The Thing (2011) Review

By Jason Haskins

The Thing is arguably one of the best movies from the eighties—easily trumping the original 1950s film it originated from. As the years went by we, saw a video game made and interest grew in the property due to the cult status of the John Carpenter’s classic. A remake was definitely in the playing cards, but luckily was vacated in pursuit of a prequel; a hopefully fresh idea to possibly give some explanations as to what happened before the events in the original.

Okay, so this movie takes place shortly before the Carpenter film where a team of researchers are put together for a find in Antarctica of an alien ship. They extract an actual creature and bring it back to their base where everything goes to hell in a hand basket quite quickly.

As with the other film, this Thing is able to mimic human tissue and make itself appear like anyone in the group—meaning that trust is the first thing to go and identity is of the utmost importance. Paranoia swamps the group and they must survive not only the elements, but the killer intentions of the Thing.

The movie itself isn’t too shabby. The pacing is pretty quick, which stands in stark contrast to Carpenter’s slower burn. It’s definitely a fluffier movie with more gore and special effects then you can shake a stick at, but it doesn’t quite have the magic of Stan Winston’s ingenuity. The CGI is sort of cheap looking at moments, but does work at other times.

All of the actors are within the budget, to be sure, with no big names. To tell you the truth the lead actress, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, is one of the weakest part about this movie. She is so wooden and out of place without any boom to her performance—she seems to sneak by through each scene and doesn’t really act the part of ‘Ripley’ very well like I imagine the filmmakers intended.

The Thing purists will definitely write this off as a cash-in on the franchise and scoff at everything it offers, but it does have some intriguing moments…in between a lot of sequences that almost mirror image the Carpenter movie (awkward…). To tell you the truth, a majority of the film is mediocre…but it does pay tribute to the last picture with certain cues.

At the same time, it’s such a by-the-numbers predictable movie with not many scares or sci-fi coolness that it stays stuck in this almost mainstreamy tameness that holds it back from being smart. They could’ve done something really original here, but instead they sort of try to emulate the 80s masterpiece a little too much. The efforts are appreciated, but the results are a little disappointing.

3 out of 5 stars