Geek Speak – Watch This: The Thing (2011) Review

By Daniel

Image © Universal / Links to source

I saw The Thing (2011, dir. Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.) and well, I shall first share my Twitter review:

If you see one prequel to a remake of a 1950s sci-fi movie based on a 1938 novella this year, it may as well be The Thing.

Yes, this film is a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter film, which was a remake of the 1951 film, The Thing From Another World (worth a watch too), which was based on the John W. Campbell Jr. novella, Who Goes There?

Got all that? Let’s dig in.
I read a review on /Film which pretty much summed The Thing up as a fan film with a big budget.

And I agree. 2011′s The Thing is a spot-on tribute to John Carpenter’s film. The look, the feel–heck there is even a poor man’s Kurt Russel (Joel Edgerton as Carter). Sadly, there were not ridiculous hats to be seen.

While this devotion is a strength, at times it is also the film’s weakness. How? There is very little difference between the two films. This is good and bad. Good, in the sense the story is pretty tight and tense, bad in the sense you know what is going to happen, and that they don’t really do anything different with the plot.

The biggest difference is the addition of CGI special effects. The special effects in 2011′s The Thing cannot hold a lens-flare-causing torch to the 1982 version’s effects. This modern version suffers from the same problem of most present day creature features: they can show everything and anything because of CGI, so they do and/or are just plain showing off (I call this Wild Wild West Syndrome).

Early on, the CGI is limited and there are some great scenes with less-is-more scare tactics and tension building ‘gotcha’ moments (Attack the Block excelled at this). But, later in the film, when the gross gets laid on by the shovel full, we see way too much for way too long of the monster [insert joke about me in a swimsuit].

I’m a die-hard fan of practical effects (see my review of the make-up/puppet filled Arena for Lost Highway), and John Carpenter’s The Thing is more or less a Holy Grail of practical monster-gross-out effects. I was rather disappointed (but not surprised) to see the overuse of CGI in this prequel. There were several parts toward the end where the CGI use was very excessive and did more harm than good (as in effects that had really nothing to do with the plot).

And while Mary Elizabeth Winstead is easy on the eyes, I think someone north of thirty years old may have given the role of Kate Lloyd a bit more punch. Winstead was pretty good, all things considered–but she was no Ripley, which is what I felt the film was going for.

Here is something The Thing did great: the last five minutes. Seriously. And I’m not saying that because it was almost over. How this prequel ties in to the John Carpenter’s film is nothing short of inspired. I won’t give anything away, other than you should stay for the scenes during the credits.

Bottom Line: The Thing is a fun, gross-out creature feature, and worth a watch in the theater (as most horror flicks are). Fans of John Carpenter’s film will have a blast watching this well-crafted (save for the overuse of CGI) tribute–especially the ending. The set folks and art department did their homework.

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Daniel J. Hogan is the geek half of Ginger and the Geek. He is also a photoblogger and host of the Magic of Eyri Podcast. He has metal fillings. Follow him on Twitter, @danieljhogan.