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Set just days before Carpenter's Masterpiece, The Thing follows the exploits of the Norwegian camp a few miles away from Outpost 31.
The team of Nords and a handful of Americans discover what appears to be a crashed ship buried under 100,000 year old ice and nearby, an unidentifiable body too.
Digging up the body, they cart it back to base and try to take a skin sample...
... unwittingly though, they awaken the sleeping creature and all hell breaks loose and the team find themselves facing days of paranoia, fear, gore, horror and grand adventure as they become the first humans to come face to, erm, faces, with The Thing.
What could have been a fantastic build up and a mystery solver for fans of the original, sadly is just an excuse for CG gore, CG violence, CG fire, and CG monsters tearing people apart left right and center.
The movie does however excel in the paranoia stakes. The feelings of distrust in the main group are felt really very well and are an exceptionally good throwback to the original movie. However the well pieced together paranoia is thrown quickly to one side and forgotten about in favour of all out action and gore.
The rest of the film however, is simply badly written and tends rather to go for gory shocks and very little in the way of actual exposition in the storytelling. The main fault is the head cast member, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, automatically knowing exactly what the creature is before it's really even begun to do anything... and most of her explanatory dialogue has been lifted directly from the original film.
Now, ok, anyone watching will know, but surely there should maybe be something new added to the mix... or even some sort of discovery for the characters to go through. Sadly though, it's all explained so unbelieveably quickly by a character that has no knowledge of such a creature until now, that it reminded me of the badly written script of the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake.
Along with Winstead's lifted dialogue from the original movie, there are even a number of scenes that directly mirror the original, just to add that air of authentic-lack-of-imagination.
There's a few little hints of continuity though. Especially with some of the creature remains that are found in the original film but there are also however, some gaping continuity plotholes.
The acting is about the best part of the whole thing.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead does her best. She holds the poor script together really very well and carries the tension of the quieter scenes well too.
Joel Edgerton is also on form. Not top form, but he's there, and does a decent job.
Backup comes from Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewlae Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Jorgen Langhelle makes a likeable and memorable Norwegian.
The action and effects are really what the movie uses more than anything else and sadly, as I said, is mainly CG with only the odd hint of real puppetry and man-in-suit technology.
It's well rendered and highly glossy and flashy... but sadly, the lack of slime and snot gives the film a disappointing finish in terms of the fright factor.
It's just too fake really for The Thing.
The original soundtrack is used though, which gives a nice touch to proceedings.
The Thing
Set just days before Carpenter's Masterpiece, The Thing follows the exploits of the Norwegian camp a few miles away from Outpost 31.
The team of Nords and a handful of Americans discover what appears to be a crashed ship buried under 100,000 year old ice and nearby, an unidentifiable body too.
Digging up the body, they cart it back to base and try to take a skin sample...
... unwittingly though, they awaken the sleeping creature and all hell breaks loose and the team find themselves facing days of paranoia, fear, gore, horror and grand adventure as they become the first humans to come face to, erm, faces, with The Thing.
What could have been a fantastic build up and a mystery solver for fans of the original, sadly is just an excuse for CG gore, CG violence, CG fire, and CG monsters tearing people apart left right and center.
The movie does however excel in the paranoia stakes. The feelings of distrust in the main group are felt really very well and are an exceptionally good throwback to the original movie. However the well pieced together paranoia is thrown quickly to one side and forgotten about in favour of all out action and gore.
The rest of the film however, is simply badly written and tends rather to go for gory shocks and very little in the way of actual exposition in the storytelling. The main fault is the head cast member, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, automatically knowing exactly what the creature is before it's really even begun to do anything... and most of her explanatory dialogue has been lifted directly from the original film.
Now, ok, anyone watching will know, but surely there should maybe be something new added to the mix... or even some sort of discovery for the characters to go through. Sadly though, it's all explained so unbelieveably quickly by a character that has no knowledge of such a creature until now, that it reminded me of the badly written script of the A Nightmare On Elm Street remake.
Along with Winstead's lifted dialogue from the original movie, there are even a number of scenes that directly mirror the original, just to add that air of authentic-lack-of-imagination.
There's a few little hints of continuity though. Especially with some of the creature remains that are found in the original film but there are also however, some gaping continuity plotholes.
The acting is about the best part of the whole thing.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead does her best. She holds the poor script together really very well and carries the tension of the quieter scenes well too.
Joel Edgerton is also on form. Not top form, but he's there, and does a decent job.
Backup comes from Eric Christian Olsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewlae Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Jorgen Langhelle makes a likeable and memorable Norwegian.
The action and effects are really what the movie uses more than anything else and sadly, as I said, is mainly CG with only the odd hint of real puppetry and man-in-suit technology.
It's well rendered and highly glossy and flashy... but sadly, the lack of slime and snot gives the film a disappointing finish in terms of the fright factor.
It's just too fake really for The Thing.
The original soundtrack is used though, which gives a nice touch to proceedings.
---
All in all... a faux nostalgic film that falls flat on more than several occasions.
It's enjoyable as it is, but having it tied into the original film so tightly and yet also so loosely (because of the plotholes), it makes the whole thing feel like a remake rather than the loyal prequel it's desperately trying to be.
Would I recommend it though? Actually, only for one maybe two viewings.
My rating: 42%
All in all... a faux nostalgic film that falls flat on more than several occasions.
It's enjoyable as it is, but having it tied into the original film so tightly and yet also so loosely (because of the plotholes), it makes the whole thing feel like a remake rather than the loyal prequel it's desperately trying to be.
Would I recommend it though? Actually, only for one maybe two viewings.
My rating: 42%
