The Thing (2011)
Directed
by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Staring
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewale
Akinnuoye-Agbaje, & Eric Christian Olsen
Paleontologist
Kate Lloyd gets the invitation of her career when she’s asked to lend her
expertise to a spacecraft and organism discovery in the Antarctic. When she
helps the Norwegian team who discovered it extract the frozen life form from
the ice, all hell breaks loose. The alien creature wasn’t what it appeared to
be: it’s really a being that absorbs other life forms and imitates them near
perfectly. Now the crew can’t trust each other, as they’re picked off and
exposed one by one. Kate has to out-think a devouring force from beyond the
stars to avoid becoming one with the thing.
This
movie has everything stacked against it. It’s a prequel to a commercial flop
that’s now revered in horror cinema. It’s the debut film of a music video
director with no previous genre experience. It has that smell of “just for the
money” remake. It replaces the spectacular practical effects of the John Carpenter
original with copious amounts of CGI. Also, I personally think Carpenter’s film
is the best horror movie ever made and his best work as a director. Yet
somehow, the prequel to The Thing
isn’t completely terrible. Actually, it’s pretty competent and genuinely
entertaining.
The
2011 The Thing isn’t a classic like
the 1982 film, but it’s also not the most offensive horror remake/reboot of the
last decade nor of a John Carpenter movie (that dubious honor belongs to Rob
Zombie’s Halloween). The script makes
sure to hit nearly every story beat the original did. The protagonist finds a
way to test whether or not people were absorbed, although it’s far less
ingenious than MacReady’s blood test. There’s an explosive infected reveal in
the middle of a flamethrower standoff. What’s new in the story is only there to
setup the continuity of the original movie. If you ever wanted to know why
there’s randomly an axe in the door of the Norwegian base, this movie will
finally tell you.
Really,
the story is just there to set up the next thing reveal and the events of
Carpenter’s movie. The movie would probably have benefited from not being
beholden to the original film’s events, instead being a full-fledged reboot. The
remake treatment would also make the change in the creature action more
logical. While it is disappointing that the final cut didn’t favor practical
effects for the transformations, something that made the 1982 Thing gruesomely terrifying, the
computer renderings do an admirable job of showing off some inventively twisted
designs.
The
pacing of the alien attacks in the 1982 film was determined by how the
practical effects work. Carpenter worked around the limitations and made the
scenes work better than they should have. The CGI greatly increases the speed
and flexibility of the absorbed, turning these creatures into video game
fodder. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. plays it for all its worth, so the
modernistic change isn’t entirely a waste. In fact, Heijningen handles
everything pretty well. It should be a testament to his directing ability that
he made such bare characters and aggressively different antagonists work in
spite of the script’s short comings.
The
cast does fine with what they have. The script leaves every character pretty
thin, but all involved manage to make their monster fodder likeable enough.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is cool headed and logical in the face of an
unprecedented situation, so she manages to lead the movie fairly well.
The Thing
is not a worthy successor to John Carpenter’s best film. But, it’s not without
some thrills and well-made action sequences. The movie occasionally rises above
the obvious quick cash grab treatment modern remakes get, and I am relieved that
The Thing doesn’t absolutely suck.
6 out of 10
