Well at least you can say that the 2011 version of The Thing is that it's not 'bad'. The problem is that the two version's that preceded it, Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World from 1961 and John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982, are outright classics which makes any effort that doesn't measure up a complete letdown.
Much of the production has the same vibe about it that the recent Conan The Barbarian remake had which was this; the individual elements that make up the film are adequate but are inferior when compared with the original versions. The spanking new CGI 'things' are pretty good (apart from some dodgy, Scorpion King, ropey human faces) but not as good as Rob Bottin's prosthetic creations, Joel Edgerton's blunt helicopter pilot is OK but no Kurt Russell's McCready and the story, while sticking pretty close to the 1982 version, lacks the memorable scenes that makes it such a classic (instead of the blood test there's an equivalent scene that's devoid of suspense).
Of the cast only Mary Elizabeth Winstead emerges with any credit. With her drab 80's hair style, stern and direct attitude and shoulder slung flamethrower she's got the same vibe as Sigourney Weaver's Ripley did in 1979...but much cuter. Everybody else disappears into a forgettable stew of under written, American/Norwegian characters with little time to establish relationships, let alone job roles.
The biggest flaw is the move away from the psychological horror of Carpenter's film (which this film is most definitely a prequel) where the tension was created from paranoia and mistrust, to physical horror where the new 'thing' can barely be arsed to hide and just prowls the corridors for prey it can absorb and replicate. There's also some pretty illogical stuff going on here from the 'things' suicidal attack in a chopper to the way the crashed UFO is miraculously fit for flight again.
To top it off the climax just isn't, running out of steam with weak action and a so-called twist you can see coming 10 minutes away. There's no great ending either in the way that Carpenter's ended with the nihilistic "Let's wait awhile and see what happens" or Hawks ending of "Watch the skies". Just fade to black and a inter-credits coda linking this prequel to Carpenter's.
The 1982 version was shunned by critics and audiences at the time but has since become a classic. I can't see that happening with the 2011 version years from now.
1 comment:
It was ok. It looked nice and some of the FX were kinda cool. It's biggest problems were a lack of tension, bland characters and some frankly dumb writing. Could have been worse but should have been a whole lot better. To be honest its a pretty pointless story anyway so I think I'll just pretend it doesn't exisit and keep with the meat of Carpenter's classic.
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