Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.’s 2011 version of “The Thing”@@http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0374048/@@ solves the mystery of what happened to the Norwegian research team that was wiped out at the beginning of John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same name. @@http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/@@
In Carpenter’s 1982 aliens-in-the-arctic masterpiece, R.J. MacReady (played by Kurt Russell) leads an American research team to battle an unknown alien life form that would replicate the cells of humans to mimic the person it kills before rupturing into a horrifically exorbitant, fanged, bloody masterpiece. While van Heijningen Jr.’s creation doesn’t stray far from the gore, the alien form appears machine-operated and over-designed.
The 2011 film takes place at a research site in Antarctica where American paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen)@@http://musicfeeds.com.au/culture/the-thing-movie-review/@@ and a team of Norwegian researchers are confronted by the discovery of an unknown alien craft. Similar to Carpenter’s 1982 version, the alien replicates the humans it kills before turning into a grotesque, disproportional monster. The film centers around one group of researchers’ road to discovery in the claustrophobic and intimidating wasteland of Antarctica.
As far as heroes goes, the film has one heroine, a paranoid graduate student named Kate who takes control when all the men around her freak out. Kate leads the Norwegian-based mission to study a “thing” that has been recently discovered in the underground depths of Antarctica. Yet Kate is too benign for someone who stomps around trying to kill aliens with a flamethrower. She is accompanied by Braxton Carter (Joel Edgerton) and Jameson (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje),@@http://www.screenit.com/movies/2011/the_thing.html@@ who play the roles of tough helicopter pilots and Kate’s fellow American researchers.
With Halloween slowly approaching, you are probably looking for a gory film designed to scare the living daylights out of you. There are some genuinely scary moments in the new version of “The Thing,” but the majority of the scary moments are scattered, leaving the audience confused. On the other hand, the exaggeration of blood and guts adds to the creepiness from the cold, dark atmosphere.
Although John Carpenter’s take on “The Thing” brought some of the most riveting special effects to 1982 audiences, van Heijningen Jr.’s take on the film is not the update on the feature that was expected. The acting is uninspiring and falls short of an Academy Award, and special effects are anything but convincing and scary. Van Heijningen Jr.’s attempt to bring something new, fresh and exciting to an old script failed.
Grade: C-
Prequel to the 1982 film ‘The Thing’ may disappoint fans of original
Daily Emerald
October 17, 2011
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