LIFF25: The Thing (2011) - Cinema Review

'then, the final act shows up. It looks a bit drunk, it may have once had intimate relations with an episode of The X-Files and almost certainly featured as a deleted scene on the Starship Troopers DVD'

As conceits go for modern-day remakes, sequels and prequels, The Thing's (2011) isn't bad. Returning to a point prior to the events of John Carpenter's film, Matthijs van Heijningen's offering explains what happened at the Norwegian camp, visited by Kurt Russell during the course of the 1982 film. What this allows the director to do is to weave a story similar in construction to that of Carpenter's nightmare, one which fits snugly into the existing mythology, whilst not over-writing it.

For two-thirds, The Thing burbles on in a pleasantly average way, albeit one completely different in structure and style to Carpenter's. In his version, the entire point was that for long stretches you didn't know what was going on or who was attacking the unhappy Antarctic campers. It was some sort of external force but it was completely undefined. It was an, erm, 'thing'.

In van Heijningen's version someone yells 'alien' after about five minutes and the gribbly starts posing for the camera like its auditioning for Cloverfield 2 at about the twenty-minute mark. What we get here isn't the quiet and tense psycho-horror of the original, but something more akin to a creature feature, heroine Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) perpetually accepting her brief of running down corridors and around corners, acting suspiciously of everyone and everything. The former Thing's aesthetic is a much more pleasant and refined take on Horror than this one's but still, doing what it does, it does it rather well for the most part and Winstead, although not the strongest screen presence, does fine.

Then, the final act shows up. It looks a bit drunk, it may have once had intimate relations with an episode of The X-Files and almost certainly featured as a deleted scene on the Starship Troopers DVD. Drunk? It's legless. It's the annoying Uncle come to crash the party, not completely certain where his limbs are flying or why. It takes The Thing from OK-ish averageness to brainless Michael Bay-esque preposterous action-fest and it seems to think its being really clever whilst it does it.

Spare a thought too for Joel Edgerton. This, in which he does a nice line as gravelly anti-hero, and Warrior should have been his mainstream breakouts but both look like they'll end up under-performing, making it increasing likely that the Aussie will have to wait longer for his chance.

Look further...

'though not in any way offensive to fans of the earlier versions, it is disappointing. To state the obvious, there are far better films out there called The Thing' - Anomalous Materials, C