The Thing

The Thing 2011 is a prequel, not a remake, to the John Carpenter film of the same name which was released back in 1982. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd is recruited by a group of Norwegian scientists who’ve found a life form frozen in Antartica and they would like for her to help them dig it up so they can study it. Before you can say “No! Leave it in the ice” the ‘thing’ is back at the base and as you can imagine all hell breaks loose not along after.

It’s not a bad film by any means yet you can’t help but compare it to the 1982 film of the same name. That film was famed for the amazing special effects work which was all practical. For the time it was mind blowing and still impresses today where as in the prequel there’s a over reliance on CGI. The CGI hurts this film so much and it’s a shame because otherwise it could have been a lot better. Every time the ‘thing’ appears it’s not scary, in fact during the final battle it’s almost comical how obvious the CGI is and reminded me of the horrible effects seen on the Scorpian King in The Mummy Returns.

It’s not a total wash out. There’s some cool stuff in the film and the cast does the best they can with what little they are given to work with in the script. Unlike the 1982 flick there a no true characters, save the leads Kate Lloyd and American chopper pilot Carter, the rest seem to be mostly fodder for the creature instead of the ensamble approch Carpenters film took. You can’t shake the feeling that if more of a practical approach had of been taken to the effects you could have had something really special here. As it stands it’s a okay creature feature but never scary and isn’t that the point?

One last issue I had. I felt like they killed the 'thing' at least 4 or 5 times throughout the course of the film. Like D.E.A.D. no way it could have survived YET it kep popping back up in other people. I don't think it was like that in the original 82 flick??

I'd have scored this a lot higher had the film taken more of a practical approach to the effects.