The Flash

If I could travel through time I know precisely where I'd go. I'd find the name of the Captain who found the secret ocean hideaway of the eels, and discover a way to steer his ship off course, before the fateful day when he ecstatically fractured.

Before then, eels had a great thing going on, who would have guessed anyone would ever find them, far off in the middle of the ocean, their realm safe for thousands of millennia (it's technically more like salmon if I remember correctly, they return to a spot in the Atlantic every year where they breed, and then head out once again). 

However, the Flash discovers he can travel through time in a recent film bearing his name, and after he voyages to the past to save his mom, the world he once knew is changed forever.

Not technically changed forever, he can continue to travel through time to fix it, but it's kind of like the Kurtwood Smith two part episode of Star Trek: Voyager, Year of Hell, you can constantly alter time, but never find a perfect match for what you once knew (it's a cool episode).

It's also kind of like Marvel's Spider-Man: No Way Home where the different franchises merge as one, as the Flash enters an alternate reality where Michael Keaton still plays Batman.

For those of us who are rather annoyed when studios find new actors to play familiar characters, rather than sticking with the favourites their fans know and love, this mélange is quite intriguing, or at least it is to me anyways. 

Perhaps in an alternate timeline eels themselves have superpowers, and are capable of breathing on land, a defensive armada sinking any ship which approaches their lair!

With the Flash D.C takes on the Multiverse as well in death-defying multilateral fashion, as they also did in Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Star Trek: The Next Generation's Parallels.

I've started to wonder about stray thoughts about the bizarro contemplations that occur from time to time, it's okay because they're just random thoughts right?, but what if they exist in another dimension!?

Contemporary science seems a long ways off from definitively answering that question, although I have stumbled upon another cool book idea, without ever having meant to do so.

Are coincidences like The Flash's special moments which occur regardless in every single timeline, a point that doesn't make much sense when logically scrutinized, especially considering intuitive mutation.

The multiverse makes for compelling fiction nevertheless disputed points harnessing its synthetic prowess.

To narrativize exponentially.

Without losing limitless oceanic sights.  

*I actually had two coincidences on a walk today. I was thinking about how it was nice to see a fisher last year, but how I would have rather seen chipmunks and red squirrels regularly (they were absent from the forest for much of the year). Then I suddenly saw a red squirrel, which was cool. Around here I don't see them that often. Then I was thinking about making a smoothie and my thoughts strayed to ye olde Booster Juice. After which I immediately saw a Booster Juice bottle on the path. I was surprised, arrived home, made a smoothie.

It - Chapter Two

A disturbed slumber, 27 years of rest woebegone, sedate irascibility, contumely comas, hellbent on dispensing despotic discontent, extremely confident of his monstrous prowess, as the virtuous gather, somewhat unsure of their deadly purpose, most of their lives having briskly moved on, careers and love, duty and responsibility, adulthood, maturity, they've forgotten what once fiercely threatened them, although one remained staunch and vigilant, conducting devout immersed freelance research, constructing a strategy to fight round 2, sure and steady, carrying on, assured and brave unwavering commitment, adroitly aware confined productive obsession.

He makes the calls.

They are awkwardly heeded.

But with what seems like miraculous good fortune, they return to Derry minus one, the details of their trauma somewhat hazy, a refresher dynastically awaiting.

Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa/Chosen Jacobs) believes he's discovered the secret to defeating Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), but it's complicated if not unnerving.

After visiting local First Nations, who have known of Pennywise since time immemorial, he discovered that they each must locate something personal, they'll just know it when they see it, and that each of these personalized items must then be burned together as one, within a cavern deep below ground, to which the beast will be immediately summoned.

But Pennywise has thought of little else over the years, throughout the tormenting intervening period, and is ready to plague them with fear, as they set out in search of nostalgic essentials.

Alone.

Even though the errors of proceeding individually are pointed out, Hanlon states that the ritual requires personalized sleuthing, Pennywise conscious of their adversarial intent, and everything else that they're blindly thinking.

If you saw the made-for-tv version of It as a child, you can't miss the new cinematic enterprise, which supplies fresh hearty chilling frights, and a corresponding sense of unease.

The narrative's compact, it focuses almost entirely on the adults who defeated Pennywise as children, or were psychologically enslaved by him, there's no police or community at large, just a monster and its courageous foes.

Even though it's 2 hours and 49 minutes long, it still unreels with startling brevity, the wayward adults returning to Derry rapidly, leaving work etc. behind far too quickly.

Except for Mrs. Marsh (Jessica Chastain/Sophia Lillis), who needs to get the *&#* out of there.

The scenes are kind of hokey, passing too abruptly to nurture the genuine.

They each encounter Pennywise again, however, on their own, and these scenes are more lengthy and convincing, the film less concerned with matters beyond the terrifying world of Derry, a tight knit group keeping things crisp, shipshape.

The hasty returns, individual pursuits, and lack of community-at-large involvement, make It - Chapter Two seem a bit slapdash, scary and morbid yet slapdash, especially since each character must accomplish a difficult task after suddenly finding themselves in a frightening inhospitable world they left long ago, and they all succeed while only suffering slight mental distress.

But if the realism isn't going to cut it, or will at least only lead to banal shocks, the ridiculous can indeed be relied upon, fantastic excess outwitting routine expectations.

If horror films are supposed to leave you feeling ill afterwards, It - Chapter Two is a blunt success.

Even if it's kind of corny.

And the Henry Bowers (Teach Grant/Nicholas Hamilton) subplot doesn't add much.

It

Plagued by an ingratiating ravenous monstrosity, a team of creative outcasts struggles to envision.

It preys upon them in isolation, shockingly manifesting their most potent fears in trepidatious real-time after they've been discovered alone.

Or at least passing by unnoticed, adults being immune to the clown's pestiferous ploys, and unable to assist their young as they struggle to outwit vicious appetite.

Yet one boy (Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough) boldly decides he will not yield and convinces the others to affirm contention.

Thereby emerging as leader.

Having realized they are stronger if they resolutely unite as one, they set out in search of conflict, whether engaging with the malevolent Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård), their parents, or other unhelpful adults, things are bleak, castigating apprehensions woebegone, they eventually strike with vehement poise.

Umbilical.

They mustn't be afraid you see, and contending as a group helps them face then overcome their fears, Pennywise functioning as the haunting prospect of a spoiled unproductive lonely maladjusted youth, it doesn't necessarily kill them but transforms them into mature horrors, mired in a revolving stasis, the sought after younglings organized in It, finding friendship like an antidote to venom.

Articulate idiosyncrasies.

Improvised bedlam.

It's unconcerned restrained yet volatile examination of unsung heroism shyly elevates the versatility of teamwork while cohesively combatting bullying and rumour.

It's a matter of timing, strategizing, envisioning, coordinating, communicating, adjusting, adapting.

The film mechanically delivers some solid frights while still developing young adult character and plot without overemphasizing the grotesque or understating childhood trauma.

All around bad, being a kid in It's filmscape.

That is one crappy fictional town.