It: Chapters 1 and 2

Stephen King is fully aware of how ludicrous the ending to the first one was, so the running joke here is "don't get your hopes up; the ending's bad." So much so, that he even shows up to tell himself that!
"IT: Chapter 1" and "IT: Chapter 2" is an updated take on the most famous story involving a murderous clown terrorizing a sleepy Maine town, and boy does it deliver where the 1990s TV mini-series couldn't.

Chapter 1 brings us the same quality of kid actors from the old version, but now transplanted to when most of the viewing audience were kids, the late 1980s! With that shift in time, comes a shift in the dynamics of the kids, expanding on the pre-established lovable quirks and maximizing our connection to these kids as they struggle through the troubles of life along with the troubles of a menacingly playful, shape-shifting horror hellbent on marinating its victims in fear.  The chemistry between them is as palpable as it's reminiscent of the chemistry between the kids from "Stranger Things" (funny how "It" influences "Stranger Things" and then it loops back to the other way around), and that means that the mouthy kids can argue and riff with each other with the best of em, sticking together despite their playful jabs at each other. Furthermore, the non-supernatural threats the kids have to go through have been updated as well. Between adults that don't care about a kid's physical or emotional state, petty girls who listen to will harass who because of gossip, bullies who actually want to do lasting damage now, and parents who vary between creepily obsessive, massively overbearing, and simply blind to the truth, the pale, lanky, and toothy clown is almost the least of their worries.
Almost.
While not as delightfully hammy as Tim Curry's version, Bill Skarsgård manages to have a menacing presence, with a tone of voice feigning playfulness, the CG manages to morph his body into unnerving, unnatural shapes, bringing a new level of imaginative scaring.  The haunted house scene captures a lot of the classic haunted house scares with the added bonus of reality being whatever the demented boggart-like creature wants it to be. 

Chapter 2 now features the wildly successful adults the kids grew into, but now they're a little more haunted by a past they can't fully grasp. The call comes in from their Nick Fury and while reluctant, they get there, eager to reclaim their lost memories and possibly vanquish a lingering evil from beyond the stars.
YES, THIS THING'S AN ALIEN!
Thanks to actually paying attention to the book now, the film makes a big deal on the origins of the evil clown and the attempts from early people in taking it out. This leads to the adults going on a fetchquest for personal items during a mini timeskip during that summer in Chapter 1, leading to more golden scenes with the kid actors going through their own brief run-ins with the mind-bending malevolence. When it actually comes down to the climactic showdown though, IT has already done a number on our protagonists, messing with them emotionally by making a dark echo of a past trauma, forcing them to re-evaluate their choices in life, and sometimes, just siccing a mental patient on them like some avatar of its demented will to kill them with stabbings; the exhausted club of former losers then face the shape-shifting nightmare anew, with the ridiculous thing taking on more and more extreme weirdness to mess with them. Ultimately though, it is defeated in almost as ridiculous a manner as it was in the 1990 version, which I can't tell if that makes the remake any better or worse.

Overall, a roughly 5 hour story that'll mess with your mind as much as any "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Inception" ever will, but at least that's shorter than the runtime of the audiobook (which according to a brave source is only 9 hours less than the entirety of the Lord of the Rings audiobook), and it's a better adaptation than the 1990 version by a long shot. While the old has a delightfully hammy charm to it, the remakes at least do their darnedest to try and take itself seriously. Whether or not IT succeeds is a matter of personal preference I suppose.

No sillier way of weakening a cosmic horror from beyond the stars than insulting it into a sad little puddle...unless you consider silver earrings being used as slingshot ammo.

For a creative overview from a fellow movie-reviewing friend that lists three pros and three cons for the first one, please go here.
For a creative overview from a fellow movie-reviewing friend on the 2nd one, go here.