Stephen King took 1,138 pages to tell the story of “It,” his 1986 horror classic about an evil clown called Pennywise who torments a group of children in Maine. But director Andy Muschietti always seems pressed for time, both in his 2017 adaptation of the first quarter or so of “It” and now in this far more expansive sequel, which runs nearly three hours.
“It Chapter Two” is a much grander project than the first film, for it encompasses the main characters as both children and adults. The main problem with the initial movie was that Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise was too much a special effect and too little a taunting and evil human in clown makeup, but in “It Chapter Two,” Skarsgård is allowed to make much more of a contribution.