When John Carpenter remade The Thing From Another World in 1982, the resulting movie sadly didn't do too hot theatrically. My guess is that with E.T. coming out at roughly the same time, people would have rather seen a friendly little alien trying to get home instead of some interstellar monster killing a bunch of people. But time has been very kind to it, and The Thing has earned recognition as one of the best sci-fi movies to come out of the '80s.
So you'd think that somebody would have done a remake of the remake by now. That sort of thing is all the rage nowadays, right? But nope, Universal Studios figured they'd just do a prequel to it instead. That's actually something I can get on board with. With a prequel, you can style it like a remake and still tell a new story. I've been anticipating this prequel — oddly enough still titled just "The Thing" — ever since it was first announced. I was a bit concerned when Universal delayed its April release for a few months so reshoots could be done (which is never a good sign), but I still had to check out the movie on opening night. And I'm happy to report that this new Thing is a worthy follow-up to Carpenter's classic.
Befitting its "prequel" status, the movie picks up a few days before the events of the previous movie. As the story begins, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by Dr. Sander Halversen (Ulrich Thomsen) to assist him and his team at a Norwegian scientific research outpost in Antarctica. She's shocked to learn upon her arrival that the Norwegians have discovered an alien spacecraft that has been buried deep beneath the ice for 100,000 years.
The team recovers the frozen body of the craft's pilot with the intent of studying it. But the creature they thought had died of exposure was only hibernating. It breaks free of its icy prison and begins causing all kinds of havoc around the camp. Kate discovers that the thing is capable of perfectly imitating a human being. Her paranoia that it could be anyone around her spreads to the others in the camp, putting everyone at each other's throats as a monster from another world eliminates them one by one.
While I will admit to approaching The Thing with some trepidation because of my affection for the 1982 movie, I'm happy to report that this new Thing isn't bad at all. I actually thought it was a fun piece of cinema. Unfortunately, the movie does have some flaws that hold it back from being as good as it could have been, but the 2011 Thing is still — even at its worst — a well-crafted love letter to Carpenter's movie.
The movie was directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., a Dutch filmmaker who I'd honestly never heard of prior to seeing The Thing. But I will say that I did enjoy his efforts here very much. His direction is very solid, creating a tense atmosphere that deftly invokes the same sort of paranoia caused by the previous Thing. Van Heijningen quickly establishes a claustrophobic feeling, no big feat considering how expansive Antarctica is. It perfectly conveys the sense that you're trapped with nowhere to go, and everything is out to get you.
My only problems were with some of the special effects, and the score composed by Marco Beltrami. Beltrami has done some great music in the past, but he really didn't do anything for me here. I barely even noticed any music in the movie at all, and what I did notice, I wasn't impressed with. I'd have probably been happier had Beltrami just recycled Ennio Morricone's music from the '80s Thing, but hey, you can't always get your way.
And my beef with the effects comes down to three little letters: CGI. Some of the CGI in the movie wasn't really all that convincing. It sure looked cool, and I understand that it was a necessity in order to pull off quite a bit of stuff. But you just can't top practical special effects. Couldn't they have just called in Rob Bottin and said, "Hey, can you give us a few pointers on how to make this stuff work for real?" I will admit that I'm actually not sure how much of the effects in the movie were practical and how much were digitally rendered, but some of the CGI is so obvious that I found it a bit distracting.
But let's move along to the screenplay, penned by Eric Heisserer and Ronald D. Moore. It's apparent that Heisserer and Moore love the prior movie as much as van Heijningen does, because their script echoes it a lot. They use that to their advantage, taking a few familiar setups and taking them in a different direction. For example, there's one scene where Kate rounds up everyone into one room and decides to test all of them to see who the thing is or isn't. Fans of the original movie immediately assume that she'll burn blood samples like Kurt Russell's MacReady did in the 1982 Thing, but Heisserer and Moore defy expectations and up with a completely different one instead. It's changes like that that make the movie feel fresh yet still somewhat familiar.
Heisserer and Moore also realize that if you're going to do an updated version of The Thing, you still need the element of paranoia. The thing's presence quickly turns everyone against one another, with some of the Norwegians letting their distrust of the Americans in their midst get the best of them. It's even more terrifying when you realize that since the audience, like the characters, doesn't know who the thing is until it reveals itself, it could be playing everyone against themselves. It could, and probably is, sowing the seeds of dissent amongst those who are still human to ensure its own survival. It's something subtle amongst all the violence and gore, and Heisserer and Moore pull it off very well.
Then there's the cast, who I thought were fantastic. A lot of the actors were just there to be cannon fodder for the thing, but they all did what was required of them with ease. Ultich Thomsen is great as the smug, self-assured lead scientist, while Eric Christian Olsen and Joel Edgerton are likable in their roles. The best performance, though, comes from Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She's a strong heroine, ready to take charge and jump right into the action as soon as possible. Winstead evokes memories of Sigourney Weaver's Oscar-nominated performance in Aliens, as she gives the character a gung-ho intensity that totally improves the movie.
I'll just come right out and say that the 2011 Thing sadly isn't as good as the 1982 Thing. But it's still a great flick that didn't let me down in the slightest. It's suspenseful and scary, and the less-than-convincing CGI can easily be overlooked if you really get into the movie's groove. As a prequel and love letter to (and perhaps remake of) Carpenter's movie, the movie couldn't be much better. My only wish, though, is that Universal Studios had released the movie as a double-feature with the 1982 movie. But it'll still be fun to do when it comes out on DVD in a few months.
Final Rating: ***½
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