The Thing (2011)  

Review: written Apr 2012

Some Thing’s not right

John Carpenter's 1982 version of “The Thing” was an example of a worthwhile remake. It captured a certain paranoia of the times, made some oblique social commentary and applied a relatively decent budget to an essentially B movie story. In particular, it showed a visual creativity in effects which had not been seen before - notable for their shot in-camera reality.

This time round, we have essentially the same B-movie story retrod. Technically, not a remake - it is a prequel, telling the story from the Norwegian camp that Kurt Russell and co. visit in the Carpenter version, it hits many of the same beats - the twist on the blood test scene is interesting, for example. However, we never quite get into the characters or atmosphere of the camp in the way that Carpenter set up, and certainly the tension is never generated in the same way. There are no shocks and surprises, other than the cheap `make a loud noise to give the audience a jump' type, mostly because the film eschews the sense of distrust caused by a creature that only reveals itself when forced to.. here the creature seems to appear at the drop of a hat. The effects are (mostly) CG this time round, which I assumed would rob them of their real-feel bite.. and yet, they have stuck closely to the aesthetics of the original so the CG-ness is played down in a way that does them credit.

Although the characters never feel particularly well defined, the cast do their best - Mary Elizabeth Winstead is actually satisfyingly low key and unshowy, and comes across almost Ripley-like in her ability to rise to the challenge, particularly in the final scenes, which edge away from the genre in the direction of sci-fi. The rest of the cast all look convincing, but we don't feel we know them enough to care much what happens.

All in all, not a disaster then.. just oddly irrelevant and unnecessary. It's not badly done, one just ends up wondering why do a remake / reimagining / prequel if you don't have anything new to bring to the table? It's exciting enough, and well put together, just perhaps a little too familiar. If there are people out there who have not seen the previous version, this will doubtless seem just fine. To those who have seen Carpenter's version, this is a non-essential retread.