bheadher
It didn't take me long to figure out that this was supposed to be a prequel, that's the good part...But I am very disappointed in the presentation. First of all, why make this movie 29 years after the classic John Carpenter excursion into science fiction horror ? Second, why make it at all, if you aren't going to spend some money on it, and at least attempt to make it interesting ???Frankly, this "prequel" is dull, boring, and missing the fears and tensions that made the classic so captivating...the alien monster is almost laughable, with too many static shots, and drawn out scenes that simply don't get the adrenalin levels going. the cgi is very low key, amateurish really...To me, this is a prime example of the motivation in the film industry lately...throw something together, and hope for some money to tart rolling in...
Steve Gad
The thing that made 'The Thing' such a good watch, was the tension that steadily ramped up from start to finish. It had 'characters' and a story to it. Here, we basically get fast-forwarded to the CGI fest, that connects the dots of a flimsy plot. The CGI is technically OK, but the people being killed by it don't mean anything to the viewer, as character development was pretty much zero.
The Norwegians were comic book Vikings, the Americans...well, American and the British chap was straight from a potty mouthed version of Mary Poppins. I half expected the cockney sparrow to bleat out "Half a bladdy sixpence!" on seeing the digitised doppleganger. The two leads that emerged out of the carnage (Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton) did a good job, but they weren't given a lot to work with. I was a little dismayed to see they had to throw in the old 'all run away, but the screaming girl falls over' routine, that has by now become a parody of a parody. Personally, I'm a big believer in letting classic movies well alone, and this did nothing to change that view. You know what they say 'If it ain't broke.........'.
sorendanni
As remakes of John Carpenter his movies go, this is one of the better.It starts out to be a real great movie and it stays that way form most of the time. Ufortunatley it gets out of puff in the last 15 minutes. I was not really satisfied with the ending (yes it does make a nice refference to the original movie but it just does not make for a satisfying closure of the story imo) that is why I give this one only a 7/10. But for the rest there are actually enough good things that make this worth watching. Looking back at it, I might also notice that it did not offer the sort of tension you get with movies like Stephing Kings movie adoptation of The Mist: people turn agains each other as the tension rises, but it could had been build up a bit better. Still, no big deal for me: what I got was enough?Is it better then the original? No; not even close. But is it better then a lot of other horror remakes I saw? Yes, definetly!
JGDragov
I didn't go see The Thing in 2011 for two reasons. One, I was reluctant to support a prequel when what I had really wanted for thirty years was a sequel. Two, the movie seemed to have vanished from the theaters only after a few weeks. In the meantime, I only heard negative things(no pun intended) about this film so I didn't feel like I was missing out.However, something really weird happened when I finally caught it on HBO. I liked it! No, I mean I really liked it. To be clear, the criticisms about it being an unnecessary and almost too similar story to John Carpenter's classic are all fair. And, like most sic-fi movies today, there is more cgi than I would care to see. But the people making this movie clearly worship Carpenter's movie every bit as much as any die hard Thing fan. They go to great lengths to match up to the events suggested from the 1982 version and I personally appreciate them doing so. I also liked their method of detecting who was the Thing. It was different than MacReady's test but it was original.(Nothing will ever top the petri dish sequence and dialogue, Carpenter and Russell just nail it).If you're a fan of the original looking for something completely different or a "new take" on The Thing From Another world, than this movie is not for you. But if you're like me, and always wondered who put that ax through the door or what events led up to the two-headed thing burnt up in the snow at the Norwegion compound than I highly recommend this flick.
AD
