This is the updated 2017 live-action adaptation of Stephen King's novel, It, directed by Andy Muschietti. The movie is subtitled Chapter 1, as it is the first of two movies one which will focus on the members of the "Loser's Club" as kids, and the second one which focuses on them as adults (much like what was done in the 1990s miniseries. This, as you would expect, is the movie that tells the story of the heroes as 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 scarier than I remember the mini-series being, but that makes sense given that this is a movie and the mini-series aired on broadcast television. 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.
