When a studio gives a first time director a film as beloved as The Thing it’s obvious that there’re two trains of thought going through that man’s mind. It’s either: (a) no one alive can do this film a proper service so let’s just get it made and hope for the best; or (b) I don’t actually think there’s a (b) here.
The film is the prequel to the John Carpenter 80s classic, i.e. the story of the Norwegian camp (I called them “Swedes” in my mind throughout the film) and how they managed to all be killed by the alien that they excavated and let loose into the cold world of Antarctica. With any other film the prior sentence would be a spoiler, but is it with this film?
What made the original film so influential was not just its “monster” features but more of its constant questioning of who’s real and who isn’t. This film has the same elements, but without the subtlety that the original did. In the 80s version we’re given all the time of the film chasing each other around before we actually see the alien being ousted completely. Here in the 2011 version it’s barely a half an hour in before we are actually being chased by this complete CGI alien who’s trying as hard to survive as this group of scientists in the freezing cold.
Maybe you disagree that the way the creature is handled is any more blatant as Carpenter did in the 80s, but do you think anyone in this film can replace the shoes (or beard) of Kurt Russell’s portrayal as MacReady? What made that role so wonderful is that he knew he had no clue what he was doing. With that role being planted into the hands of Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) we’re given a much more calculated approach to survival for most of the film, since Kate is a scientist, as opposed to MacReady being a chopper pilot just in the camp to fly around and give everybody a hand. At times academia can be what stunts a story, logic isn’t always entertaining, this may be the best example of that.
With all that’s said and done, this prequel suffers from being a lame remake since in order for the film to complete it must end in the exact same place and the exact same way as the story that comes after it (that we’ve already seen) and we’re given nothing truly unique, excepting one scene that isn’t that interesting, to help distinguish it. Go watch the original and enjoy how 80s practical effects can still kick computers’ asses.