The Thing (2011) - Review

Release Year: 2011
Country: USA
Cert (UK): 15
Running Time: 102 mins

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.

Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Final Destination 3), Joel Edgerton (Star Wars: Episode 3) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (The Bourne Identity)

Review
Brief storyline of the film, in 1982 palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by scientists Dr. Sander Halversen (Ulrich Thomsen) and his assistant Adam Finch (Eric Christian Olsen) to join a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extra-terrestrial spaceship buried beneath the ice of Antarctica. They discover the frozen corpse of a creature that seems to have died in the crash 100,000 years ago.

Well I have not long just watched this film and my thoughts are…it’s like a cover song that didn’t quite live up to the original version, being a huge fan of John Carpenter's films like “Escape From New York” and “The Fog” I’ve watched the 1982 “The Thing” countless times and always cite it as my favourite films with that in mind, I approached this remake/prequel with great caution, now some of my friends and other people through the internet are saying you can’t compare this film with the original…my answer to that is bullshit! The one thing any person does when hearing yet again a remake or whatever is comparing it to the original, Of course some people going to hate this film with a blind passive because of how much of a cult film the original was (or still is).

The storyline is basically the events that took place before the original with the main question of what happened at the Norwegian base? This has been debated and talked about for years….after 29 years someone said “Let’s do a prequel” to be honest  that’s one of the reasons I was interested in seeing  this film to find out what happened?  And to know more about the origins of the shapeshifting alien so i had an open mind about it. Now that I’ve watched it I’m thinking “yeah that’s wasn’t too bad” there are some positive about this film, I did like the 80’s Universal logo from the original and same type of opening as well…it’s little things like that I’m happy about it, the practical effects on the first half of the film is really great you see the filmmakers trying hard to make close as possible but sadly there was more special effects and less practical later with creatures, I’m guessing the studio wanted to speed it up which is shame because it was going the right track.

Some scenes with creatures are scary and brilliantly done especially with the split-face monster that was great scene plus it looks real from where I was seating lol the others was okay but it too much special effects I think…. the casting is good with having Norwegian actors speaking their language and we get some subtitles also which is nice plus for the film sadly most of them killed off which leaves… you guessed it the American main star which is “Mary Elizabeth Winstead” who is a boring actress from the start, her protagonist was a major mistake. I liked the others characters more but one thing I’m happy about is she’s not alone Joel Edgerton is co-star in the film and I find he’s character more interesting, it looks 80’s in some apart and looks 00’s in others but that’s just me picking away lol probably one of the best scenes was seeing the alien blasting it’s way of the frozen block which was done brilliantly all the references work very well (as I watched the 1982 version, when I got back home and it fits great.

SPOILER ALERT! – The scene after the credits was fantastic, I don’t know how the filmmakers did it but it’s a spot on match for the Norwegian character left which links with opening for the original again I’ve watched the 1982 version after…yeah bang on! So it’s Respectful enough of the 1982 classic, and you can tell the filmmakers really tried their hardest to please everyone.

Overall the film wasn’t an amazing prequel but it’s an close as you’re going to get for better or worse, it’s worth checking out definitely.

Thanks for reading :D