Ah! The Thing 2011, the pointless, unneeded and unwanted film, a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 horror Classic. Why was it made? Surely to capitalize on the popularity of a film made 32 years ago, a film that didn't need either a sequel or a prequel, but was still given one, with a budget double the size of the original that lacked both tension and scares which made the original such a fantastic film. But for some reason it was still enjoyable slice of Hollywood entertainment. Why?
The Thing is not a great film, not by any stretch of the imagination but it's not a bad film either. It's missing almost all the elements that made John Carpenter's 1982 film a horror movie classic. It blatantly steal from other movies as well as the original and tries to pass it off as original. This might work if you're just an average film watcher, but if you're a film buff or a cinephile, you'll notice the unoriginality of the film from the get go. But there was something about the film that set it apart from the usual 'horror' film we get these days. It was fast paced, linked very well to the original and had some great monster moments (of The Non CGI variety). But the film lacked all the tension and paranoia of the first. The plot is basically the same too.
Researchers at a Norwegian camp in Antarctica discover an Alien space craft hidden beneath the ice, they discover it's pilot some way from the crashed ship. They take it back to their camp and it escapes. The alien has the ability to replicate cells and starts to take over the camp one at a time. American Palaeontologist Kate Lloyd is there to examine it but finds herself fighting for survival from an unstoppable alien creature that could be have infected anyone of the members of her team.
That's the plot of this one, it's almost exactly the same as the original. But what this film lacks is the psychological drama, tension and unease that is filtered through Bill Lancaster's original screenplay. Lancaster was never a horror writer but he managed to make the atmosphere of the original almost unbearable, the same can't be said for the writer of this, Eric Heisserer is a horror writer with two previous horror credits to his name, the awful remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street and the rather entertaining Final Destination 5, but what he seems to have focused on is how the two link to each other, from replicating the Norwegian base camp to little things like the two faces melted together, all little details that are interesting but they don't compensate for the lack of a story, a story which it's self replicates that of the original. He adds some nice ideas into the plot, such as the creature not being able to copy inanimate objects such as fillings and earings, which kind of solves the much debated ending of the 1982 film, Childs was in fact human as his earing is still hanging from his lobe. But when you're prequeling a film like The Thing, you have to try an outdo it in the scares department and when the Thing is revealed, it's all cartoon CGI that looks almost as bad as the Licker's from the first Resident Evil film, this isn't to say it's not effective, because at some points it is such as the weird Dog Alien, but what really pisses me off about how this film was handled by the studio, is this, the film was originally supposed to be 90% practical FX and 10% CGI and that’s how the film was shot, until, that is, Producers thought it might be scarier if the creature was CGI, which was completely the wrong choice as the Thing came across as cartoonish in it execution. It amazes me that 32 years ago, Rob Botin, managed to make The Thing twice as disturbing using latex and goop but now we have to make everything look even more artificial. I'm not completely anti-CGI, because in a film like Transformers, it's essential, but for a film like The Thing, Practical is how it should have been, all the way.
There are far to many cast member as well, There's something like 20 people stationed at this camp, and not all of them have enough screen time for you to connect with that character. Other characters are either copies of characters from the original or pastiche's of characters from other films. It's also badly cast from the perspective of a lead character. May Elisabeth Winstead, who is great in films like Scott Pilgrim and Death Proof, is miss cast as palaeontologist Kate Lloyd, as she is far too young to be playing a well known palaeontologist. Her character is written to be more like Ellen Ripley from the Alien series, a strong female lead that also has traits belonging to R.J McCready, played by Kurt Russell, in the first film. I really like her but it was bad casting on her part. Another character that is ripped straight from the original is that of the Helicopter pilot, Sam, played by Joel Edgerton, who's pretty good but is literally just McCready in a different hat. There's no originality to the characters and it just gets confusing as to who is who because there are so many of them. When talking about this in 10 years, people are going to be saying' oh remember when that character, what was her name again',because none of them are memorable, unlike the original, where people talk about how ' Blair went nuts' or when ' Clark Got shot in the head', all of those characters were well written, had names you could remember and kept you going back for more.
Marco Beltrami's score is one of the best things in the film, he's taken Ennio Morricone's haunting, synthetic score and used that, but putting his own style on it, which adds much more tension to the film that already lacks any form of it. It's a nice touch reusing Morricone's original score and again this is one of the little things that adds to the fun of watching it if you're familiar with the original.
The biggest let down is the end though, after spending the majority of the film couped up inside the camp or on the grounds of the camp, the final 20 minutes takes place on the actual alien space craft which completely destroys any credibility the film had. There was absolutely no need to venture into the craft. It's like at the end of Predator 2 when Danny Glover ventures into the predator's ship, it's unnecessary and takes the film out of it's horror context turning it into a Hollywood special FX extravaganza which made me raise my palm to my face in sheer disbelief at what they were doing to a film I love so much. One thing they also forgot to mention was the way the Norwegians unearthed the Alien space craft using Thermite which is in the 1951 film and the 1982 film.
But I can't say I didn't enjoy it, it's still one of the better horror films to come from a major studio and even with the interference from the producers, the enjoyment still wasn't ruined. The sad thing for me is that people who have never seen John Carpenter's original 1982 film, this will be their introduction to that universe. Now I recommend the original to everyone but I don't completely recommend this, I say that because it's worth a watch to see how everything ties together but seriously folks if you watch any two films about The Thing, make it John Carpenter's and Howard Hawks/Christian Nyby's original screen version form 1951, The Thing From Another World.
This is just a tiny blip in that cannon of Aliens in snow movies.
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