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A team of researchers travels to a Norwegian research outpost in the Antarctic wilderness to investigate a shape-shifting alien only for it to break free after they arrive.
Original review found here.
Reading your old reviews can be a tough (if sometimes necessary) experience, and seeing how I originally wrote about 2011's The Thing after having revisited it for the first time since its release was an interesting experience. Originally conceived of as a direct remake of John Carpenter's iconic 1982 film of the same name, The Thing ultimately ended up being reconfigured as a prequel that traced the events leading up to two crazed Norwegians flying a helicopter into an American research station in order to kill a seemingly ordinary husky. The Americans in Carpenter's film investigate the Norwegians' station only to find it burnt-out and strewn with corpses, plus there's a conspicuously hollow block of ice. They eventually learn that this horrid tableau is the result of the Norwegians discovering a spaceship buried in the ice and excavating its occupant, which turns out to be a shape-shifting alien that consumes and imitates all other life forms it encounters (which naturally causes problems when it starts targeting the American station next). Van Heijningen's film aims to tell the story of what had happened at the Norwegian station when it was targeted by the creature better known as the Thing...but first, it's got to introduce a handful of token Americans who fly in to join the largely European (and conveniently English-speaking, with one especially inconvenient exception) ensemble already occupying the station.
Much has been made of how The Thing ultimately resorts to using CGI for its creature effects instead of repeating the original's iconic use of practical effects (though the filmmakers have claimed that their practical effects were replaced by CGI in post-production). While none of those effects have aged particularly well, I don't think bringing back the practical effects would solve enough of the film's issues to salvage it as a whole. In trying to both do right by its source while also providing something new, it ends up being unable to accomplish either goal. Tension and terror are attempted through excessively frantic pursuits that are rendered even more inert by an obtrusive score. The original's other foundational strength - that of the increasingly strained relationships between the characters as they start to suspect one another of being the Thing - is also undermined by an impatient approach that depends a little too much on an audience's familiarity with the original in skipping straight to recognisable story beats without giving the characters the time or the sufficiently effective shorthand storytelling needed to develop them beyond some extremely simplistic archetypes. Even when taking into account the ways in which this doesn't play like a hastily-retooled remake (primarily during the film's third act), it tends to raise further questions that not only plague this film but might retroactively affect its source. As such, I'm disappointed (though not overly so) that The Thing didn't hold up a second time around. It may do a good job of replicating every little detail it could from the original, but the focus on superficial replication over crafting substance or even just avoiding more contemporary horror clichés is definitely clear here.
#20 - The Thing
Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., 2011
Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., 2011
A team of researchers travels to a Norwegian research outpost in the Antarctic wilderness to investigate a shape-shifting alien only for it to break free after they arrive.
Original review found here.
Reading your old reviews can be a tough (if sometimes necessary) experience, and seeing how I originally wrote about 2011's The Thing after having revisited it for the first time since its release was an interesting experience. Originally conceived of as a direct remake of John Carpenter's iconic 1982 film of the same name, The Thing ultimately ended up being reconfigured as a prequel that traced the events leading up to two crazed Norwegians flying a helicopter into an American research station in order to kill a seemingly ordinary husky. The Americans in Carpenter's film investigate the Norwegians' station only to find it burnt-out and strewn with corpses, plus there's a conspicuously hollow block of ice. They eventually learn that this horrid tableau is the result of the Norwegians discovering a spaceship buried in the ice and excavating its occupant, which turns out to be a shape-shifting alien that consumes and imitates all other life forms it encounters (which naturally causes problems when it starts targeting the American station next). Van Heijningen's film aims to tell the story of what had happened at the Norwegian station when it was targeted by the creature better known as the Thing...but first, it's got to introduce a handful of token Americans who fly in to join the largely European (and conveniently English-speaking, with one especially inconvenient exception) ensemble already occupying the station.
Much has been made of how The Thing ultimately resorts to using CGI for its creature effects instead of repeating the original's iconic use of practical effects (though the filmmakers have claimed that their practical effects were replaced by CGI in post-production). While none of those effects have aged particularly well, I don't think bringing back the practical effects would solve enough of the film's issues to salvage it as a whole. In trying to both do right by its source while also providing something new, it ends up being unable to accomplish either goal. Tension and terror are attempted through excessively frantic pursuits that are rendered even more inert by an obtrusive score. The original's other foundational strength - that of the increasingly strained relationships between the characters as they start to suspect one another of being the Thing - is also undermined by an impatient approach that depends a little too much on an audience's familiarity with the original in skipping straight to recognisable story beats without giving the characters the time or the sufficiently effective shorthand storytelling needed to develop them beyond some extremely simplistic archetypes. Even when taking into account the ways in which this doesn't play like a hastily-retooled remake (primarily during the film's third act), it tends to raise further questions that not only plague this film but might retroactively affect its source. As such, I'm disappointed (though not overly so) that The Thing didn't hold up a second time around. It may do a good job of replicating every little detail it could from the original, but the focus on superficial replication over crafting substance or even just avoiding more contemporary horror clichés is definitely clear here.