IT (1990): Part 1

Well how else are we supposed to start September?

Now I will freely admit I've never seen this mini-series before, so I have no nostalgia or childhood fears from it, so how does the beginning chapter of this story hold up? It's okay, it's not amazing nor is it horrible, I mean it's a difficult task to adapt any body of fiction but Christ I would hate to be the director to bring a 1,000 page book to life. And I think because of that and plus the barely hour and a half runtime makes the story a little choppy and rushed throughout. Flashback is our main way of story telling cause we begin in Derry when all our protagonists are grown up and a slew of child murders has been going on leading Mike, the newest kid to the town start ringing up his old friends to tell them that a figure they've met before has returned. And I can safely I like all the performances from our adult and child actors, though I did notice the adult versions act more like kids than the actual kids, with Ben and Bill still being my favorite characters. True the flashbacks gets old but I understand the reason why they had to do it, and it gives the adult actors some real moments to shine as these memories they would sooner forget start creeping back into their minds. It's mostly just getting to know these characters in their daily lives dealing with this horrific stuff, and I can appreciate that character development but what you see is really what you get. But let's face it and just be real for a second, you watch this movie for Tim Curry. Don't lie to yourself, unless you are a hardcore Stephen King fan you pretty much come to see Tim Curry. And I hate to say it but he's not in it very much, to the point where I completely forgot there was a child eating clown in this movie which you would think would be highly difficult to forget, but it's true! He's barely in the first half, but I relished the time he had on screen. I know this is pretty much the single handed reason why people don't like clowns today, and I kinda hate this movie for that reason. I quite like clowns! They are entertainers and good company to be around, stop it. I'm sure Tim Curry would have scared me off my rocker when I was younger, but really anything could have scared me back then that was even just a tiny bit intimidating, so he doesn't freak me out. I found him funny in places but I can still see him as a threat, you can see the dread these kids feel at times and the scene where they resolve to deal with this entity is easily the best scene in I'm almost willing to say the whole mini-series. I think it's just the lack of music, the emotion Bill has which then gets supported by his friends is really damn good! I almost say watch it just for that scene. The music is nice, the direction has some nice shots here and there, the editing is a bit hokey but you can roll with it. I just kinda give it an average 6/10 for the first part, maybe the second will bring me more enjoyment since it'll be more payoff than build up so we shall see. I didn't go out to hate on the movie so don't wring my neck if you don't like the rating, I know this mini-series holds good ground with other people but it was just adequate to me and I say you should see it (ha ha ha....) at least once. Oh God please don't let the second part suck.....