The Thing, 2011.
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Eric Christian Olsen.
SYNOPSIS:
A group of scientists at a remote Antarctic research station stumble upon a frozen alien spacecraft and face a fight for survival after taking its inhabitant back to their base camp.
Considering the revered status of John Carpenter’s cult 1982 sci-fi horror The Thing, it doesn’t really come as much of a surprise that Matthijs van Heijningen’s 2011 feature of the same name struggled to make much of an impact at the box office when it was released in cinemas towards the back end of last year. Overlooking the fact that Carpenter’s effort is itself a remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World, the current trend for sub-standard ‘reboots’ (Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street et al) has certainly taken its toll on audiences – especially those who remember films made before the 1990s – and the fact that this latest incarnation of the John W. Campbell, Jr. novella Who Goes There? was marketed as a prequel did little to abate the backlash.
Stumbling upon a crashed spacecraft in the Antarctic, a team of scientists discover an extraterrestrial life form frozen in a block of ice and foolishly take it back to their research station. Naturally the alien creature soon escapes its icy confines and begins to wreak havoc by assimilating living organisms and adopting their form. Unable to trust each other, the scientists must fight for their lives while attempting to prevent the parasitic ‘Thing Beast’ from escaping the remote research station and reaching civilization. Fortunately for them, they have an unlimited supply of flamethrowers, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World). If you’ve seen Carpenter’s The Thing, then you’ll already know that’s not quite enough to get the job done.
As a big fan of both of the previous movies, I chose to skip this one in cinemas and in all honesty I probably wouldn’t have bothered to check it out had a screener not arrived through my letterbox. Nevertheless, I have to say it just about managed to exceed my limited expectations, despite being little more than a pale imitation of Carpenter’s classic, with a few nods to its predecessor thrown in to meet the requirements for ‘prequel’ status. Essentially what we get here is Carpenter’s movie (along with a sprinkling of The Thing from Another World), but instead of Kurt Russell we have Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and instead of a group of American scientists, we have a group of Norwegian and American scientists.
It’s difficult to find many positives to say about The Thing when viewing it next to the 1982 version, for everything it does falls short. The storyline is a complete retread, the script is lacking and while the actors do a decent enough job, we never really get a reason to care about any of the characters. Even the CGI special effects – whilst providing the fairly some decent gore – can’t come anywhere close to the fantastic practical VFX work of Rob Bottin and company. However, it has to be said that the inclusion of the prequel elements do help to elevate The Thing above your typical contemporary remake, particularly the closing shots intercut with the end credits, which left me itching to continue the story with Kurt Russell and company. If you’re going to do a remake – which, let’s face it, this is – then I guess leaving the door open for first-time viewers to go on and discover the original is certainly a good way of going about it.
In terms of the Blu-ray, the HD video transfer is solid if unspectacular, while the two-disc set comes with a number of deleted / extended scenes, a couple of featurettes and a commentary from director Matthijs Van Heijningen and producer Eric Newman, along with a digital copy of the movie.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ** / Movie **
Originally published March 26, 2012. Updated April 12, 2018.
