I've never been particularly picky, so maybe this movie was worse than I thought it was. It certainly is not as good or as scary as John Carpenter's remake from the '80s. But as a prequel that tries to tie into the other movie, I'd say it did a decent job. My skepticism arose early on as I initially thought this was another goddamn remake, but later it was because I thought they wouldn't be able to pull off The Thing these days. But all of the problems I thought I would have with the prequel turned out to be rather enjoyable and still ended up being disappointed that the movie's problems were the problems of a remake. As a prequel, I thought The Thing would have zero or ham-handed continuity, which I don't think it really did. As for the remake problems, it could not help but go through the exact same scenarios in this film that they went through in the first.
Being it is a prequel, the new Thing follows the Norwegian science team the heroes from the original film discovered. These were the people who found The Thing and its spaceship in a glacier in Antarctica, so they of course are not going to make it. Along for the ride is the protagonist, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is recruited to oversee the excavation of the alien. A tampering with the ice block it is incased in allows the thing to break free from it's confinement and escape. You know how this goes. After killing the initial monster, Kate discovers that the alien's cells were infecting and imitating the cells of its victims. It becomes apparent to her that the thing has already started to kill and transform into the other scientists. But who is human and who is an alien. And the fight for survival begins. Grab your flamethrowers and trust no one.
Now I'm guessing what most people are concerned about is the technical aspects of this movie in comparison to the 1982 classic. It doesn't really compare. I mean they try to get as close to how The Thing looks when it just explodes into a violent monster of gore, but the computer generated effects never look especially real, not like something you could touch or believe could touch you. I will say the filmmakers are at inventive in how they made the special effects. It felt like they were trying as best as they could to remain true to the original version. The transformation scenes are on a similar level of grotesque and intense (really does feel like it'd be hard to react when a guy's whole body turns into half a dozen aliens). The gore aspect is almost as gratuitous as it was in the first film, which is good. I was afraid they'd try to tone it down or something. Really this did have some hardcore, freaky-ass moments in this movie.
Unfortunately, the plot is where it gets murky. Granted, the filmmakers do do a good job of making it appear like its a different kind of story, but, fundamentally, it is the same movie. A lot of the same scenarios play out here, but they tweak what happens in these bits in ways that were fresh enough to make to forgive it. But the fact that the same type of events happened in both the Norwegian station and the American one is not very unreasonable, given the nature of the thing. I surprisingly got some effect out of the story. I still managed to care about some of the characters; most of them seemed like likable people, especially for scientists and contractors. I could guess who was who too many times, but the reveals still ended up freaking me out. This is a prequel, however, so everything has to segue with the first film inevitably. I think the movie manages this well throughout the film, earning a little "oh yeah, that's cool" every now and then.
The acting was really well rounded. No one seemed like they were unbelievable (even though they all should be better dressed for Antarctica). The main star is Mary Winstead as the heroine, Kate. Winstead is a good actress who has proven competent in just about everything I've seen her in. And I bought her as this character. She's not Kurt Russell as MacReady, but she really does have that Sigourney Weaver vibe; that idealistic, uncompromising, but vulnerable Ellen Ripley thing. It works though and its not glaring. The actual Kurt Russell, problem solver guy character is filled by Joel Edgerton, who does a fairly good job as that guy. He's not totally MacReady, but he's just a guy like MacReady. There's always one in horror movies. Adewale long middle name Agbaji plays another American contractor alongside Edgerton, and I continue to ask how the hell is this guy getting such bad roles. Agbaji is a good actor, but his role here could have been filled by literally anybody. And yet still, he was decent even without doing much. Eric Christian Olsen is Kate's friend and the bad doctor's researcher Adam, and I actually thought he did good job for, again, such a minor role. Character actor Ulrich Thomson plays a corrupt douchebag once again as the head researcher who puts science before everything excluding his own life. All of the Norwegian team actors did well, considering their only main relevance was to die. The most notable one is Jorgen Langhelle as the intense Norwegian badass, Lars, a character we may already be a bit familiar with. I didn't have much of a problem with the acting.
Now for the creature itself. Is The Thing any better or any worse? Well, it certainly doesn't beat the horrific organic yet contagious look of the original, everything spewing from and ripping out of that hunk of fake human. Doesn't surpass that. In this movie, The Thing is clearly CGI throughout (though, I've read there are moments when special effects makeup or stop motion was used). That doesn't mean there is not a certain freakish quality to be applied to these new special effects. For one thing, the transformations happen a helluva lot faster. Bodies just sort of explode in a bloody mess of tentacles and jaws. The amount of razor sharp teeth for heads appearing in this movie could have convinced me I was watching Resident Evil walkthroughs. The thing and its many incarnations are all fleshy, pussing, swollen, ever changing globs of chaos. But one particular contrast would be that this thing is quick on its feet (its common with horror movies these days) as opposed to the original's tendency to either flail or just sort of expand. An interesting detail is that the first form we see it in, when it breaks from the ice, looks vaguely insectoid, almost like a different creature. It occurred to me that the thing's alien ship probably belonged to some other alien species that the thing encountered, killed, and imitated. Or not.
In the end, this The Thing prequel is not too bad for a modern monster movie. As stated, there are some hardcore moments. And the way this movie connects with the '80s film is satisfying in its own way. Aside from essentially rehashing the first movie in ways that ranged from refreshing to irritating, I rather enjoyed this flick. You might too.
Two and a half out of four fillings.
This has been a review ripe for Halloween from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.
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