It (Blu-ray)

This is the updated 2017 live-action adaptation of Stephen King's novel, It, directed by Andy Muschietti. This is the first of two movies and is set in the late 1980s when the heroes are kids.The movie stars Jaeden Lieberher as the main protagonist Bill Denbrough, whose brother Georgie is killed by a monster at the beginning of the movie, setting Bill on a quest for revenge, and Bill Skarsgard as It/Pennywise, the ancient evil that terrorizes the town of Derry Maine every 27 years. The rest of the main cast includes Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Nicholas Hamilton.There are several differences between the movie and the book, one of the main differences being that the Children's part of the story is set in the late 1980s as opposed to the 1950s. Also, the book jumps back and forth between the story with the group as kids and as adults, which makes it very hard to follow, so the movie is much more streamlined in the storytelling. And, even by splitting the story into two movies, they could not include every element that was included in the book, so there are parts of the story that the movie takes out. The book has a lot of exposition and backstory that is honestly not needed in the movie, so I do not think anything that is left out of the movie is really missed. And, the movie does change the most controversial part of the book from something that could never be filmed to something that could.For those who get the 4K set, there are two discs, the UHD disc with just the movie itself, and the regular blu-ray which has the movie and the extra. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is fine, but not great. The movie was shot in 2k, so it is upscaled to 4k, and honestly does not look much different than the video quality of the regular blu-ray. The extras include trailers, about 15 minutes of deleted scenes, and three different behind-the-scenes featurettes, one on Pennywise, one on the cast of kids, and then one in which Stephen King is interviewed about this latest adaptation of the book.Overall, the movie is very good. It is still not overly gory, but it does get a bit gory toward the end. Still, it is more of a psychological thriller than a blood-and-guts horror movie. The acting is very good, which given the cast was made up of young, mostly unknown actors (Finn Wolfhard was probably the most well-known of the child actors), is kind of surprising. Bill Skarsgard is great as Pennywise, who is definitely the main attraction. He can switch from innocent, to creepy, to scary at the drop of a hat. Even if you are not a huge fan of the book, this is still worth watching, as it is one of the few times where I have found a movie to be better and more entertaining than the book. It is definitely a must-watch if you like horror movies.

Read the book when it came out in 1986 and reread it prior to watching this movie. Wise move by the producer & director to split the book into the kids' part (this movie) and the adult's part (coming out in 2019). In the book they are interwoven throughout the entire narrative. The book is 1,138 pages and obviously not all of this could be in the screenplays. The writer has to decide what is really essential to the plot and what is not, and how best to reveal the characters. The novel explores the characters and Derry itself in-depth, which is why it's so long, but also so good (this is my favorite of King's works and I've read just about all of them over the years, beginning with 'Salem's Lot). The writer and director made the decision to keep a fair amount from the novel; but, more controversial, to create a few completely new events not in the novel or previous movie that reveal character and push the plot forward. This new stuff is not the writer and director playing games; the new stuff fits very well and is true to spirit of the and the characters. At first surprised and then suspicious, I fairly quickly realized that this was the filmmakers' way of showing visually, quickly, what SK takes tens and hundreds of pages to get across. These events do their job well. The biggest chance they took was in how they brought this movie to a close, as it's very different from the novel. And I will be the first to say that what the filmmakers come up with for the climax and ending of this movie may actually be better than what SK actually wrote. So, kudos to them. My biggest complaint (perhaps disappointment is more apt) is the "shortening" of character, particularly for Stuttering Bill Denbrough and Richie Tozier. The actors do a great job with what they've been given, but what they were given has been so drastically reduced that these characters border on becoming flat. This is SO true for Ben and is my greatest complaint. Ben is probably, next to Bill, the most crucial and complex character among the kids. But the movie just makes him another kid who's a bit chunky. The surprise in the group is Beverly. The actress playing her, Sophia Lillis (sp?), is amazingly good at conveying emotions with a slight turn of the eyes, an upturned eyebrow, a frown, etc. And the camera work with her features this. In this version Beverly is the most complex and developed character. (By the way, SK develops ALL the kids in this depth in his novel, and as they are when they are adults. It's truly an amazing book.). The director (and writer) decided to move in this shortened-character direction, but I believe that with just a few additional scenes and some rewriting, both Bill and Ben could have been far more "fleshed" out. What this move is, is SK's IT cut way back, back, back, back to the essentials. yet without losing the flavor and spirit of the novel and keeping in the really crucial elements. We have to remember that a movie is not the book "acted" out. It's a completely different form, and the decisions made this time recognize this. The result is that along with "Stand By Me" and "The Green Mile" and possibly "Misery" (have not yet seen the Netflix version of "Gerald's Game" so cannot comment on this), this 2017 version of IT is a seriously good adaptation of Stephen King's most outstanding novel, and ranks with these movies in terms of quality film-making that faithfully adapts SK's work, without making a mess of the original material, turning it into a piece of crap that is mistakenly called a movie. (I'm looking at you, "Children of the Corn", and most others, but man, Children of the Corn, you SERIOUSLY suck!) Looking forward very much to Chapter Two, when the grown up kids return to Derry to take on IT for the last time.

The cast of the first movie came together so well. They had unbelievable on screen chemistry. This streamed flawlessly, I never have problems with that. And this movie is worth a watch. It's basically Stranger Things in Derry without El. I mean, the kids are just so good together, the actors period. I love the actors in the second one, I have no idea what happened between these movies to wreck the 2nd. A real shame, because this movie is amazing.

Definitely a scary movie but I wasn’t really scared for some reason. Maybe it’s all the clips I have already seen of the movie on YouTube shorts or insta. Love the characters! There acting is good. I’m not gonna lie though even though it’s a good movie I only give it a 4/5 because I was confused a few times during the film and some things didn’t really make sense to me. Definitely a classic though 🎈.