; it grows a bit tedious.

Perhaps the best scene in the whole film is the one in which they all reconnect for the first time over a boisterous, boozy dinner at a Chinese restaurant. They spin the lazy Susan, down shots of liquor, tease each other mercilessly and find it’s as if no time at all has passed—even though the memories of the trauma they shared are hazy at best. “It Chapter Two” is at its strongest when it explores the lure of nostalgia, not merely through pop culture references like “ The Lost Boys ” and Cameo’s “Word Up,” but also in the cosmic way it can yank you right back to being the person you were long ago and never thought you’d be again. That unsure, evolving 13-year-old remains inside all of us, no matter where we go or what we do.

Pennywise, however, has stayed the same all this time—and Bill Skarsgård ’s deeply creepy presence is sorely missed when he’s off screen. With a performance that’s as physical as it is verbal, he consistently manages to find that sweet spot between being terrifying and hilarious. He’s created an iconic horror villain for the ages. But the rules seem to be ever changing as to what Pennywise can achieve with his supernatural abilities. He knows what scares these characters, even as adults, which often manifests itself in strange, vivid ways. It’s the stuff of nightmares, even when they’re wide awake in broad daylight. But his omniscience and omnipresence tend to vacillate, and the collaborative power that ultimately challenges him isn’t too different from what we saw in the climax of the first movie.

First, though, the members of the Losers Club must spread out across town and find totems from their youth as part of a ritual to purge Pennywise from existence; they do it at Mike’s insistence, part of the Native American subplot that also exists in the source material. It’s absurd and it’s a distraction; excising this element of the story would have made the film as a whole leaner and stronger. But while separating the characters significantly lengthens the running time, it also results in individual moments of insane terror, most notably the expertly staged and paced scene in which Beverly revisits her childhood apartment. What she finds there is one of those “wow” moments—you’ll laugh out loud in hopes of alleviating some of the excruciating suspense.

Eventually, though, you’ll also come to realize that Pennywise gets a little repetitive with the frights he inflicts upon his victims. They’re of a few varieties: They’re staggering, slurping zombies, or they’re somehow spider-related, or they involve gallons of water or blood. (Henry Bowers [ Teach Grant / Nicholas Hamilton ], the mulleted bully from the first film, also returns to do his cruel bidding in a way that feels contrived and superfluous.) But as “It Chapter Two” shows us, not only can you go home again—you sorta have to. 

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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It Chapter Two (2019)

169 minutes

James McAvoy as Bill Denbrough

Jessica Chastain as Beverly Marsh

Jay Ryan as Ben Hanscom

Bill Hader as Richie Tozier

Isaiah Mustafa as Mike Hanlon

James Ransone as Eddie Kaspbrak

Andy Bean as Stanley Uris

Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise

Teach Grant as Henry Bowers

Jess Weixler as Audra Phillips

Jaeden Martell as Young Bill Denbrough

Sophia Lillis as Young Beverly Marsh

Jeremy Ray Taylor as Young Ben Hanscom

Finn Wolfhard as Young Richie Tozier

Chosen Jacobs as Young Mike Hanlon

Jack Dylan Grazer as Young Eddie Kaspbrak

Wyatt Oleff as Young Stanley Uris

• Andy Muschietti
• Gary Dauberman
• Stephen King

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• Checco Varese
• Jason Ballantine

Original Music Composer

• Benjamin Wallfisch

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Movie Review: IT (2017)

• Movie Reviews
• 8 responses
• --> September 8, 2017

It can be a tricky thing to review horror films. The red-headed stepchild of the movie business, horror is an incredibly subjective genre for fans. Despite repeatedly being let down by film after film, we return to the theater with each new offering, hoping for a gem — a new classic. Remakes are especially daunting undertakings, as the new version is up against fiercely loyal fans who judge a new film by its poster, well before the first images even grace the screen. Add to these challenges book adaptations with already established film versions and you’re faced with an unscalable feat.

In the case of IT , there are some seriously huge clown shoes to fill — how do you successfully adapt a revered classic of horror literature written by the king himself (Stephen King, that is)? How do you remake an existing adaptation, featuring one of the most iconic horror characters with an unmatchable performance by the legendary Tim Curry?

Ask director Andy Muschietti. Ask screenwriters Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman. Ask Bill Skarsgård. They’ve done it, and they’ve done it admirably.

In October of 1988, young Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher, “ Midnight Special ”), sick in bed, builds a paper boat for his little brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) to sail on the rainy streets of Derry, Maine. The love the two brothers share is immediately apparent; Georgie looks up to Bill, and Bill is clearly his hero. When Bill warns Georgie to be careful outside, you know that Georgie would never think of doing otherwise; however, in the subsequent well-known (and well-publicized) scene, Georgie’s boat gets away from him and slips down into the sewer where it’s retrieved by Pennywise the Clown. After a tense and terrifying encounter, Georgie disappears, adding to the growing list of missing children in their small town.

The following June, Bill and his friends escape the doldrums of school into the freedom of summer. While his friends are excited about dumping their leftover folders and notebooks into the trash, Bill remains preoccupied with finding his little brother, studying sewer blueprints and maps in his garage. Meanwhile, his friends are haunted by different fears: Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer, “Scales: Mermaids Are Real”) is tormented by a skeletal leper that chases him from a dilapidated neighborhood house; a twisted ghostly woman leers at Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff, “ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 ”) from a painting in his father’s office; Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis, “37”) hears whispering children calling her for help from the drain in her bathroom sink; Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs, “Cops and Robbers”) barely escapes the reaching ghostly hands from the site of a historical fire; and Ben Hanscom’s (Jeremy Ray Taylor, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip”) studies are interrupted by something treacherous in the storage room of the local library . . . not to mention the very real-life threats they all face from bullies Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton, “ Captain Fantastic ”), Belch Huggins (Jake Sim, “Raising Expectations” TV series), Victor Criss (Logan Thompson), and Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague, “Echoes of War ”). The Derry kids — dubbed the Losers’ Club by Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard, “Stranger Things” TV series) — realize that there is a malicious evil in their small town, and that the adults will be of no help to them (in fact, they often just don’t see things happen . . . literally and figuratively). United in their fear of the terrifying clown they see around every corner, they decide their only defense is to venture after Pennywise together, hoping they can prevent any more children from going missing.

Stephen King’s classic New York Times bestseller IT is a doorstop of a book that stretches past 1000 pages, delving into brilliant characterizations, dreadful town histories, and bone-chilling encounters with an ancient evil that returns every 27 years. In 1990, Tommy Lee Wallace brought his version to the small screen in a four-hour miniseries that became the source point for many people with coulrophobia (fear of clowns). Andy Muschietti’s version of IT (this film being Chapter One) keeps the focus to the children of Derry, and the cast is pitch-perfect in their believability. One will be immediately charmed by each of the Losers’ Club members, and will feel strong nostalgic pangs for a simpler time of bike-riding and summer swimming trips. Their loyalty and love for each other is palpable, and the audience shares their faith in each other in their fight against the clown, masterfully recreated by Bill Skarsgård (“ Anna Karenina ”).

As incredible as Tim Curry was in 1990, Skarsgård embodies pure malevolence as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and his antics are guaranteed to create a new generation of clown phobics. While the CGI is a tad heavy-handed here and there, the overall effect of this new Pennywise is extremely unsettling and viewers will be just as entranced by his eyes as any of the characters in the film. Pennywise is truly fascinating to watch, and astonishingly, you’ll find yourself hoping for more terrifying doses of Skarsgård’s performance.

As a huge Stephen King fan myself, I’ve been anxiously anticipating the release of this film, as I’m frequently disappointed by lackluster and rushed adaptations of his work (case in point, this summer’s “ The Dark Tower ”); however, I was marvelously satisfied with Muschietti’s version of one of my favorite novels. While there are definitely small changes made that I’m not crazy about (far too little of Mike Hanlon, guys . . .) and one major change in particular near the end that I’m rather intrigued by (if you already know the novel, you’ll know what I mean when you [don’t] see it), IT has delivered an outstandingly well-written nostalgia trip into our past summers and past nightmares.

The voices of the children whisper that they “. . . all float down here” and warn that “You’ll float, too.” They’re not wrong. You’ll float, all right; you’ll float out of the theater with grim satisfaction, anxious for Chapter Two.

Tagged: children , clown , evil , murder , novel adaptation , remake

School teacher by day. Horror aficionado by night.

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'Movie Review: IT (2017)' have 8 comments

September 8, 2017 @ 9:10 pm DevlonOchre

Totally psyched to see my favorite King story get a proper treatment for screen!

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September 8, 2017 @ 9:56 pm wassupial

I definitely enjoyed it but it is not as dark and scary as I was hoping it’d be. Only the library scene got me to jump.

September 8, 2017 @ 11:21 pm GoodSamaritan

Never read the book nor have I seen the mini-series so I went in knowing nothing other than a evil clown was responsible for killing some kids. I guess because of this I was a bit letdown because I was expecting Pennywise to be more like Freddy Krueger and the movie more like A Nightmare on Elm Street. Still it’s not a bad movie just not what I was prepared for.

September 9, 2017 @ 12:17 am Pete

IT didn’t do anything for me.

September 9, 2017 @ 10:30 am cheeryhead

“one major change in particular near the end that I’m rather intrigued by (if you already know the novel, you’ll know what I mean when you [don’t] see it)”

So the sex scene is omitted? I don’t think it ever belonged in the book anyway and I think King regretted writing it in.

September 9, 2017 @ 12:02 pm Jackson War

I hear it described as The Goonies on horror steroids and uppers!

September 9, 2017 @ 3:38 pm Madelyn

I loved it. It didn’t scare me to where I wanted to hide my eyes but it scared me that I had a constant pit in my stomach. Great job by all the kid actors and Bill Skarsgard, they were very convincing. I can only hope Chapter 2 is done as good.

September 10, 2017 @ 6:01 am DanMaz

First chance I got I’d nope the hell outta that town!

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• DVD & Streaming
• Horror , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Content Caution

In Theaters

• September 8, 2017
• Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough; Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom; Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh; Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier; Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon; Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak; Wyatt Oleff as Stanley Uris; Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise; Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers

Home Release Date

• January 9, 2018
• Andy Muschietti

Distributor

• Warner Bros.

Movie Review

When I was a kid, I often listened to the Mister Rogers song, “You Can Never Go Down the Drain.” The rain may go down , he assured me, But you can’t go down. You’re bigger than any bathroom drain.

Pennywise begs to differ.

The Dancing Clown lives in the dank, dark underworld where the drains of Derry, Maine, lead. He’s led many a child down drain and tunnel. It’s just a matter of asking nicely enough. Pulling hard enough. Cutting deeply enough.

Going down into Pennywise’s world is easy. It’s the leaving that’s hard.

Georgie Denbrough finds that world during a rainstorm, following his paper boat down the gutters until it vanishes into a storm drain. Georgie peers into the darkness … and he vanishes, too.

People plaster posters across town, begging for information on Georgie’s disappearance. But soon they’re papered over by those of another missing child. And another. And another.

Even children who don’t disappear begin seeing … things. A picture of a twisted woman comes to life. Burning hands claw through cracks in a door. A headless child haunts the library.

And then there’s the clown, of course. Always the clown, with his bright red hair and rat-like teeth. He stares from shadows, hides in boxes, lurks in the drains.

The adults seem oblivious. Clueless. But the children … they see. They hear. They know.

You can go down the drain.

Positive Elements

Fear is a funny thing. It can cause us to shrink into ourselves and turn cold and selfish. But when we find the courage to face our fears, we become better people.

Bill Denbrough, Georgie’s older brother, has as much reason as anyone to be terrified of what’s lurking under Derry’s streets. But the boy, about 12 years old, is determined to find his brother—or at least find out what happened to him. He implores his friends to help him on his quest, telling them (quite truthfully in context) that it’s up to them to deal with the evil underneath. “What happens when another Georgie goes missing?” he asks his six friends.

Not everyone is particularly interested in following Bill on this crusade. But they stick together (mostly) and form what they informally call the Losers’ Club. And there’s something about their bond that seems to work. The movie tells us that we’re stronger together than apart, that when we work together we can do what would seem to be impossible.

The kids’ bond is even effective when dealing with more real-world dangers, too. While each member of the Losers’ Club has suffered mightily at the hands of Derry’s bullies (led by the truly sadistic ruffian Henry Bowers), together they find the strength and the will to stand up for themselves and others (albeit sometimes in violent ways).

Spiritual Elements

Pennywise’s power is inherently supernatural. While he often shows up as a clown, the evil inside the monster shifts shapes at will—transforming into everything from a living painting subject to a little boy. And while the movie never overtly tells us that Pennywise is a demonic entity, the story’s imagery often ties the clown to Christian depictions of hell: At one point, Pennywise introduces himself by dancing in front of a wall of fire.

Stan, one of Bill’s friends, is Jewish—the son of the local rabbi, in fact. He’s preparing for his bar mitzvah, and we see him attempting to read from the Torah in a Jewish synagogue. Some of Stan’s friends quiz him about what a bar mitzvah is and joke about circumcision. A bully uses Stan’s kippah as a Frisbee. We briefly see the exterior of a church.

Sexual Content

Let’s talk about Beverly, the only female member of the Losers’ Club. For years, she’s been the victim of vicious rumors at school, accusing the girl (all of 13 years old) of sleeping around. (We hear her called various uncouth names, and one of her supposed paramours taunts her by grabbing and stroking his crotch.) Some of the Club members believe the rumors at first—pointing to a school play in which she kissed the leading man. “You can’t fake that kind of passion,” one of them sagely says. But Beverly later tells Bill that the rumors aren’t true: She’s only kissed one boy.

While that may indeed be true, she also seems to hide an abusive secret: incest. While the film never explicitly tells us that Beverly’s father has sexually assaulted her, everything we see suggests as much. Her dad repeatedly asks Beverly if she’s still his “little girl,” stroking her hair and shoulders. She obviously fears him. And Beverly’s father also asks her whether she’s doing “womanly things” with the boys she’s hanging out with, then throws her to the ground as if attempting to rape her.

Beverly is an object of fascination for the other Club members as well. When they go swimming in a lake, they strip down to their underwear and splash around. And afterward, when Beverly lies sunning herself in a bra and panties, the boys stare at her—as much in wonder as lustfully—when she’s not looking. Both Bill and Ben have crushes on Beverly: Ben writes her a brief love poem, and both wind up kissing her. (She returns the kiss of one.)

It’s worth noting that Pennywise capitalizes on what people fear the most. And the film may suggest that Beverly fears turning into a woman (perhaps because of her father?). While her friends are chased by clowns or leprosy victims, Beverly is attacked by blood and hair shooting out of her bathroom sink drain (possibly representing the harbingers of adolescence). When she confronts Pennywise itself, his mouth opens impossibly wide and turns into a massive, toothy slit—perhaps a visual echo of the myth of the vagina dentata.

Boys in the Losers’ Club frequently make obscene, sexually charged jokes about masturbation, the size of their anatomies, their sexual experiences or prowess, and the supposed promiscuity of one another’s mothers.

Elsewhere, a girl scrawls “loser” on someone’s cast. The cast’s wearer tries to change the middle letter so the words read “lover.” Beverly flirts with a very old, creepy pharmacist—distracting him while her friends make off with some needed medical supplies.

Violent Content

Arguably, IT’ s most graphic moment takes place in the movie’s opening minutes and involves poor, doomed Georgie. When the boy reaches into a storm drain to retrieve his boat from the lurking Pennywise, the clown’s rat-like teeth suddenly turn into rows and rows of fangs. He bites into the boy’s arm, and the next thing we see is the little lad—missing an arm—frantically trying to crawl away from the drain. He doesn’t make it: He’s pulled in, leaving behind a roadway stained by blood and rain.

That’s just the beginning of the grotesque horrors awaiting us.

A man gets stabbed in the throat with a knife, and his blood coats his body and the chair he sits in. A monstrous mouth clamps down on someone’s face, leaving behind bloody tooth marks. Someone breaks an arm in a fall, with the arm wrenched into a sickening angle. (A friend painfully sets the arm later.)

Henry literally carves the first letter of his name into someone’s belly, and later he nearly plays target practice with a cat. Mike, a member of the Losers’ Club, works with his grandfather in a meat packing plant that apparently processes sheep. We see one animal shot in the head with a bolt gun (a small spray of blood accompanies the act); other sheep are killed in the same way just off camera.

Dead people—either truly walking dead corpses or creations born of Pennywise’s bag of tricks—shamble through the movie in all their stalking grotesquery. One such manifestation looks like a leper, with parts of his face eaten away. Other zombie-like beings haunt the sewers. Blackened hands reach out from a door, as if trying to escape an inferno below. We briefly see the top half of a body (apparently bisected) hanging from chains but still alive. A headless boy chases someone. An old photo shows a boy’s severed head lodged in a tree. People get thrown around. Supernatural entities are hit and skewered repeatedly. A child is apparently shot in the head with a bolt gun.

Beverly is attacked by her father. Someone falls from a tremendous height, never to be seen again. A man is hit in the groin and, later, coldcocked by the lid of a toilet tank. He lies on the bathroom floor, either unconscious or dead, with blood pooling around his head. People pelt each other with rocks, sometimes leaving bloody marks on their foreheads. Members of the Losers’ Club make a pact that involves cutting their palms with a piece of glass and holding each other’s hands.

We learn that Derry has been the scene of unimaginable tragedies in the past, including an Easter-morning blast that killed 102 (including 88 children).

Crude or Profane Language

Bad news: We hear plenty of bad language here. Worse news: Almost all of it comes from the mouths of children. The f-word is used about 40 times. The s-word is uttered nearly 25 times. God’s name is misused twice, Jesus’ name three times. We also hear “a–,” “d–n,” “h—,” “t-ts” and “f-g.” We see at least one obscene gesture.

Drug and Alcohol Content

While her friends swipe medical supplies from a drug store, Beverly makes off with a pack of cigarettes. A bully smokes. Beverly’s father is shown drinking sometimes—a regular habit for him, the movie suggests.

Other Negative Elements

Bill, suffering some sort of sickness, talks about vomiting. The kids splash around in sewage “gray water.” Beverly has a bunch of disgusting trash dumped on top her while she’s in a bathroom stall. Henry Bowers licks his hand and smears spittle across someone’s face. Losers’ Club members make a ton of grotesque jokes at each other’s expense. Someone’s mother is deceptively manipulative.

It takes a lot out of a kid to deal with a supernatural entity that wants to kill and eat you. And finally, Stan—the quiet, studious son of a rabbi—has had enough.

“This isn’t fun !” he hollers at Bill. “This is scary and disgusting!”

The same might be said about this movie.

Listen, I understand that some folks will likely find IT “fun.” There’s a reason why Hollywood keeps making horror movies, and why people keep seeing them. Sometimes people like to be scared. (And as someone who enjoys a good roller coaster ride now and then, I get that.)

And IT —for all the many faults catalogued above—does at least offer a certain moral with its massacres. Our innocent protagonists are doing what they feel is right and what they feel they must, pushing back against an unimaginable and spiritual evil.

I recently talked with Gary Dauberman, who wrote the screenplay for IT , about those themes. He explained why he has a special affinity for writing supernatural horror stories.

“I think that has to do with me really being a believer that there’s something that’s greater than all of us, and that death is not an end,” he told me. “So writing and researching these stories kind of reaffirms that for me in a way. Even if there’s a demonic presence, I’m always going, ‘If there’s a demonic presence, that means that somewhere out there there’s good.’ And a lot of times in these movies, the good comes from within.”

We see that goodness displayed in IT’ s young protagonists, without question. The movie, for all its content, still exudes a strange sense of innocence. It can almost feel at times like a Steven Spielberg coming-of-age caper, albeit one with far more f-words and senseless mutilations.

And therein lies IT’ s problem. The movie’s heart doesn’t dispel all the terror and carnage and extraordinarily adult problems that our young heroes must deal with. It does not expunge the fact that the adults here are often shown as impotent impediments to the task at hand. It does not mitigate our heroes’ own questionable words and deeds—the constant swearing or the near skinny-dipping or the shoplifting. A bevy of children may star in IT , but they’d be ill-advised to watch it.

Pennywise lured young Georgie into the drain by promising fun and adventure. This movie promises the same. But for those who venture down this drain, it will be a dark, haunting trip indeed.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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It movie review: One of the best horror films of year. You’ll be haunted for days

It movie review: andy muschietti directs one of the best stephen king horror adaptations ever made - almost as great as the shining, carrie, 1408, or the mist. it floats. and you’ll float too..

It Director - Andy Muschietti Cast - Jaeden Leiberher, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Jack Dylan Grazer, Bill Skarsgard Rating - 4/5

It’s a funny time to be Stephen King – but some would say it always is.

The cadaver of the Dark Tower – it was butchered upon release by both fans and critics – is still warm. Mr Mercedes, another adaptation of one of his books – this one for TV – has begun promisingly. Gerald’s Game, yet another adaptation, is coming soon – this month, in fact. Donald Trump has, with predictable childishness, blocked him on Twitter. But we’re not here to talk about any of that.

What we’re here to talk about is – and this is remarkable, considering the sheer number of legitimately great films King’s writing has inspired – a movie that could perhaps be among the best adaptations of his work. Certainly, there is a scene that comes maybe halfway through It that plunges you so gleefully into unexpected gore that it’s almost impossible to not be jolted by memories of The Shining or Carrie – still, even after four decades, the best King adaptations.

It, the novel, is a brick of a book that at 1,300 pages long would be just as useful a murder weapon as it is a source of thrills. It’s a story, like most King stories, about the innocence of childhood, and the painful loss of it; about the memories of the past, and the trauma of growing up.

It begins with a paper boat, floating along one of those dirty streams that collect on the sides of streets during heavy rain. A young boy – Georgie – chases after it, always three steps too far behind. The boat gives Georgie the slip -- picking up speed just when he expects it to slow down, and gets sucked into the sewer, a subterranean labyrinth where among the rubbish and the sewage, there lives a murderous entity. Having been gone for 27 years, the entity has chosen this day to return, and young Georgie, who’s reaching into the sewers in a flailing attempt to find his boat, doesn’t realise he’s staring death in the face.

And what a face it is. There are tufts of bright orange hair standing at attention at odd spots on It’s head; a head that appears to be cracked and peeling, almost like a forgotten boiled egg. There are streaks of red running down either side of Its face like bloody gashes, uniting in a grotesque smile that splits open to reveal disgusting yellow buck-teeth. And It’s eyes… Oh, It’s eyes; bright, hypnotic, even when the rest of Its face is obscured in shadows.

It calls itself Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and with an ear-splitting growl, It pulls young Georgie into the sewer. “We all float down here,” It says, delivering the book’s – and now, film’s – classic line. “You’ll float too.”

Six months later, fate brings seven kids together. They call themselves the Losers, owing to their less-than-impressive reputation at school, and with the almost foolish bravery only idealistic kids in movies can have, they decide that only they can get to the bottom of the strange events that have been happening in their hometown – Derry – since Georgie’s murder. Other kids have disappeared, dozens of them – and a terrifying clown has been spotted. The two, they conclude, must be connected.

And so begins our tale.

King’s writing is propulsive. It always has been. There’s a blue-collar simplicity to it, which is perhaps what makes it so roguishly attractive. But the movie is different, despite being as devoted to the source material as a King fan at one of his live readings.

There’s a glossy, Spielbergian sheen to the visuals of Chung-hoon Chung – DP of choice for genius South Korean director, Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker). Like its close cousins, JJ Abrams’ Super 8, Netflix’s Stranger Things , and any number of Steven Spielberg films – mind you, It is the real deal, having essentially created the genre that we now associate with an entire decade – this film is as much a coming-of-age story as it is a horror movie. Perhaps even more.

It’s at its best – ironically, for a scary movie – not when it is tormenting the kids with fresh evil every 15 minutes, but when it’s laying in the fields with them, gazing lazily at the endlessness of the summer holidays; when it’s splashing around in the river, wondering if the only girl in the group can notice them staring; and when it is irresponsibly riding on bikes, standing on the pedals to appear taller.

Despite how truly frightening Pennywise is – every time he appeared on screen, and it’s just the right amount of time, the audience at my screening grew visibly uncomfortable – It, the movie, lives and dies with the Losers; their carefully fleshed out stories, the bullying they endure, and the firm friendship that helps them survive. Unlike most horror films, It is a drama first. And boy, that’s refreshing.

Most remarkably, all this is the doing of Andy Muschietti, a director with only one feature credit to his name prior to this – the supernatural horror, Mama, in which Jessica Chastain played an edgelord – and that too, not a particularly good one.

With It, Muschietti has made one of the best horror movies of the year. It’s funny and warm and touching and frightening and profane and profound. It’s a terrific set-up to what is going to be a restlessly-anticipated Chapter 2.

It floats. You’ll float too.

Watch the It trailer here

Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar

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Straight From a Movie

Pensive Thoughts on Paper – Movie Reviews & Analyses

It Movie Review (2017) | A Perfect Paragon of Dark Poetry | Full Analysis with Spoilers

If you think It Movie is limited to horror, you are dead wrong. In fact, to me, it even didn’t feel like one. So what is it that makes Stephen King ‘s It one of a kind? The metaphor, yes! If you are watching the flick reading between its frames, you are definitely going to enjoy the flick more. I will acquaint you with how beautiful Stephen King’s fancy is by doing a proper analysis of the movie. Even though this years’ The Dark Tower failed to do him justice, It Movie succeeds in a lot of ways.

It Movie is really beautiful if you see what it wishes to show you, the allegory in it and how wonderfully it builds itself on children’s fear and fantasies. Andy Muschietti , who was also the director of Mama , understands what Stephen King had in mind when he put a fantastical clown to paper. His direction provides perspective to the concept of a monster that emanates from a whimsical head.

Without wasting any more time let’s skip to the plot; there’s so much to share.

Plot of It Movie Full Analysis (Spoilers)

The movie picks pace caving in on a tragedy in Derry, a fictitious town that Stephen King often uses. Like any other place in the world the town has a history with accidents, where children have gone missing, people have ended up being dead, and stuff like that. But just like any other grown up who terms it as nature’s wish, or calls it something inevitable, something one doesn’t have control over, people of Derry too, don’t bother to investigate such matters.

Unless the thing happens to you, of course, and boils down to a personal level, no one really cares to bat an eye. So it happens with Bill Denbrough ( Jaeden Lieberher ). His little brother Georgie Denbrough ( Jackson Robert Scott ) goes missing one day. The primal reason why things become more personal to him.

Prologue of IT Movie Explained

As part of the prologue of It movie, we see Bill making his little brother Georgie a boat to help him go play in the rain. In one of the scenes where he asks him to fetch him wax from the cellar, we can see Georgie being really afraid of the dark and fidgeting before venturing there.

As he makes his way down, he finds his mother playing the piano busy in her own world. The lack of conversation there as little Georgie makes his way down is suggestive of how the grown ups are always lost in their own work. It is a child’s perspective about a grown-up’s world. They don’t wish any part of a child’s life. A child’s fancy, his insecurities, his fear have no effect on them. Once we grow up we all grow out of the things we once held close to our heart.

Georgie somehow manages to grab the wax despite being absolutely terrified. Remember this bit because it will be important in figuring out why Pennywise attacked Georgie in the first place.

Pennywise the Clown

We understand how close Bill and Georgie really were in all those moments of Bill helping Georgie out with the boat. Georgie thanks him as he makes his way out in the downpour to test the sailboat. That’s where we see his boat ending up stranded and then him being attacked by a psychotic clown named Pennywise living in the sewers.

A storm blew me away. Blew the whole circus away.

We see Pennywise sweet talking Georgie before chopping his hand off and then taking him into the sewers with him.

Eight Months Later

Eight months later, we see a homeschooled boy Mike Hanlon ( Chosen Jacobs ) unable to pull the trigger on a sheep. His innocence is being stripped away by the business he is in. His parents had died when he was young, and he is given a hard time by his guardian who is trying to make a man out of him so young.

There are two places you can be in this world. You can be out here like us, or you can be in there like them.

The world is full of two kinds of people. The weak ones who take orders submissively and the ones who sit in the driving seat giving orders to the forbearing. You have to take charge, overcome your fears, and insecurities or you will end up being pushed around. This dialogue, in fact, is the entire crux of It Movie.

Just then we see a sheep being pushed in for slaughtering as the camera switches to another flock of sheep – Bill and his friends Richie Tozier ( Finn Wolfhard ), Eddie Kaspbrak ( Jack Dylan Grazer ), Stanley Uris ( Wyatt Olef )  making their way out of their classes. The similarity is just perfect. They are meek and driven by a shepherd called School, just as the sheep in the real world have no choice but to get herded, they too are powerless insignificant entities who move around as demanded. They choose to call themselves the Losers club, because of how badly they fare against bullies.

Other Characters in It Movie

They dump their books since it’s the last day of their term at Derry High School. Meek as they are, they are constantly bullied by Henry Bowers’ ( Nicholas Hamilton ) gang. We see a minor face-off, the flow of which gets obstructed by Henry’s father, who by the way is a cop, overlooking them. The cops are there to help Mrs. Ripsom who has recently lost her daughter Betty Ripsom. You see Derry is notorious for such cases. But the police has been helpless all this time, unable to figure out the cause.

In answer to a remark made by Richie where he wishes the Bowers gang to go missing, Eddie replies:

They are the ones doing it.

We are introduced to the character of Beverly Marsh ( Sophia Lillis ) another unfortunate kid who is constantly bullied by a girl gang.

There are rumours about her being a slut which she can’t control and has learned to live with. She runs into Ben Hanscom ( Jeremy Ray Taylor ) a sweet kid, who secretly has a crush on her.

Your hair is winter fire, January Embers, My heart burns there too.

As Bill returns to his house he finds his dad working in their workshop, and that he has discovered that Bill has stolen the sewer plans of Derry and that he was secretly working on a project. It is hard for Bill to accept that Georgie is dead, and according to his theory, Derry dumps everything into The Barrens underneath so it’s possible that Georgie must be in The Barrens. Furious at Bill, his father storms off taking away the sewage map.

Next time you wanna take something from my office, just ask.

The above dialogue is quite ironical because we know that his father will never give in to his wants.

The Fear Quotient

As we chug forward we notice that each character is afraid of something. Call it their vivid imagination as we often tend to have as a child. All their fears have unique characteristics. It amplifies whatever they are afraid of, and even though we as an audience might feel uncomfortable with it going nowhere, like how can a child stay normal after experiencing a terrifying event like that, right?

But if you pay attention, we have never really paid heed to a child when he talks about a monster under his bed, or in the closet. We have never really understood their perspective, and that’s why it is hard for us to get them when they see what they see. We are watching the flick from the perspective of a child, and that’s why it bothers us when we see them in pain. But as a parent, we fail to be on their very own pedestal to fathom them truly. How badly could they be needing us when they claim to have seen something formidable!

That’s what happens in IT Movie as well. Even though frightening things keep happening, one after the other to all the children, there is no closure. Because, it is a subconscious fear factor that stays with us when we are alone. And it’s not like we are all alone by ourselves the entire day as a child. So that fear factor keeps coming and going all the time.

This is probably one of those difficult bits to understand, only when you are not thinking about it from a child’s perspective. It confuses you because you think the movie is going nowhere, but in a way it is. Soon we find out about that.

Individual Qualms

Mike is afraid of people in a burning house since it had to do with his parents who were burnt alive. Stanley is afraid of a surreal portrait in the library a painting he wishes he hadn’t seen. Eddie is afraid of his mom who worries too much about him and his allergies, of not taking his pills on time, and sick lepers. Ben is afraid of bullies, being a part of history of Derry, of Easter Eggs, of being left alone, of grown up people from Derry who never stand up for the underdog. Beverly is afraid of her leering father. Bill is afraid to let go of Georgie. He still hopes he is alive even though he knows deep down the truth. He hates the fact that everybody moves on as if nothing has happened.

Why Nothing Happens to the Kids

Interestingly, all the weird happenings end up not hurting the kids. The reason being they are all an abstract amplified versions of their fear. They vanish when that modicum of fear goes away. In case of Mike, that fear of watching hands coming out of a slaughter house, gets interrupted when Bowers and his gang intercept him with their car. His attention then goes to the mundane where a butcher was coming out of the open door. In case of Stanley, the portrait lady chases him out of the library he was in. Going to another room he wasn’t as afraid eliminated his fear. His fear was limited to that library.

For Eddie, he is more afraid of not taking his pills on time, afraid of catching allergies and an image of a leper that chases him into the haunted house.

If you lived here you’d be home by now.

Pennywise appears then but since Eddie was already close to making an escape, paving a ‘way out’, the chance of him running away had made him a little bold from inside, thus somewhat curtailing his fear. It should be noted that the fear takes form when he sees the haunted house, and hears his pill alarm.

For Ben, it was the librarian who accidentally barges in as Ben bumps into her. With the presence of someone else, fear becomes nil almost instantly, and thus we see Pennywise giving up the chase.

Everyone has experienced their bit of qualms except Richie whose blunt brazen remarks help him to stay confident most of the time. He isn’t as afraid as his friends, yet at some point, we discover that he is afraid of clowns too.

Meeting with Ben

In one of the scenes where Ben is harassed by the Bowers gang, a car passes by as Ben shouts at them for help. But the people in the car, show sheer indifference and disregard to his plight. It’s like Derry deliberately chooses not to see the misdemeanors around the town. They see something bad happening, they look the other way. We see a balloon showing up there, placing Derry’s disregard once again to the real clown story. It is a perfect set up.

Ben manages to escape somehow as Bowers tries to carve his name on Ben’s tummy.

The Losers club meanwhile stands in a sewage tunnel where they discover Betty Ripsom’s shoe connecting more dots leading to the sewers.

If I was Betty Ripsom I would want us to find me. Georgie too.

Just then Ben runs into the losers club as they take him to a local pharmacy to treat him. That’s where the Losers club run into Beverly and their friendship thrives thereon. Meanwhile one of the members of the Bowers gang Patrick Hockstetter ( Owen Teague ) ends up getting lured into the sewers. He is then attacked by Pennywise and goes missing too.

History of Derry

As the kids hang out together, Ben acquaints them with the history of the town.

Derry is not like any town I’ve been in before. People die or disappear, six times the national average. And that’s just grown ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse.

Ben shows them more of his researched work where he tells how Derry used to be a beaver trapping town first and how the entire camp disappeared with rumors of plague or Indians.

It’s like one day everybody just woke up and left.

From there they gather that the trails of people missing ran dry at the Well House. In hopes to find the Well house someday, children retire.

The World of the Fearful Kids

Beverly hears voices coming from her wash basin. It’s all the children who went missing calling her out to “float” with them. Probably one of them is Betty Ripsom’s voice.

When she tries to investigate, her hair that she had cut some days ago ends up strangling her, and the whole basin bursts open with blood. It paints the entire washroom in red. On listening to the noise her father shows up, but he couldn’t see the blood.

This is another one of those moments wherein you can say grown ups are blind to the world of children. They fail to understand the fancy a child deals with. For children everything is real, but from a perspective of a grown up man, who has outgrown childish imagination, things don’t make sense.

The fact is once again proven when she invites The Loser Club to clean the bathroom.

Beverly: My dad couldn’t see it, I thought I might be crazy. Eddie: Well if you are crazy, then we are all crazy.

Bumping into Mike

You see Richie is deliberately kept as a lookout by Stephen King. The lad is bold, and he might not have seen the blood in there. With children cleaning the bathroom it might have seemed stupid to Richie. Later Richie brands them as imagining things. He easily demarcs the boundary of fear and courage. Fear – the only thing that helps feed the clown which they all fail to get.

It is good that the kids begin to talk about their fears, which so far they had kept repressed and to themselves. It was Beverly’s incident that led the talk to happen. They all talk about how they have been witnessing a clown when they find out about Mike being in trouble. The Bowers gang is trying to beat the crap out of Mike, as Mike is dead scared, the fear making him see the clown. That’s a spooky scene, by the way, Pennywise eating a hand, and then using it to wave at him.

The Losers Club intervenes and a rock war ensues. Saving Mike the Losers club storm out victorious against the gang of Bowers. It’s clear that when they are together they can overcome fear. Only a glint, the fire they are yet to see.

The Research in It Movie

Bill is staring at a poster of a new missing child. Underneath is the poster of Betty.

It’s like she has been forgotten now that someone else is missing.

Ben figures out that all the historical happenings and destruction have a pattern to it.

This stuff seems to happen every 27 years.

That after 27 years it returns, and then goes into hibernation for another 27.

They also figure out that it might be affecting those who are afraid. Each one of them is afraid of different things, and all these things are frightening them to the core.

Maybe none of this is real.

They rule out the possibility that it could all be a bad dream which, as a matter fact, everyone was secretly thinking about till this point.

Going After the Clown

They all step in to do more research in Bill’s workshop where they discover that every incident ends up connecting to the Well House. They figure out the location of the Well house to be 29 Neibolt Street, but the frames begin to play all by themselves and there’s this old picture of Bill’s mom where her photo is not visible. Pennywise replaces her in the picture and then spooks the children out by stepping into the workshop in a gigantic form.

Now the only way to overcome fear is to create an escape route or maybe open the blinds for the daylight to come in. So that’s how they narrowly escape Pennywise by opening the shutters.

Bill wishes to go after It. When his friends begin to chicken out, he goes by himself. They follow him to the creepy house as Bill tells them how he feels without stuttering for the first time:

What happens if another Georgie goes missing or another Betty or Ed Corcoran or one of us? Are you just going to pretend it didn’t happen like everyone else in this town? Because I can’t. I go home and all I see is that Georgie isn’t there. His clothes, his toys, his stupid stuffed animals but he isn’t. So walking into this house for me is easier than walking into my own.

In the Well House

Richie finds his own missing poster in the house that freaks him out. Something that Pennywise wanted to happen – to make every character afraid. Fear makes them vulnerable and that’s how Pennywise becomes stronger. In the Well House, Eddie falls from the first floor owing to his own fear of leper.

Richie and Bill are individually isolated in different rooms, however, they are together and that’s why they are a bit stronger.

With Eddie left alone, Pennywise appears from a fridge and tries to attack him.

Bill and Richie find three doors and on taking one of them they are scared shitless. But then Bill tries to embolden Richie by reminding him about how nothing is real.

This isn’t real. Remember the missing kid poster. That wasn’t real. So this isn’t real.

That is like a stake in the heart for Pennywise because it beats fear. He was about to harm Eddie, when he realizes that Bill and Richie, despite being really afraid of what was behind the door, have managed to reenter it. It vanquishes fear, the very purpose of It. Walking through the same door they end up to assist Eddie where Pennywise says:

This isn’t real enough for you, Billy? I am not real enough for you? It was real enough for Georgie.

Overcoming Fear in It Movie

As he tries to attack them Beverly barges in lancing Pennywise with an arrow. Fear is unkillable. It can only exist or feel itself withering. It can intensify itself or can be belittled by lack of it. So, Pennywise doesn’t die with that arrow in his head. He turns around using the arrow as a prop to scare the kids even more. Yes, he looks scary and he becomes successful in making the kids more afraid. But who is more afraid? We can see Beverly being terrified so he draws his attention towards her.

As he turns around with the arrow he injures Ben.

Fear takes a different form then. It becomes contemptible and less pure. Kids were all together, they were worried about each other, besides Pennywise was hurt and looked vulnerable, so he decides to take a back seat there. Bill isn’t afraid of Pennywise and wishes to end his reign once and for all.

Don’t let it get away.

He follows him to find his true lair which was inside a well into the sewers. But has to come back owing to Eddie’s condition.

The Breakup in It Movie

Eddie’s mom takes away her child cursing the kids to be akin to monsters. (Irony?)

Bill is keen on getting back at Pennywise but the madness is too much for the rest of the kids to take. Bill and Richie get into a fight.

This is what it wants. It wants to divide us. We were all together when we hurt it. That’s why we are still alive.

The Losers club split with that, getting consumed into their boring lives once again, the one without each other. We see each one of them taking up chores as asked by their parents or guardians. So why is their world without the influence of It?

You see the mundane is jaded. A world full of adventures is when you begin to imagine things. That happens when you are happy, excited, psyched or afraid. None of them happens for the kids when they are not with each other.

The Bowers Quandary

Meanwhile, we see Bowers being given a hard time by his father.

Look at him now boys! Ain’t nothing like a little fear to make a paper boy crumble.

Bowers is really afraid for the first time in his life. And he finds a balloon too with a gift in his mail box – a knife. It should be well noted how manipulative Pennywise is. Throughout the movie, we see the TV always talking about the clown. It is a beautiful hint at our subconscious trying to play us to the tune of our fears.

Bowers is enraged with embarrassment and wishes to get back at his father. So he drives a knife through his neck while he is sleeping. One might say it was Pennywise who did it by manipulating him. But if you really look at it, the clown is a figment that simply amplifies what you wish to do, or whatever you are afraid of. Since Derry is a forgiving forgetting town where crime walks loose, it gives wings to people who wish to get involved in criminal activities.

In the end, he sees the clown on the TV asking him to kill them all. With that, he meant the Losers club who had hurt It.

Beverly’s Stand in It Movie

If you notice every child from the Losers club had a fairly normal life except for Beverly who was forced to live under the ogling eyes of her father.

Are you still my girl?

In an unseen set of events, Beverly takes a stand against her father and hits him with a toilet lid in self-defense. Pennywise shows up because with his father gone she was all alone, and quite petrified, consumed by the fear of what she had done, and what she would do.

When Beverly doesn’t show up to meet Bill, he gets worried about her and decides to pay her a visit at her house. There he finds her father in a pool of blood, and the wall is painted with:

You die if you try.

Bill goes to Richie for help and they reconcile because Pennywise had attacked one of them.

It got Beverly.

Eddie stands up against her mother too, overcoming his fear for the first time. She tries to stop him from going out with his friends.

You know what these are? They are gazebos! They are bullshit!

Children get together and prepare for war.

The Ending of It Movie Explained

As they enter their doom, Stanley is reluctant for a while to which Bill says:

If we stick together, all of us, we will win.

They all go to the well, (Pennywise’s entry exit point) and go down one by one. When Mike’s the only one left, Bowers shows up attacking him from behind. Mike spears him into the well as Bowers dies.

Meanwhile, Beverly wakes up in It’s lair and sees all the floating children that had gone missing. Pennywise shows up to hurt her but she says:

I am not afraid of you.

Which bothers Pennywise.

You will be.

It uses his power to make her float like the others, showing her a different world.

Stan ends up getting isolated. His nightmare – the painting lady shows up and attacks him. It hurts him however the rest of the kids show up in just the nick of time to help him. Bill starts seeing Georgie and follows him. Ends up in the lair of Pennywise where he sees Beverly floating mid way in the air. His first priority, however, is Georgie.

I will come back for you Beverly.

Meanwhile the rest of the kids find Beverly floating moonstruck.

They bring her down and Ben kisses her bringing her back to life. You see love overcomes fear. Fear is faltering, hesitation and lack of confidence. Love is bold, confident and strong. Right after the kiss, Beverly realizes that it was Ben who had written that poem for her.

January Embers. My heart burns there too.

Bill’s Acceptance

Probably the most emotional scene in the entire movie is when Bill finds Georgie.

What took you so long?

All the emotions gush out when you feel the empathy kick in.

I was looking for you all this time.

All this time Bill secretly knew that his brother was dead. But he hadn’t given up on hope. He hadn’t grieved for him the way he should have. He was yet to acquaint himself with the bitter truth.

I wanna go home.

He wanted that moment of reconciliation with his loving brother. Because it was hard for him to accept that Georgie was dead.

I want more than anything for you to be home.

But he finally comes to term with reality and shoots Georgie believing what the world had been telling him all this time. Finally accepting the truth with a heavy heart.

It Means War

Georgie becomes Pennywise and attacks everybody, as the concluding war begins.

In those final moments, Pennywise grabs hold of Bill and says:

I’ll take him! I’ll take all of you! I’ll feast on your flesh as I feed on your fear, or you’ll just leave us be, I will take him. Only him, and I will have my long rest and you will all grow to live and thrive and lead happy lives until old age takes you back to the weeds.

It is a choice Pennywise offers the kids in IT movie. If they were to think like adults, they wouldn’t mind leaving one of them behind. Like the people in Derry who were alright with people missing and disappearing, as long as it didn’t bother them.

The Final Assault in IT Movie

But these kids stood for each other and so they attack the clown until it takes different forms to scare the bajesus out of them. Together they get rid of the menace by destroying him (overcoming their own fear).

You couldn’t kill Beverly coz she wasn’t afraid, and we are neither, not anymore. Now you are the one who’s afraid because you are gonna starve.

In the end, we see the clown fragmenting before disappearing into a pit.

For the first time, Bill truly accepts the death of Georgie as he sees his clothes in the sewer. He cries like he has never before, coming to terms with the fact that his brother has really died.

Guys kids are floating down.

The Epilogue of It Movie

We see The Losers Club together once again. Beverly is telling them about how it felt when she was floating.

We were our parent’s ages. I just remember how we felt.

With that, it is hard not to tack “floating” against something that shows a kid the dreams about growing up. Kids always fantasize about growing up, what will they do, what will they become. It is a life they imagine to be living. While for the kids in the movie growing up is like being killed, killing your fantasies, imagination and the beautiful world that no one sees.

They swear in blood – a symbolism for them not being afraid, to have finally overcome their fears.

Swear! If it isn’t dead if it ever comes back, we will come back too.

Eventually Bill the lad who had been afraid of things who had finally learned how to overcome his fears runs up to Beverly to plant a kiss on her.

You can order It movie 2017 from here:

Thinking Out Loud (Theories Behind IT Movie)

I understand It movie is intended to be seen the way it is presented without any hidden meanings. But the work of Stephen King is a result of careful thought. To the people who fail to read between the lines the story could be just about a clown from a different world who has come to live on earth, who wakes up every 27 years to feed on children and their fear. But for me, I think Pennywise is more of an abstract form.

I will try to explain:

First Theory

Derry is a notorious underdeveloped and lawless town where people have to deal with crimes on a daily basis. The disappearance of children I like to think is as a result of bullies, perverts and child molesters (an exemplary form we saw in Beverly’s father). Children disappearing is a thing that bothers only the children who wish to do something about it. Those are the kids imagining a villain trying to stop them from uncovering the truth. Fear is their enemy and all the elements that try to stop them from uncovering the real truth, right from Eddie’s mother to Beverly’s father to Bill’s and to Bowers, are all companions of that enemy. They are trying to stop their crucial summertime research about the disappearance of kids.

Second Theory

Another theory I can work up with is what if Pennywise had been some kind of a real neglected person who had wished to make Derry laugh once? He could have been a regular person, who must have been admired for his circus. When he said, “A storm blew me away”, I think it is a crisp metaphor for Derry’s disregard for the circus that once might have existed in the town. Something might have happened to him and his business that would have forced Pennywise down the gutters, taken his life in the process. Derry is a repulsive town with its dark secrets and one could only imagine as to what might have happened to the real clown whose abstract is now such a terrifying reflection as Pennywise.

Another Weird Theory for IT movie

Another theory that I can think of deals with the term floating. Floating is something that insinuates that people are moving away towards better prospects. Derry isn’t the town that it once used to be. They have been leaving Derry in search of better jobs, as Beverly’s vision stated. It was a pleasant vision for her that showed them how they could come out of that hell hole called Derry and become something substantial in life. She didn’t remember what they were doing but she remembered how they felt like. So they could be just leaving the town and the term ‘missing’ could be just implying that. Kids think a lot of things. So everything could be just their rare form of imagination.

The Final Verdict of IT movie

Whatever must have been the original thought that forced Stephen King to present such a beautiful novel, the movie adaptation nails it. It movie is beautifully done by Andy Muschietti who forces us to live the flick as if it were our very own story. It takes you back in time, when you used to dream, imagine and fantasize.

It movie should not be missed, should not be just watched for its horror but for its insane story that forces you to think.

Highly recommended for everybody.

You can check out the trailer of It Movie 2017 here:

• Extraordinary Thinking
• Great Story
• Brilliant Acting by the Cast
• Outstanding direction
• Compels you to think
• Not that scary if you wish to watch it as horror

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It (United States, 2017)

King fans will note that the best movie adaptations of the writer’s work have been his non-horror stories: Stand by Me , The Shawshank Redemption , Misery, The Green Mile . His horror-related films have been of variable quality, with the best two being (arguably) The Shining (King would disagree) and Carrie . It may represent the best movie version of any King horror story – and it covers only half the material in the 1100+ page book.

The movie relates the events presented in the book’s “early” timeline – the one in which the protagonists are 11 years old – and time-shifts things from the late 1950s to the summer of 1989. The action centers around a group of outcasts who call themselves The Losers: Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Richie (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), Stanley (Wyatt Oleff), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), and the only girl, Beverly (Sophia Lillis). Following the death of Bill’s younger brother, George, at the hands of the sewer-dwelling Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard), all seven of The Losers begin experiencing visions of the clown and/or physical embodiments of things they fear. Pennywise, they learn, emerges every 27 years in the town of Derry, Maine to kill children and feed on their terror. This group, however, is determined to fight back – something easier said than done in these circumstances.

For the cast, the filmmakers went with a group of little-known actors. This is true not only of the children but the adults as well. Pennywise is played with uncommon spookiness by Bill Skarsgard (the brother of Alexander and son of Stellan). Emerging from the long shadow of Tim Curry, whose interpretation of the clown was a highlight of the TV mini-series, Skarsgard makes Pennywise his own from the shocking first scene, which violates a Hollywood rule about how young children are treated on-screen. Jaeden Lieberher, who plays the stuttering Bill, was recently seen (although not by many) as the title character in The Book of Henry . Finn Wolfhard is probably best known for his role as Mike in Stranger Things, a TV series inspired in part by King’s writings that incorporates the same kind of childhood bonding that occurs among The Losers.

It isn’t perfect. There’s too much repetitive wandering around in the sewers and the running time seems long for the material as presented. There are credulity problems with the resolution but this is common in horror where the vanquishing of a creature of great power and evil typically requires a contrivance. However, horror, like a road movie, is more about the journey than the destination, and It offers a strong and creepy ride. Stephen King fans can rejoice that Hollywood has done justice to one of the author’s scary books.

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Critic’s Pick

‘Civil War’ Review: We Have Met the Enemy and It Is Us. Again.

In Alex Garland’s tough new movie, a group of journalists led by Kirsten Dunst, as a photographer, travels a United States at war with itself.

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‘Civil War’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The writer and director alex garland narrates a sequence from his film..

“My name is Alex Garland and I’m the writer director of ‘Civil War’. So this particular clip is roughly around the halfway point of the movie and it’s these four journalists and they’re trying to get, in a very circuitous route, from New York to DC, and encountering various obstacles on the way. And this is one of those obstacles. What they find themselves stuck in is a battle between two snipers. And they are close to one of the snipers and the other sniper is somewhere unseen, but presumably in a large house that sits over a field and a hill. It’s a surrealist exchange and it’s surrounded by some very surrealist imagery, which is they’re, in broad daylight in broad sunshine, there’s no indication that we’re anywhere near winter in the filming. In fact, you can kind of tell it’s summer. But they’re surrounded by Christmas decorations. And in some ways, the Christmas decorations speak of a country, which is in disrepair, however silly it sounds. If you haven’t put away your Christmas decorations, clearly something isn’t going right.” “What’s going on?” “Someone in that house, they’re stuck. We’re stuck.” “And there’s a bit of imagery. It felt like it hit the right note. But the interesting thing about that imagery was that it was not production designed. We didn’t create it. We actually literally found it. We were driving along and we saw all of these Christmas decorations, basically exactly as they are in the film. They were about 100 yards away, just piled up by the side of the road. And it turned out, it was a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival, and he’d gone bankrupt. And he had decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field, who was then absolutely furious. So in a way, there’s a loose parallel, which is the same implication that exists within the film exists within real life.” “You don’t understand a word I say. Yo. What’s over there in that house?” “Someone shooting.” “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”

By Manohla Dargis

A blunt, gut-twisting work of speculative fiction, “Civil War” opens with the United States at war with itself — literally, not just rhetorically. In Washington, D.C., the president is holed up in the White House; in a spookily depopulated New York, desperate people wait for water rations. It’s the near-future, and rooftop snipers, suicide bombers and wild-eyed randos are in the fight while an opposition faction with a two-star flag called the Western Forces, comprising Texas and California — as I said, this is speculative fiction — is leading the charge against what remains of the federal government. If you’re feeling triggered, you aren’t alone.

It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right. It’s one thing when a movie taps into childish fears with monsters under the bed; you’re eager to see what happens because you know how it will end (until the sequel). Adult fears are another matter.

In “Civil War,” the British filmmaker Alex Garland explores the unbearable if not the unthinkable, something he likes to do. A pop cultural savant, he made a splashy zeitgeist-ready debut with his 1996 best seller “The Beach,” a novel about a paradise that proves deadly, an evergreen metaphor for life and the basis for a silly film . That things in the world are not what they seem, and are often far worse, is a theme that Garland has continued pursuing in other dark fantasies, first as a screenwriter (“ 28 Days Later ”), and then as a writer-director (“ Ex Machina ”). His résumé is populated with zombies, clones and aliens, though reliably it is his outwardly ordinary characters you need to keep a closer watch on.

By the time “Civil War” opens, the fight has been raging for an undisclosed period yet long enough to have hollowed out cities and people’s faces alike. It’s unclear as to why the war started or who fired the first shot. Garland does scatter some hints; in one ugly scene, a militia type played by a jolting, scarily effective Jesse Plemons asks captives “what kind of American” they are. Yet whatever divisions preceded the conflict are left to your imagination, at least partly because Garland assumes you’ve been paying attention to recent events. Instead, he presents an outwardly and largely post-ideological landscape in which debates over policies, politics and American exceptionalism have been rendered moot by war.

‘Civil War’ Is Designed to Disturb You

One thing that remains familiar amid these ruins is the movie’s old-fashioned faith in journalism. Dunst, who’s sensational, plays Lee, a war photographer who works for Reuters alongside her friend, a reporter, Joel (the charismatic Wagner Moura). They’re in New York when you meet them, milling through a crowd anxiously waiting for water rations next to a protected tanker. It’s a fraught scene; the restless crowd is edging into mob panic, and Lee, camera in hand, is on high alert. As Garland’s own camera and Joel skitter about, Lee carves a path through the chaos, as if she knows exactly where she needs to be — and then a bomb goes off. By the time it does, an aspiring photojournalist, Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), is also in the mix.

The streamlined, insistently intimate story takes shape once Lee, Joel, Jessie and a veteran reporter, Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), pile into a van and head to Washington. Joel and Lee are hoping to interview the president (Nick Offerman), and Sammy and Jessie are riding along largely so that Garland can make the trip more interesting. Sammy serves as a stabilizing force (Henderson fills the van with humanizing warmth), while Jessie plays the eager upstart Lee takes under her resentful wing. It’s a tidily balanced sampling that the actors, with Garland’s banter and via some cozy downtime, turn into flesh-and-blood personalities, people whose vulnerability feeds the escalating tension with each mile.

As the miles and hours pass, Garland adds diversions and hurdles, including a pair of playful colleagues, Tony and Bohai (Nelson Lee and Evan Lai), and some spooky dudes guarding a gas station. Garland shrewdly exploits the tense emptiness of the land, turning strangers into potential threats and pretty country roads into ominously ambiguous byways. Smartly, he also recurrently focuses on Lee’s face, a heartbreakingly hard mask that Dunst lets slip brilliantly. As the journey continues, Garland further sketches in the bigger picture — the dollar is near-worthless, the F.B.I. is gone — but for the most part, he focuses on his travelers and the engulfing violence, the smoke and the tracer fire that they often don’t notice until they do.

Despite some much-needed lulls (for you, for the narrative rhythm), “Civil War” is unremittingly brutal or at least it feels that way. Many contemporary thrillers are far more overtly gruesome than this one, partly because violence is one way unimaginative directors can put a distinctive spin on otherwise interchangeable material: Cue the artful fountains of arterial spray. Part of what makes the carnage here feel incessant and palpably realistic is that Garland, whose visual approach is generally unfussy, doesn’t embellish the violence, turning it into an ornament of his virtuosity. Instead, the violence is direct, at times shockingly casual and unsettling, so much so that its unpleasantness almost comes as a surprise.

If the violence feels more intense than in a typical genre shoot ’em up, it’s also because, I think, with “Civil War,” Garland has made the movie that’s long been workshopped in American political discourse and in mass culture, and which entered wider circulation on Jan. 6. The raw power of Garland’s vision unquestionably owes much to the vivid scenes that beamed across the world that day when rioters, some wearing T-shirts emblazoned with “ MAGA civil war ,” swarmed the Capitol. Even so, watching this movie, I also flashed on other times in which Americans have relitigated the Civil War directly and not, on the screen and in the streets.

Movies have played a role in that relitigation for more than a century, at times grotesquely. Two of the most famous films in history — D.W. Griffith’s 1915 racist epic “The Birth of a Nation” (which became a Ku Klux Klan recruitment tool) and the romantic 1939 melodrama “Gone With the Wind” — are monuments to white supremacy and the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Both were critical and popular hits. In the decades since, filmmakers have returned to the Civil War era to tell other stories in films like “Glory,” “Lincoln” and “Django Unchained” that in addressing the American past inevitably engage with its present.

There are no lofty or reassuring speeches in “Civil War,” and the movie doesn’t speak to the better angels of our nature the way so many films try to. Hollywood’s longstanding, deeply American imperative for happy endings maintains an iron grip on movies, even in ostensibly independent productions. There’s no such possibility for that in “Civil War.” The very premise of Garland’s movie means that — no matter what happens when or if Lee and the rest reach Washington — a happy ending is impossible, which makes this very tough going. Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor’s face that, like Dunst’s, expressed a nation’s soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

Civil War Rated R for war violence and mass death. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters.

An earlier version of this review misidentified an organization in the Civil War in the movie. It is the Western Forces, not the Western Front.

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Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic for The Times. More about Manohla Dargis

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Movie Reviews

'civil war' is a doomsday thought experiment — that could have used more thinking.

Justin Chang

Kirsten Dunst plays a battle scarred photojournalist in Civil War. Murray Close/A24 hide caption

Kirsten Dunst plays a battle scarred photojournalist in Civil War.

Releasing a movie called Civil War in this election year is certainly one way to grab headlines. Surprisingly, though, Alex Garland 's ambitious new thriller largely sidesteps the politics of the present moment.

It wants to sound a queasy note of alarm, as if the democracy doomsday scenario it's showing us could really happen, but it's hard to buy into a premise that feels this thinly sketched. The story takes place in a not-so-distant future where Texas and California have improbably joined forces and seceded from the U.S.

Florida, not to be outdone, has also broken away on its own. The president, a third-term tyrant played by Nick Offerman , has responded by calling in the troops and launching airstrikes on his fellow Americans, plunging the country into poverty and lawlessness.

Garland keeps a lot of the details vague; he's less interested in how we might have gotten here than in how we would respond. To that end, he focuses on characters whose job it is to document what's happening.

Kirsten Dunst gives a strong, tough-minded performance as Lee, a skilled photojournalist who's covered conflicts all over the world and is now confronting this nightmare on her home turf. She's headed from New York to Washington, D.C., where many expect that the war, which has been raging for some time, will end with a showdown at the White House.

Accompanying Lee on this dangerous journey are two seasoned colleagues: Joel, a wily reporter played by Wagner Moura from Narcos , and Sammy, a veteran political writer played by the always outstanding Stephen McKinley Henderson.

The America in Civil War looks both familiar and unfamiliar. A24 hide caption

The America in Civil War looks both familiar and unfamiliar.

Per movie convention, there's also an inexperienced young outsider: Jessie, an aspiring war photographer played by Cailee Spaeny, the star of last year's biopic Priscilla . Not long into their trip, the four journalists stumble on a tense scene at a gas station where three armed men are holding two other men captive. The journalists get away without incident, but Jessie was deeply disturbed by what what was happening, started second guessing herself and didn't get the shot.

In time, Jessie gets better at her job; more than that, she becomes hooked. The movie is partly about the addictive thrill of thrusting a camera into a war zone. But it's also about the trauma and desensitization that these photographers experience as they put their emotions aside and do everything they can to get that perfect shot.

Here are 6 movies to see this spring

Civil War itself has been quite strikingly visualized by the cinematographer Rob Hardy and the production designer Caty Maxey. They show us an America that looks both familiar and unfamiliar, resembling the battlefields we've seen in footage from other conflicts in other places. There are surreally grim images of bloodstained sidewalks, bombed-out buildings, and a once-busy highway where rows of abandoned cars stretch for miles and miles. Garland has a real feel for post-apocalyptic landscapes, as we saw in his script for the zombie thriller 28 Days Later . In the movies he's directed since, like the brilliant Annihilation , he's shown a real talent for building suspense and anxiety.

A Masterful Glimpse Of Humanity's Physical — And Emotional — 'Annihilation'

But as stunningly detailed as Civil War 's dystopia is, from moment to moment, I hardly believed a thing I was seeing. As Lee and her pals inch closer to D.C., they go from one violent set-piece to another, each one calculated for maximum terror.

There's a nasty ambush at a Christmas theme-park display in the middle of nowhere, followed by a chilling encounter with a gun-toting racist psychopath played, in a mordant touch, by Jesse Plemons, Dunst's off-screen husband. The result is more of a button-pushing genre exercise than a serious reckoning with the consequences of the movie's premise. By the time the characters arrive at their destination, just in time for a daring raid on the White House, Civil War feels ever more like an empty stunt — a thought experiment that hasn't been especially well thought out.

Movie Interviews

Dunst: expressing something blue in melancholia.

If there's one thing that keeps you watching, though, it's Dunst's performance as a battle-scarred professional doing her job under horrific circumstances that she's too numb to feel horrified by. As she showed in her great performance in Lars von Trier 's Melancholia , there's something about Dunst that's particularly well suited to apocalyptic material. I wish her better vehicles than Civil War in the future, but it's gratifying to see her anchor a major movie regardless. She's an actor I'd follow to the end of the world and back.

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• In the summer of 1989, a group of bullied kids band together to destroy a shape-shifting monster, which disguises itself as a clown and preys on the children of Derry, their small Maine town.
• In the Town of Derry, the local kids are disappearing one by one. In a place known as 'The Barrens', a group of seven kids are united by their horrifying and strange encounters with an evil clown and their determination to kill It. — Emma Chapman
• After recent cases of disappearing local kids in the town of Derry, Maine, IT follows a group of kids dubbed "The Losers' Club" in the summer of 1989 and their discovery and scary encounters of a shape-shifting demonic entity, known to return every 27 years and preys on your own personal fears. — IanFLC
• When young children in the little town Derry, Maine goes missing a group of seven kids find out that the killer is not a man. The killer is the evil clown Pennywise who can shapeshift into the thing you are most afraid of. The kids, also known as the Losers Club, decide to fight and kill It. But how can you fight something who knows all your biggest fears?
• In the summer of 1989, a shape-shifting monster, Pennywise who disguises itself as a clown murdered Georgie. For the revenge of Georgie's murder, his brother, Bill teams up with some bullied kids to destroy that shape-shifting monster, which preys on the children of Derry. — rohanjverse
• Derry, Maine, October 1988 Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher) helps his little brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) make a paper sailboat, calling it the S.S. Georgie. Georgie wants to go outside to sail it in the pouring rain, but Bill is too sick to join him. The brothers hug before Georgie runs out to play. Georgie sails his boat down the street. He chases after it and accidentally runs into a roadblock. The boat sails to the end of the street until it falls into the sewer. Georgie runs to try and get it, worried that Bill will be mad. As he looks into the sewer, a pair of yellow eyes emerge. They belong to an entity calling itself Pennywise the dancing clown (Bill Skarsgard). Pennywise playfully speaks to Georgie before offering him his boat back. Georgie reaches for it, only for Pennywise to grab his arm and sink his massive teeth into it. The creature rips off Georgie's arm and leaves him crying for Bill before dragging him down into the sewers. Eight months later. June 1989 We meet Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs) as his grandfather Leroy (Steven Williams) is making him kill a sheep with a nail gun. Leroy lectures the boy before doing the deed himself. It's the last day of school. Bill and his friend Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley Uris (Wyatt Oleff), who all form The Losers Club, are heading out to start their summer. Unfortunately, they run into the school's psychopathic bully Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton) and his goons Patrick Hockstetter (Owen Teague), Victor Criss (Logan Thompson), and Belch Huggins (Jake Sim). Bill tells Henry he sucks after the punk mocks his friends, and Henry approaches Bill threateningly until he sees his father, Officer Bowers (Stuart Hughes), standing behind Bill. He walks away, but not before licking his palm and smearing it on Bill's face. A girl named Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis) is smoking in the bathroom. A group of mean girls led by Gretta (Megan Charpentier) taunt her and accuse Bev of being a slut. One girl fills a trash bag full of water and dumps it on Bev, but she covers her head with her book. On her way out of the building, Beverly meets the new kid, Ben Hascom (Jeremy Ray Taylor). He gets picked on for his weight and he doesn't have any friends. Bev signs his yearbook, and Ben appears to develop a crush on her. When Bill gets home, his father Zach (Geoffrey Pounsett) scolds him for creating a model with tubes of the sewer system in Derry since he still believes that Georgie is only missing. Zach tells him to accept that Georgie is dead. Mike goes to the butcher shop to make a delivery. Behind the door around the alley, he hears what sounds like screaming and pounding. The door opens and several burnt hands start sticking out. Mike then sees Pennywise, but is nearly run over by the Bowers gang in a car. Mike flees. Stan is at the synagogue studying for his bar mitzvah. There is a painting in the rabbi's office that creeps him out showing a woman with a distorted face. The painting falls, and when Stan picks it up, the woman is gone. He turns around and IT manifests as the woman with a fanged smile. Stan runs away. Ben is at the library looking up Derry's history. From a series of articles, he learns that children in Derry have been disappearing under mysterious circumstances for centuries. The book contains a depiction of Pennywise and a missing boy's head in a tree. Ben is then lured into the basement where he sees the headless boy before getting chased out by Pennywise. On his way home, Ben is attacked by the Bowers gang. Henry's goons hold him against the bridge railing. Patrick wants to burn Ben with a lighter and bug spray, but Henry plans to carve his name into Ben's stomach. An old couple drive by and see this but do nothing (it's implied that IT is there with the presence of a red balloon). Henry only cuts an H before Ben kicks him in the nuts and rolls over the bridge and into the woods. The punks chase after Ben. Meanwhile, the Losers are near the sewers as Bill has convinced his friends to help him find Georgie. Ben falls into the water near them, and the boys grab him and bring him to safety. Patrick runs into the sewers to try and get Ben, splitting from his friends. He encounters demonic-looking children that make him run, but he comes across a dead end. A bunch of red balloons appear before him, and they all pop to reveal Pennywise, who promptly devours Patrick. The boys go to the pharmacy to get cotton balls and bandages, but they are short on money. Beverly is there buying tampons when she runs into the boys. After hearing their problem, Bev pretends to flirt with the pharmacist, Mr. Keene (Joe Bostick), to distract him. He comes off as a creep to her, but she manages to distract him long enough for the boys to steal their supplies, and for her to sneak away some cigarettes. Bev goes outside and joins the boys when she sees the boys tending to Ben. Beverly goes home to her father (Stephen Bogaert), who is an even bigger creep than Mr. Keene. He comes onto his daughter, causing her to run into the bathroom crying. She then proceeds to cut off her hair until it's at a shorter length. The boys (now joined by Ben) are at the quarry ready to jump into the lake, but no one is eager to go first. Bev shows up and jumps first, leading the others to join. They have fun while swimming and hanging out. Later, Ben tells everyone what he read about in Derry's history. Eddie is walking home when he passes the abandoned house on Neibolt Street. He is suddenly attacked by a leper (Javier Botet), causing Eddie to run through the house's yard. As he reaches the fence, he sees Pennywise trying to lure him toward him. Eddie runs under the fence and escapes. Bev is in her room with a postcard with a poem written on it by a secret admirer. She thinks it's Bill but it was actually Ben that wrote it. From her bathroom, Bev hears the voices of children. She looks into the sink where the voices are, and clumps of hair start reaching out to grab her before a fountain of blood gushes all over the bathroom. Mr. Marsh comes in to see Bev horrified, but he cannot see the blood. He simply comments that her hair makes her look like a boy. Bill is walking around the house when he sees what looks like Georgie running around. Shocked, he follows Georgie to the basement, which is flooding. Georgie steps out and invites Bill to join him, saying "We all float down here. You'll float too." He repeats "You'll float too" until he yells and decomposes. Pennywise then emerges from the water and tries to get Bill, but he runs out of the basement. The next day, the kids are riding their bikes when they see Mike's bike and the Bowers gang's car. They go down by the creek to find the punks harassing Mike for being black. Bev throws a rock at Henry's head, which initiates a rock-throwing war between both groups. Mike runs over to the Losers side while Vic and Belch run away as Henry is knocked unconscious. As the kids walk away with Mike, Bill mentions what he saw in his house. Eddie backs him up on having seen Pennywise. Mike mentions what he saw and talks about how his old house was burnt down by racist goons, and his parents died trying to break the door down to his room, with their skin having melted to the bone. Richie is the only one that hasn't been haunted, but he admits to being terrified of clowns. The kids go to Bill's garage where they look over a map of Derry through a projector. They see that the sewers are linked to the Neibolt house, where IT lives. The projector then starts working itself, showing pictures of Bill and Georgie with their parents, but with Pennywise's face appearing over their mother. They knock the projector over, but it keeps playing until Pennywise fully emerges from the screen and tries to get the kids. They manage to get out of the garage before he can harm them. The Losers go to the Neibolt house to face IT head-on. Bill, Richie, and Eddie enter the house while the others stay outside as lookouts. Richie sees a missing poster of himself and he freaks out, but Bill reminds him it's not real. Eddie gets separated from his friends when Pennywise finds him. He falls through the floor and lands in the kitchen, breaking his arm. Bill and Richie try to reach him through three doors. The first door they open reveals a headless girl. The second door traps Richie inside with a room full of clown dolls. He sees a coffin with a dummy of himself in it. He shuts it, and Pennywise jumps out. He tries to attack Richie, but he runs out of the room. Pennywise returns his attention to Eddie, but Bill and Richie get to him before the clown eats him. Beverly then shows up to drive a spear through Pennywise's head, forcing him to retreat. Eddie's mom forbids the Losers from hanging out with him after she sees his broken arm. Bill and Richie then get into a fight when Richie says this whole pursuit of Georgie has nearly gotten them killed. The Losers part ways as the other boys are too terrified to keep going. It's now August, and the kids have continued going about their lives. Eddie goes to the pharmacy to pick up his asthma medication, only for Gretta (who works behind the counter) to tell him that they are placebos. She then writes "LOSER" on his arm cast. Henry is with Vic and Belch shooting things with his dad's gun. He orders Belch to bring him a cat to shoot, but Officer Bowers shows up to take the gun from Henry. He then shoots the ground around Henry's feet to humiliate him in front of his friends and expose him as a coward. Later, Henry sees a red balloon on his mailbox. Inside is a knife, sent by IT. He goes inside as his father is asleep with the TV on. On the screen appears a woman with children, all urging Henry to kill his father. He does so by sticking the knife in his neck and letting him bleed out. The kids on TV (all of IT's victims) then start chanting "KILL THEM ALL! KILL THEM ALL!" At the Marsh house, Beverly's dad attempts to act upon his lust toward his daughter. She fights him off and runs into the bathroom. When Mr. Marsh gets there, Bev whacks him across the face with a toilet lid, killing him. Just as she is about to leave, Pennywise finds her and takes her. Bill goes by Bev's house and finds her father dead in the bathroom, and sees "YOU'LL DIE IF YOU TRY" written on the wall in blood. He realizes Bev has been taken by IT, so he goes to make amends with his friends to rescue her. When they get Eddie, his mom forbids him from leaving and joining his friends, but he defies her when he confronts her over the placebos. He ditches her and joins his friends. The boys go to the Neibolt house and find a well where IT dwells. They climb down a rope, but before Mike can head down, Henry shows up and attacks him. He starts pulling the rope up to prevent the boys from climbing back up. Henry tries to kill Mike with the nail gun that he brought, but Mike fights him off and manages to push him down the well, sending him to his apparent death. Going further into the well, Stan is attacked by IT as the woman from the painting. She munches on his head, but the boys scare IT away and comfort a mortified Stan. All the boys head further into the well where they find IT's lair. All the children he's taken are floating up in the dead-lights under some kind of trance. The boys find Bev floating. They pull her down, and Ben kisses her to break her out of the trance. Bill then sees Georgie emerge from the shadows. Georgie tells Bill he missed him and was waiting for him to come for him. Bill hugs his brother, but he knows it's not really Georgie, and he shoots him in the head. His body writhes on the ground until he turns into Pennywise. The clown tries to kill the kids, but they fight him off until he has his hold on Bill. Pennywise gives the others the option to die together, or leave him with just Bill. Bill tells them to run, but Richie is the first to fight back. The kids then start beating the crap out of Pennywise until he is powerless, unable to hurt them because they no longer fear him. Before Bill can strike the fatal blow to the clown's cracking skull, Pennywise retreats into the darkness and thus escapes. The kidnapped children then float downward. Bill then finds Georgie's raincoat. He realizes that Georgie truly is gone. Bill breaks down in tears as his friends gather around and hug him. It is now September. The Losers swear a blood oath to return to Derry in 27 years should IT ever return. They hang out for a while until each of them gradually leaves, with only Bill and Bev stay behind. She is going to move to Portland now. As she walks away, Bill runs up to her and kisses her. END OF CHAPTER ONE

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Nicola Peltz Beckham, a billionaire's daughter, made an indie film where she plays a poor stripper. It didn't go well.

• Nicola Peltz Beckham wrote, directed, and stars in the indie film "Lola" about a teen living in poverty.
• The movie is being slammed by critics, with one calling it exploitative and "poverty porn."
• Peltz Beckham is the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz and is married to Brooklyn Beckham.

Nicola Peltz Beckham's directorial debut about a teen struggling to make ends meet in middle America is getting lambasted by critics.

"Lola," released in limited theaters on February 9, is written and directed by Peltz Beckham, who plays the titular character.

The coming-of-age indie film centers on a 19-year-old girl named Lola James who works at a drugstore and a strip club in hopes of saving up enough money to get her and her younger brother Arlo (Luke David Blumm) out of the home they share with their toxic mom.

Peltz Beckham's own upbringing is a far cry from Lola's. She's the daughter of businessman Nelson Peltz , whose estimated net worth is $1.5 billion. She's also married to Brooklyn Beckham, David and Victoria Beckham's eldest child. The couple wed in a lavish oceanfront wedding in Palm Beach in 2022 that reportedly cost $3 million and featured 500 guests including celebrities like Venus and Serena Williams.

Peltz Beckham, who's been acting since she was 12 , is best known for her roles in "Transformers: Age of Extinction" and "Bates Motel." She previously told WWD that she wrote the initial script six years ago when she was 23 over the course of three days. The character Arlo is inspired by her godson, and Lola's best friend Babina (Raven Goodwin) is based on Peltz Beckham's real-life friend Angela. Her brother Will Peltz has a role as a member of a Narcotics Anonymous group, while she revealed that her husband Brooklyn was cut from the movie because he botched his only line and kept staring directly at the camera.

Although "Lola" was released two months ago, the movie has become a topic of renewed discussion following a scathing review published by The Guardian on Friday that referred to it as a "vanity project."

In the review, writer Kady Ruth Ashcraft said that the film is inundated with "underbaked, oftentimes harmful tropes — the supportive Black best friend, a queer child meeting an unceremonious death, the virginal stripper saved by motherhood, a hypocritical Christian drunk."

Related stories

Ashcraft added that the movie feels exploitative of sex work and queer suffering.

"Peltz Beckham did achieve something with Lola: it's called 'poverty porn,' and in film, that means the exploitation of the conditions of poverty for entertainment and artistic recognition," Ashcraft wrote.

The criticism is even sharper when the heavy subject material is conceptualized and helmed by someone of a vastly different class.

"What makes Lola such a flagrant example of poverty porn is just how careless the project feels in the context of Peltz Beckham's exceptionally lavish life," Ashcraft wrote.

Ashcraft wasn't the only critic to call out the film.

"It's not a law that directors making slice-of-life flicks must be personally familiar with the material they are depicting, but before even watching 'Lola,' the disconnect between the dead-end world the film takes place in and Peltz Beckham's background stands out as jarring," Andrew Burton wrote for Spectrum Culture . "One can't help but feel that the project is doomed from the get-go because it is conceptually untenable."

Ayeen Forootan of In Review Online described "Lola" as a "poorly scripted and stereotypically melodramatic story," but praised the visual design of the film.

Peltz Beckham acknowledged the disconnect between her life and that of her character during her WWD interview, saying that she "did not grow up like Lola at all," but she still wanted to write a story from a perspective different from her own.

Business Insider reached out to Peltz Beckham and the film's distributor Vertical Entertainment, but did not receive a response.

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Movie Review: ‘Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ amps up a true-tale WWII heist

This image released by Lionsgate shows Alex Pettyfer, Alan Ritchson, Henry Cavill, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, and Henry Golding in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Henry Cavill in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Alan Ritchson in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Eiza Gonzalez in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Alex Pettyfer in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Babs Olusanmokun in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Danny Sapani in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Cary Elwes in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

This image released by Lionsgate shows Henry Golding in a scene from the film “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” (Daniel Smith/Lionsgate via AP)

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The latest Guy Ritchie flick “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” has a spine of true story to it, even if it does all it can to amplify a long-declassified World War II tale with enough dead Nazis to make “Inglourious Basterds” blush.

The result is a jauntily entertaining film but also an awkward fusion. Ritchie’s film, which opens in theaters Friday, takes the increasingly prolific director’s fondness for swaggering, exploitation-style ultraviolence and applies it to a real-life stealth mission that would have been thrilling enough if it had been told with a little historical accuracy.

In 2016, documents were declassified that detailed Operation Postmaster, during which a small group of British special operatives sailed to the West African island of Fernando Po, then a Spanish colony, in the Gulf of Guinea. Spain was then neutral in the war, which made the Churchill-approved gambit audacious. In January 1942, they snuck into the port and sailed off with several ships — including the Italian merchant vessel Duchessa d’Aosta — that were potentially being used in Atlantic warfare.

Sounds like a pretty good movie, right? The story even features James Bond author Ian Fleming, giving it more than enough grist for a WWII whopper. “Operation Postmaster” makes for a better title, too, than the ungainly “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” Ritchie, however, already has an operation — last year’s “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre” — in his filmography.

Ritchie, who turned Sherlock Holmes into a bulked-up action star, has always preferred to beef up his movies. It’s a less-noted side effect of the superhero era that regular ol’ heroes have been supersized, too, as if human-sized endeavors aren’t quite enough anymore. And “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” in which a handful of operatives kill approximately a thousand Nazis, has a fine, brawny duo in Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson.

In the movie’s opening scene, they’re relaxing on a small ship in the Atlantic when Germans rush aboard. After a few laughs and a Nazi monologue that plays like a poor man’s version of Christoph Waltz’s masterful oration in “Inglourious Basterds,” the duo makes quick mincemeat of them, leaving blood splattered across the henley shirt of Anders Lassen (Ritchson, a charming standout).

Not much has changed in Ritchie-land, though he’s swapped tweed for skintight tees and cable-knit sweaters in a rollicking high-seas adventure. As in the director’s previous movies, everyone — and, as before, nearly all male — seems to be having a good time. Likewise, Ritchie revels in his characters’ debonair nonchalance while meting out all manner of savagery.

The assembled group of operatives are said to be delinquents and misfits, though they steadfastly adhere to the polite manners of past Ritchie protagonists. They may kill with bloodthirsty impunity but what really matters is upholding an old-school sense of style. When the undercover agents Marjorie Stewart (Eiza González, who silkily cuts like a knife through the film) and Mr. Heron (Babs Olusanmokun, excellent) ride a Nazi-controlled train on their way to Fernando Po, they look in disgust at the German sausages they’re served. Later, someone will say, “I hate Nazis not because they’re Nazis but because they’re so gauche.”

And in proficiently staged set pieces, Ritchie makes his own case for a bit of class. As a journeyman filmmaker now pumping out a movie a year, he’s in many ways grown to be a more complete director. He’s adept at giving the many members of his large ensemble moments to shine — including Henry Golding, Alex Pettyfer, Cary Elwes, Freddie Fox as Fleming, Til Schweiger as a barbaric Nazi and Rory Kinnear as Churchill.

And once the film — based on the nonfiction book by Damien Lewis — settles into a seedy, sunny West African setting and the nighttime heist finale, “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” proves a spirited, if grossly exaggerated diversion.

“The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare,” a Lionsgate release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong violence throughout and some language. Running time: 92 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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Screen Rant

Ministry of ungentlemanly warfare reviews mostly praise alan ritchson & henry cavill wwii movie.

Reviews are in for the The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, Guy Ritchie’s new World War II movie that stars Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson.

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• Reviews for The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare are mostly positive, though somewhat lukewarm.
• Cast members like Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson are frequently cited as high points.
• It's not Guy Ritchie's best movie and it lacks tension, but it's a generally fun viewing experience.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare reviews are now making their way online, with critics mostly praising the new Guy Ritchie film. Based on a book by Damien Lewis, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is based on real events and people, chronicling the first British black ops team during World War II. The film stars Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Eiza Gonzáles, Cary Elwes, Henry Golding, and Alex Pettyfer, among others, following an elite team of soldiers who go behind enemy lines to disrupt the Nazi war effort.

Ahead of The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare release date , critics' reviews for the film have been released online. The response thus far has been generally positive, though it doesn't seem to be one of Ritchie's best. In her review for Screen Rant , Molly Freeman writes that " sequences of brutal Nazi-killing are what make the movie entertaining ," but the film's basis in real history did sometimes feel like a burden. William Bibbiani writes in his review for The Wrap that Ritchie " strikes a fine, fun balance between the threat that the Nazis posed and the thrill of watching hunky heroes slaughter them at great length ."

What Else Critics Are Saying About The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The new guy ritchie movie sounds like a lot of fun.

A common sentiment in the reviews is that The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare 's cast is one of its greatest strengths . In his review for CinemaBlend , Mike Reyes praises Cavill and Ritchson's dynamic, in particular, writing that they " seem to be the pair nobody knew they needed before ." Jeremy Mathai, in his review for SlashFilm , calls Ritchson the movie's " runaway MVP ," singling out the joy of watching the Reacher actor " massacring bad guys with little more than his bulging muscles. " Mathai ultimately only awards the film a five out 10, however, calling it " fun, yet forgettable ."

In his review for THR , David Rooney is also somewhat lukewarm on the film, taking issue with the lack of any real tension. The proficiency of the main team and the bumbling Nazis means that " maneuvers that should be nail-biters look like a piece of cake ," he writes. Peter Debruge agrees with this sentiment about the lack of tension in his review for Variety , though he writes that " Instead of suspense, audiences feel a sense of delight in watching them succeed, no matter the setback ."

The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare Is Continuing A Bizarre 5-Year Guy Ritchie Streak

In his review for IndieWire , David Ehrlich also praises the movie's willingness to depart from historical fact, writing that it " makes Inglourious Basterds feel like a Ken Burns documentary by comparison ." He also, however, criticizes the third act for being " so underlit that it becomes numbingly hard to tell...what our heroes are doing ." Lyvie Scott of Inverse writes that, for better or worse, the film " feels like a mishmash of Ritchie’s greatest hits ." While evidently not without flaw, those looking to watch The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare seem to be in for a fun experience.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a World War II film following a top-secret combat unit who were formed by Winston Churchill to hunt down Nazis. The film is directed by Guy Ritchie and based on the book The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops by Damien Lewis.

Review: ‘Home Alone’ with fangs, ‘Abigail’ is a comedy that goes violently wrong for kidnappers

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The filmmaking team known as Radio Silence, made up of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, plus producer Chad Villella, struck black (comedy) gold with their 2019 horror-thriller “Ready or Not,” about a young bride, played by Samara Weaving, who has to battle her way out of a murderous game hosted by her wealthy soon-to-be in-laws. The film demonstrated their mastery of coupling an irreverent tone with splashy violence, and netted the team the responsibility of making the next two “Scream” movies, the first without Wes Craven behind the camera.

With their latest feature, “Abigail,” Universal gets into the Radio Silence business, hoping that their brand of female-driven horror can pay big dividends at the box office (and birth a franchise?). With a script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, who co-wrote “Ready or Not,” Radio Silence have delivered what is essentially a spiritual sequel to their breakout hit, this time with vampires rather than superstitious old-money sadists, and starring “Scream” queen Melissa Barrera.

Once again, the setting is an old creepy mansion filled with taxidermy and firelight. Once again, our heroine is a steely, scrappy young woman who has a single vice — Weaving’s Grace had a penchant for cigarettes; Barrera’s Joey gobbles hard candy. And once again, a group has been assembled in this isolated location and given a task to be completed within a set amount of time.

In “Abigail,” the group is a band of sarcastic kidnappers who have been hired to snatch and then guard Abigail (Alisha Weir), the 12-year-old daughter of a rich and powerful man. Their boss, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), gives them nicknames for anonymity — “Joey,” “Frank” (Dan Stevens), “Sammy” (Kathryn Newton), “Dean” (Angus Cloud), “Peter” (Kevin Durand) and “Don Rickles” (Will Catlett) — then bids goodbye to his “pack of rats.” They assume they’ll drink the night away with their hostage in the other room and collect their fee, but innocent Abigail is much more than meets the eye. She mournfully informs her keeper Joey that she’s sorry for what’s about to happen to them.

If you’ve seen the trailers, you already know that tiny ballerina Abigail is a ferociously terrifying vampire who starts to hunt and feast on each kidnapper. “I like to play with my food,” she taunts, baring rows of sharpened, yellowed teeth. Weir, who starred in “Matilda the Musical,” cheerfully chomps into this role, which requires tremendous physicality, blending ballet and brutal brawls, and she’s riveting, but also quite funny. There’s a grand tradition of terrible little girls in horror, from “The Bad Seed” to “The Exorcist,” and we can easily add “Abigail” to that canon.

The rest of the ensemble also capably pirouettes from jokes to terror, led by Stevens, sporting aviators and a Queens accent as the shifty, untrustworthy Frank. Newton has appeared in her fair share of horror flicks, always flirting with the monstrous side. Durand leans into his French-Canadian roots playing a Quebeçois muscle man who’s more brawn than brains. But Barrera holds the center as the savvy Joey, whose rare vulnerability is her sympathy for kids.

There’s a parent-child theme that doesn’t so much as simmer below the surface as drive the plot along, both Abigail and Joey finding something in each other that they lack. There’s not much subtext, everything remains on the surface, and the exceptionally wordy script relies on exposition dumps to inform the audience about rumors, twists, deals and double-crosses. The characters chatter and prattle about vampire lore and Anne Rice, “True Blood,” “Twilight” and “Nosferatu.”

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Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have a gleefully maximalist horror style. The blood is dark and sticky; it doesn’t just spurt, it geysers, projects and splatters. Bodies burst like water balloons under pressure, goopy viscera raining from wall to wall. It’s uniquely them, but they pay homage to the greats: Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark,” the leaping vampires of “Blade” and an oblique script reference to the 1936 film “Dracula’s Daughter,” which offers a layered double meaning to the film.

“Abigail” is at times a bit too flippant, over-the-top and even protracted in its ridiculous Grand Guignol of exploding “meat sacks,” but it’s very much in line with the unique Radio Silence sensibility, en vogue with audiences right now.

The highlight of these films, from “Ready or Not” to “Scream” to “Abigail,” is their ability to tap into an emotional zeitgeist via their working-class heroines, who capture the mood of the moment. Like Grace, and Barrera’s character Sam in “Scream,” Joey is weary and hardened by the world but determined to survive, to make it through the day. Bloodied and battered, she manages to find a shred of solace in this godforsaken world, and that makes her the kind of final girl we can believe in.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'Abigail'

Rating: R, for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language and brief drug use Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes Playing: In wide release Friday, April 19

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All You Need Is Death review – Irish horror finds evil in taboo folk ballad recording

The story of two historians unleashing evil while recording a song is a strong idea and there are good moments and performances, but it is too chaotic and unfocused to resonate

P aul Duane is the film-maker who in 2011 made Barbaric Genius , a gripping documentary portrait of ex-convict, ex-vagrant and tournament chess player John Healy, whose memoir The Grass Arena is a classic of outsider art literature. Now Duane has given us this horror film which, though it begins with interesting subversive and satirical ideas, and an interesting allusion to Guillermo del Toro, finally becomes, for me, simply too chaotic, strained and unfocused.

Anna (Simone Collins) and Aleks (Charlie Maher) are social historians who travel around remote rural pubs in Ireland , recording folk ballads; they become fascinated by rumours of an old woman who lives thereabouts who can sing a thousand-year-old song, taught over generations from mother to daughter, which has never been recorded or transcribed on paper. Asking questions about her makes locals suspicious; Anna and Aleks assure one man that they are not journalists or interested in anything “political”, but he replies darkly: “There’s nothing that’s not political …”

He’s right. The act of recording an Indigenous or vernacular culture for outsider consumption – and thereby encouraging outsider interest and intervention – has social and political implications. But for them, the implications go further. The song is taboo, setting it down is a transgression, and uncovering this tortured folk ballad of ageless pain and rage has summoned up forces of evil. It is a good idea and there are good moments in the film, especially at the very beginning when Anna and Aleks have a bizarre encounter with the old woman herself, Rita Concannon, strikingly played by Olwen Fouéré. But then things begin to slide. There are however some resonant ideas here.

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