More than two years after I saw the two big characters "chapter one" pop up at the end of "The Clown's Soul" at the end, I chose to watch this "chapter two" due to various reasons until the eve of the Chinese New Year in 2020. As a fan of the first part, I felt a little disappointed after reading this orthodox sequel and final chapter. I can only say that this second chapter is barely qualified.
On the one hand, I still remember the story of the protagonist and his party in the last episode, and I am satisfied to continue to see their childhood and future adventures continue on the big screen; but on the other hand, I will gradually see the director's transformation into the film. After the brushwork spread out step by step for the various events in the book, it gradually lost the sense of satisfaction at the beginning and began to become impatient.
Thinking about the hardware elements that the first film should have, this second episode actually has it, and it seems to have been strengthened in all aspects. The theme of this film is also continued and fully expanded from the previous film. The core of this film is to overcome inner fear. This film is quite satisfactory in terms of storytelling, and there is nothing to say. The main problem is still in the way of performance - the director probably doesn't quite understand the reason for the success of the first episode and the reason why it is too much.
It was the first first trial, which made bold structural adaptations and adjustments to the original novel. As a result, both the quality of the film and the box office achieved great success. This time, the director obviously wanted to restore the entire original work as much as possible while continuing the style of the first movie. The investors and producers obviously relaxed their interference in the director's creation due to the success of the first movie. This time they let the director go too far. Although the film is still a big hit at the box office, the general perception of "it" by many people, including myself, is very different from the first episode.
The overall tonality of this film is controlled very loosely and casually by the director. The cutscenes are drowsy, and some of the small climaxes are somewhat inexplicable and meaningless. Different from the previous high-efficiency and rigorous script that progresses on top of the plot at the same time, this time the story with the structure of total points is obviously a little verbose and scattered, and the emotional conflicts and decisions of the characters in the play are also very important. It's hard to empathize with the audience like the first one.
Anders Muschietti, as a horror director, may have been too concerned with the "jump scares" of the first episode that made him happy. It's true that people go to Joker because it's a horror movie, but people love it and give it good reviews, not just because it's a pure horror movie - it's because IT It's Stephen King's story, "lT" is about growth, friendship, about choices, about emotions, about memories, inspections, and confronting inner fears. In the first part, the distribution of these elements is still balanced, but in the second chapter, the director focused too much on showing the audience's inner fear, and in the end most of the results only gave us a visual Superficial fear and physical discomfort.
But there is one point that cannot be ignored: although the performance of the actors in this film is not bad, and the appearance and temperament of the adult group and the youth group casting are very similar, compared with the first film about pure youth friendship and youth adventure, The audience will naturally feel that the second episode mainly focuses on the adventure stories of middle-aged people. The sense of substitution and the degree of favor is reduced, and this is probably the result of the director and screenwriter's splitting and composing the original novel (although this episode also has childhood memories, but the original "" It is based on the simultaneous advancement of the two storylines of the protagonist's adulthood and childhood as a narrative technique, which is very different from the way the movie treats the childhood and adulthood of each character separately into two different independent chapters). Such a fragmented adaptation of the original work seems to have been doomed from the very beginning to the two films of "The Clown's Soul 1 and 2". The story positioning of the two films is different, and the base point of the brothers' judgment is one in the sky and one in the ground.
But even with congenital disadvantages, this second episode does have acquired shortcomings. For example, it can be clearly seen that this script is not as well-organized as the first in terms of polishing and creation. After a sneak check, there was Kerry Fuyong in the screenwriter of the first episode, but not in this second episode. In fact, if the work of this great god is not "It 1", I have only watched "True Detective Season 1" written and directed by him, but from this, I can get a glimpse of the leopard, at least I can feel that he is slow and steady in advancing the script. This is the case in "Joker's Soul 1". As for 2, it's a mess, and there is no strong and powerful main line to guide, some are just the life and childhood memories of each character's patchwork, lengthy literary drama, occasional bad taste and ending monsters . Although this film is nearly three hours long, in fact, after digging out some memories and unhelpful clips, the amount of information in the story may not be much higher than the previous one. How clever plot connection and boring character dialogue will have a considerable negative effect on the audience's understanding of the story and viewing experience.
Therefore, I can't really follow the plot after seeing it all the way, and all the fear, suspense and mystery accumulated in the last film about the clown are also accompanied by the black elder brother's straightforward explanatory dialogue, and with The style of this film is somewhat out of place, and the VR experience screen of the protagonist in the form of CG and the frequent occurrence of bad fun cult bridges have disappeared (although the shape and power of the final clown have doubled in the first episode, but to be honest with myself When I watched it, I didn’t have any turbulence in my heart), and in the end I didn’t think much about it. Anyway, I watched them play and it was over, but due to the lack of attention to the progress of the plot, empathy for the characters and smooth experience of watching the movie, even the The battle at the end was not as enjoyable as the brawl at the end of the first episode. I don't know how much Fukunaga contributed to the success of the last script, but from the chaos of the second episode, it should be possible to see it roughly.
It's not that this is a bad movie. As mentioned at the beginning, for those who liked the first movie, it is already satisfying to see their favorite stories and characters continue to be performed on the big screen. As a horror film, "Joker's Soul 2" is still in the middle, and the audio-visual effects of the film have also been greatly enhanced. Some of the cult novels are still eye-catching, and some of the transitions in different time and space in the film are also handled well. If you can make it to the end or wake up directly in the back, the ending battle is still very good in terms of special effects (just the logic is far-fetched and some drama), but the ending is very touching, it reminds me of another adaptation of Jin Ye The work "Walk with me" - that's right! After all, this is guaranteed by Stephen King's original novel! Thinking about it, this should be regarded as a big production among his many adaptations of film and television works in recent years, but unfortunately it cannot be a masterpiece among them (but "The Clown's Soul 1" is definitely considered). It's like a dish: the main ingredients, accessories and seasonings are all ready, but unfortunately the director in charge did not grasp the dosage this time, nor did he control the heat of the treatment, which made the final work of the finished product show a heavy taste. It is a pity to abandon it, it is really a pity.
What is different from the evaluation of the novels of the writer and the protagonist Bill in the movie is that if it is really strict, I personally feel that "Joker Returns 2" is not very good except for the beginning and the end. Although I am still willing to give this story a qualified score because I became a half "It" fan after reading the final chapter, a large part of this is actually based on my love for the first episode, and maybe it is because of this That's why I'm so hard on it, hoping it can maintain or even surpass the quality of the last episode, but when this work doesn't fully return the high hopes we had in it, some small flaws will become in our eyes It's possible to have an unfair evaluation of the whole movie because of a big problem, maybe... Although I have always tried my best to keep myself so-called objective and fair during the viewing of the movie, including the current rating process, but I finally I still feel tired of this "chapter two", and this feeling even retroactively affected my goodwill and impression of the first episode, which made me feel deeply sorry for this "Joker's Soul 2" .
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