Jason KingTHE THING - A Review by Mitch Lewis
October 15th 2011 19:53
:
REVIEW BY MITCH - THANKS MITCH
Category: Reviews
"THE THING - Review"
I am off to see this one today before the Warriror's premiere but good old Mitch went along to the media screening for me throughout the week as I have been out of town converting 35mm cinemas to DIGITAL and getting all your cinemas ready for the next generation of viewing movies. Mitch has given the film a pass and I have been reading some other reviews and a lot of them are saying great things - but then some others are totally hating it. It's a 50/50 thing with this one - will add a comment tonight after I get to see it.
"Hey really nice, hard working guy who doesn't speak English and who's only companion is his faithful Alaskan malamute, can you ignore the alien we've got defrosting in the spare room and go out into the dark, blizzardy night... alone... to fetch more alcohol? Also, excuse me token black guy, can you venture away from the party... also alone... and go and poke around the thawing alien in the spare room?... What's that? It escapes in a massive jump scare?? Well I'll be... I just did not expect that at all. Excuse me while I find somewhere safer to stand because everything around me is just so ground breaking."
OK OK OK, I may be taking the piss a little too much but the start of this film's main storyline is seriously like that. In the beginning, I was thinking this movie should've been called The Cliche but as it played out, as much as it might come back to bite me in the ass, I kind of began to like it. Everything about it has such a respectfully achieved C-grade monster movie feel to it that, for me, it was hard to watch it without thinking about how wonderfully retro a vibe it gave off. After all, it is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 cult horror The Thing, who knows what I thought I was expecting.
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., The Thing (2011) is a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) which is a remake of Christian Nyby's The Thing From Another World (1951) which is an adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? (1938) so it's safe to say that the source material has been thoroughly fleshed out over the last 70-odd years.
The Thing (2011) takes place in the frozen isolation of an Antarctic research facility. After a strange albeit visually impressive discovery is made, respected graduate paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Die Hard 4.0 / Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) is recruited by head scientist Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen - Season of the Witch) and Kate's friend Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen - Fired Up) to assist them in a dig to retrieve a 2nd discovery... a strange creature. With little time between storing the extra-terrestrial icy pole and it's inevitable escape, it's initial attack is thwarted by the heroic helicopter pilot Braxton Carter (Australia's Joel Edgerton in leading man mode). It isn't long before the discovery is made that this creature attacks and eats you and then imitates you so it can walk amongst its victims unrecognised. After this discovery, the fear of the lurking creature mixed with the paranoia of the fact that the creature could actually be anyone of the survivors escalates to a deafening intensity and causes mass friction amongst the group leading up to the final scenes that roll during the beginning of the end credits which set up the opening scene of it's sequel, John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
Eric Heisserer, who wrote Final Destination 5 and who pissed out the screenplay for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, penned this movie as well but to his credit, didn't try and make it any more than what it was, a classic, dumb monster movie. That, in turn, makes it enjoyable. It's not like Pirahna 3D dumb, where the movie is almost a parody of itself, The Thing just tries to adapt that nostalgic feel of the old school sci-fi alien shocker which I think it does quite well. Don't get me wrong though, there are still a shite load of real, genuinely stupid slip-up moments on the writers behalf, of the many I questioned, if the creature initally escaped by jumping through a timber roof, why then would you imprison people you thought were the aliens in a flimsy wooden supply shed? Most people, however, will only want to see this because the well cut trailers make it look terrifying so if that's you, in order to get the most scares out of the movie, please see it at a cinema complex with a massive sound system, it is a necessity because the movie is just jump scare galore. There are also a decent handful of moments where the rising tension gets palm-sweatingly exhausting and the sound effects that the alien makes both when it's growling and when it's transforming and consuming it's prey are so bloody brutal, you can hear every bone snap and every organ burst open and the contents slap onto the ground... high-fives all round to the sound team, cracking job!
The acting department is won by Joel Edgerton's natural presence and American accent. He is yet another Aussie who seems like he could just effortlessly walk onto a Hollywood set and pull off the role of a leading man with conviction and ease. Also, to Mary Elizabeth Winstead's role as the scientist who takes the reigns of survival and at times, comes off as a mildly convincing Ellen Ripley from Alien.
The other actors who are all of Norwegian/European descent, bar Eric Christian Olsen who had such a plain, nothing character, play pawns in a game of 'spot the Red Herring'.
While Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's take on the sci-fi monster genre is a commendable effort in The Thing (2011), the pacing did seem very on and off. One minute, people will just be getting killed seemingly to just get the body count up, the next, the movie will slow down with stupid and very flawed ways of being able to tell who's an alien and who's not.
The ending, as in before the credits roll (not counting the setup during the credits) is unfulfilling. It seemed like it was prepping to ascend into a big climax, introducing a vast array of awesome sets and amazing visual effects only to just fizz out from under your feet in a few minutes and then end quietly. The saving grace is the scene during the credits but even then, unless you've seen Carpenter's 1982 film, you won't even know that it means anything NOR will you even know that this is a prequel because they intentionally avoided giving it a typical prequel title, like The Thing: Origins or The Thing Begins or The Thing - Episode One: The Phantom Menace...
So, to lay it all out on the line, this Thing is not a bad Thing, it's not a fantastic Thing and even though it's not a completely full-proof Thing and at times, can be a pretty stupid Thing, it's a passable Thing. There's good scares, decent suspense, some great alien moments and a passable film that although is rife with cliche's and face-palming moments, it at least tries to throw you off a little bit here and there.
The Thing (2011) - I'm giving it 5/10... a just pass
I am off to see this one today before the Warriror's premiere but good old Mitch went along to the media screening for me throughout the week as I have been out of town converting 35mm cinemas to DIGITAL and getting all your cinemas ready for the next generation of viewing movies. Mitch has given the film a pass and I have been reading some other reviews and a lot of them are saying great things - but then some others are totally hating it. It's a 50/50 thing with this one - will add a comment tonight after I get to see it.
"Hey really nice, hard working guy who doesn't speak English and who's only companion is his faithful Alaskan malamute, can you ignore the alien we've got defrosting in the spare room and go out into the dark, blizzardy night... alone... to fetch more alcohol? Also, excuse me token black guy, can you venture away from the party... also alone... and go and poke around the thawing alien in the spare room?... What's that? It escapes in a massive jump scare?? Well I'll be... I just did not expect that at all. Excuse me while I find somewhere safer to stand because everything around me is just so ground breaking."
OK OK OK, I may be taking the piss a little too much but the start of this film's main storyline is seriously like that. In the beginning, I was thinking this movie should've been called The Cliche but as it played out, as much as it might come back to bite me in the ass, I kind of began to like it. Everything about it has such a respectfully achieved C-grade monster movie feel to it that, for me, it was hard to watch it without thinking about how wonderfully retro a vibe it gave off. After all, it is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 cult horror The Thing, who knows what I thought I was expecting.
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., The Thing (2011) is a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) which is a remake of Christian Nyby's The Thing From Another World (1951) which is an adaptation of the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There? (1938) so it's safe to say that the source material has been thoroughly fleshed out over the last 70-odd years.
The Thing (2011) takes place in the frozen isolation of an Antarctic research facility. After a strange albeit visually impressive discovery is made, respected graduate paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Die Hard 4.0 / Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World) is recruited by head scientist Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen - Season of the Witch) and Kate's friend Adam Goodman (Eric Christian Olsen - Fired Up) to assist them in a dig to retrieve a 2nd discovery... a strange creature. With little time between storing the extra-terrestrial icy pole and it's inevitable escape, it's initial attack is thwarted by the heroic helicopter pilot Braxton Carter (Australia's Joel Edgerton in leading man mode). It isn't long before the discovery is made that this creature attacks and eats you and then imitates you so it can walk amongst its victims unrecognised. After this discovery, the fear of the lurking creature mixed with the paranoia of the fact that the creature could actually be anyone of the survivors escalates to a deafening intensity and causes mass friction amongst the group leading up to the final scenes that roll during the beginning of the end credits which set up the opening scene of it's sequel, John Carpenter's The Thing (1982).
Eric Heisserer, who wrote Final Destination 5 and who pissed out the screenplay for the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, penned this movie as well but to his credit, didn't try and make it any more than what it was, a classic, dumb monster movie. That, in turn, makes it enjoyable. It's not like Pirahna 3D dumb, where the movie is almost a parody of itself, The Thing just tries to adapt that nostalgic feel of the old school sci-fi alien shocker which I think it does quite well. Don't get me wrong though, there are still a shite load of real, genuinely stupid slip-up moments on the writers behalf, of the many I questioned, if the creature initally escaped by jumping through a timber roof, why then would you imprison people you thought were the aliens in a flimsy wooden supply shed? Most people, however, will only want to see this because the well cut trailers make it look terrifying so if that's you, in order to get the most scares out of the movie, please see it at a cinema complex with a massive sound system, it is a necessity because the movie is just jump scare galore. There are also a decent handful of moments where the rising tension gets palm-sweatingly exhausting and the sound effects that the alien makes both when it's growling and when it's transforming and consuming it's prey are so bloody brutal, you can hear every bone snap and every organ burst open and the contents slap onto the ground... high-fives all round to the sound team, cracking job!
The acting department is won by Joel Edgerton's natural presence and American accent. He is yet another Aussie who seems like he could just effortlessly walk onto a Hollywood set and pull off the role of a leading man with conviction and ease. Also, to Mary Elizabeth Winstead's role as the scientist who takes the reigns of survival and at times, comes off as a mildly convincing Ellen Ripley from Alien.
The other actors who are all of Norwegian/European descent, bar Eric Christian Olsen who had such a plain, nothing character, play pawns in a game of 'spot the Red Herring'.
While Matthijs van Heijningen Jr's take on the sci-fi monster genre is a commendable effort in The Thing (2011), the pacing did seem very on and off. One minute, people will just be getting killed seemingly to just get the body count up, the next, the movie will slow down with stupid and very flawed ways of being able to tell who's an alien and who's not.
The ending, as in before the credits roll (not counting the setup during the credits) is unfulfilling. It seemed like it was prepping to ascend into a big climax, introducing a vast array of awesome sets and amazing visual effects only to just fizz out from under your feet in a few minutes and then end quietly. The saving grace is the scene during the credits but even then, unless you've seen Carpenter's 1982 film, you won't even know that it means anything NOR will you even know that this is a prequel because they intentionally avoided giving it a typical prequel title, like The Thing: Origins or The Thing Begins or The Thing - Episode One: The Phantom Menace...
So, to lay it all out on the line, this Thing is not a bad Thing, it's not a fantastic Thing and even though it's not a completely full-proof Thing and at times, can be a pretty stupid Thing, it's a passable Thing. There's good scares, decent suspense, some great alien moments and a passable film that although is rife with cliche's and face-palming moments, it at least tries to throw you off a little bit here and there.
The Thing (2011) - I'm giving it 5/10... a just pass
| 28 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
