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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 1 December 2011
This a movie review of THE THING. |
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“In the three years that I have known him, this is the most excited I have ever seen him.” Adam.
For many, including myself, director John Carpenter’s THE THING is one of the greatest horror films to hit the screens. Thankfully the makers here have not opted for a remake (even though they share the same moniker), and rather gone for a prequel that leads right up to the revered flick. It actually shares a similar story to the Howard Hawks’ production, THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (excellent by the way). The discovery of an alien ship in Antarctica leads to Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) requesting the help of fellow scientist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to extract a creature from a block of ice near the downed ship, estimated to be buried for over 100,000 years. The hoary cliché of the unchecked pursuit of scientific knowledge, coupled with the desire for personal glory, is resuscitated. Events obviously spiral out of hand when the proper precautions are overlooked. I kept thinking of ALIEN when watching this or zombie movies, and not in a favourable way. Lacking compelling characters, or narrative originality, at least there might be scares right? Wrong. Gone are the jaw-dropping make-up effects, and instead we get crummy pull-you-out-of-the-story CGI. Even having cool actors like Joel Edgerton and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje can’t save this mess. It so lacks the brilliance of Carpenter’s take that I actually feel sorry for any of its fans that worked on this.
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