Boring and repetitive

So I finally got around to this one tonight after scrolling through Redbox and finding nothing else that looked worth watching.

I thought Chapter I was pretty good. Not great, but a solid movie experience. Chapter II, however, was kind of lame.

After the first 45 minutes or so I was settling in and thinking, "Okay, cool, this is going to be a lot of fun." But then the story goes off a cliff as the writer apparently forgot that a movie is supposed to have a plot not just at the beginning but all the way through. It really becomes quite repetitive and dull and by the end I had almost lost interest entirely.

I feel like Muschietti is a solid director who really understands production design and how to craft scenes that are visually compelling--some parts of this movie even had a Spielberg-esque quality to them--but he needs a good screenwriter to craft the story that he is supposed to bring to life.

So Chapter II isn't completely without merit, but all the positives can't overcome the weak narrative. All the technical skill in the world behind the camera, or a nice score, or attractive settings can't overcome a story that just isn't very interesting.