It: Bill Hader’s Richie Tozier Almost Saved Chapter 2
There’s not a lot about the Stephen King’s It sequel It: Chapter Two that works, but Bill Hader’s pitch-perfect take on adult Richie Tozier deserves to be spotlighted despite the adaptation’s broader failings. Like any Stephen King adaptation, 2019's It: Chapter Two can blame some of its shortcomings on its source material. Turning the author’s infamous doorstopper into a mainstream commercial movie was always going to be a tricky proposition, both because of the book’s Lovecraftian elements of cosmic horror and its shocking content.
However, while the source material is also imperfect, unlike 2017’s It, It: Chapter Two had a lot of problems that were not inherited from the original novel. For one thing, the sequel was painfully overlong, running almost three hours. For another, It: Chapter Two lacked focus, with the creators both eliding important story details and inexplicably choosing to focus on some less important elements of the plot, such as the pointless misadventures of Henry Bowers.
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Like a similarly overlong Stephen King adaptation, 2020’sThe Stand, the primary problem withIt: Chapter Two was the sequel’s inability to balance several intersecting stories and turn the tale into a cohesive whole. Where the 2017 movie made the teenage travails of Bev, Bill, Stanley, Mike, Eddie, and Richie into a compelling standalone story, 2019’s sequel bounced between flashbacks to their teen years and a reunion whose stakes, tone, and purpose was never fully clear. With so many problems inherent in its approach to storytelling, it is fair to say thatIt: Chapter Two set its impressive cast up for failure. However, actor Bill Hader’s soulful portrayal
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