'It' is the popcorn movie audiences have been waiting for

The new adaptation of Stephen King's It takes great pains to create a world with no sympathetic adults, where our very charismatic young teen heroes are confronted daily with terror invoked by vicious bullies (which are, as they are in so many films of this ilk, wildly over the top) or from traditional adolescent social anxiety.

It is perhaps the great in-joke of this movie that these kids' life is already plenty scary before they begin to be stalked by a supernatural demon in the form of a clown that can seemingly create their own innermost fears by feeding off their subconscious.

It's a strange thing to call a film that centers on child abuse, abduction and murder as fun and yet that is precisely what this movie is. And it is also the movie that is the unlikely choice to answer the call to be the popcorn flick of the moment.

After a summer where the most dominant movies have long since petered out, the last several weeks have left American audiences starving for a distraction from real world chaos. And although It is also victim to the industry's need to turn every event picture into a commodifiable franchise (part two is already in development), it's smart, funny and entertaining enough to provide plenty of thrills for mainstream movie audiences.

While It isn't clever social commentary like Get Out or first class terror that will haunt your dreams like The Conjuring or It Follows, it is an unabashedly good movie and probably the best version of this particularly King story that we're ever likely to get.

The real stars of It

The story centers upon a cadre of self described losers -- six boys and one girl -- who each have their own particularly poignant backstories which make them vulnerable and interesting that most horror film protagonists. Finn Wolfhard (of Stranger Things fame) and Sophia Lillis in particular feel like little major stars in the making.

Although the movie looks great and eye for period detail (it's set in the late 1980s) are spot on, its the performances of these young actors that draw you in and help you get invested in the story, which is no small feat since if you're familiar with the source material (or the iconic 1990 TV miniseries), you know not all the much is at stake.

Audiences will be pleasantly surprised by how deeply funny this movie is and how sensitively the relationships between the kids (all admittedly playing 'types' is). At the same time, the movie does not skimp on the scares -- although they are more of the jump than psychological variety.

Actor Bill Skarsgard has a much tougher job. He has to both make the Pennywise the Clown character his own (after Tim Curry's memorable turn in '90) and make the it palatably scary to an audience that has been bombarded with far more repulsive monsters in recent years.

He manages to pull it off by walking the line between camp and truly scary, while being somewhat hamstrung by the constraints of the script (he spends much of the movie being a tease before he starts actually looking to take anyone out).

Unlike my favorite King adaptation (and movie, period) The Shining, this film is almost slavishly devoted to hewing to the original version's story beats. It might have been interesting if director Andy Muschietti played with our expectations more or injected more subtlety into the proceedings, but these are minor quibbles.

It has a great pace, some terrific effects and lots of heart.  This all contributes to a highly enjoyable piece of mainstream entertainment -- which could have easily have been a summer blockbuster -- but finds itself situated in a quiet fall where somehow the antics of an evil clown are able to provide catharsis from frightening real-world headlines that are anything but funny.