**Part of my 2022 Sci-Fi Tuesdays**

The Thing 2011 has a fault way too many prequels suffer from, and that is that it answers questions that doesn't need answering. I had no need to really see that the Thing, from Carpenter's The Thing, was an alien. I gathered that from what happens in the movie. I didn't need to know what happened on the Norwegian base either, because that was certainly something my mind cooked up for itself while watching the original.

Anyway, The Thing 2011 is not really all that bad, but it's totally redundant. Not only did they use many of the same scenes as in the original, but they also managed to make the effects way worse. Twenty-nine years later and the effects looked horrendous compared to the practical effects in the original. Way to go guys...

This is actually only the second time I have seen the whole of this movie. I haven't touched this since I saw it in the cinema back in 2011, and now you know the reason.

This could have been a good movie, if they had called it something else, and rewritten some parts of the story to set it apart from Carpenters masterpiece. Then maybe some of us would have judged it less harshly. At least I know I would have...

A prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 classic with the same name this copycat turned out to be better than I thought it would be. It offered nothing too original except a smart Ripley-type character who was decent and likeable. The filmmakers managed to tie the ending of this story into the opening of Carpenter's original which was an appropriate thing to do since they had branded it as a prequel as part of the marketing strategy. I really don't think I would want to see this movie be part of some "The Thing" box set though. It is totally unnecessary and is really nothing but a cash grab based an earlier masterpiece. Yes that's right. I called Carpenter's original a "masterpiece".

What suprises about this prequel is that it isn't a bad movie at all that is until the final act. There is some decent suspense and some real tension generated. The classic blood test scene of the original was almost to the point of being copied but they pulled back and developed a different way to tell alien from human. It's not as effective but it does manage to turn up the suspense. And about that last act it's awful. The characters get involved in a "hiding from the alien" scene that makes absolutely no sense given what we find out about them later. Even the alien behaves like an absolute idiot. I don't know why I'm trying not to spoil this but perhaps it's because I wouldn't want a forehead slapping moment ruined for me.

No comments about a movie containing aliens would be complete without a word or two about the special effects and in this movie they weren't very good. Everything is CGI and it totally eliminated any potential scares. They weren't SyFy Channel cheap but were at times very nearly cartoonish. The alien was not scary and even the gore which there was less of than I anticipated was not convincing in the least. Seriously what is it about special effects that allows me to accept how bad they are in '50s science fiction or horror but reject them when current films botch them. This version of "The Thing" didn't impress in that department.

Hvem går det?

The Thing is directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and adapted to screenplay by Eric Heisserer. It's based on the novel "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell and is a prequel to "John Carpenter's The Thing" from 1982. It stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Music is by Marco Beltrami and cinematography by Michel Abramowicz.

Antartica, 1982, and scientist Kate Lloyd is requested to investigate something strange at a Norwegian base station. By accident the Norwegians have discovered what appears to be an alien craft frozen beneath the ice. Their thoughts prove to be correct and they are rightly celebrating a magnificent discovery, particularly as there appears to also be a frozen being in the ice. But it's not long before everyone at the base begins to regret unearthing the being...

No serious John Carpenter fan wanted this film, it wasn't needed or required. His 1982 film is an awesome slice of sci-fi horror, a remake itself of a very good film, "The Thing from Another World" (Howard Hawks 1951), Carpenter flipped the scenario around from Hawks' movie to great effect. Paranoia and creeping dread blended with amazing beasties to make for what many feel is one of the ultimate sci-fi horror movies going. So why remake it then? Well, we are told by Heijningen Jr and his team that this is a prequel to Carpenter's movie, asking the big questions such as just what happened at the Norwegian base station before Kurt Russell's manly mob got there? Making this a sort of filling in the blanks session. Not a bad idea at all is that, something good to work from, even if we know from the beginning of Carpenter's movie just how many Norwegian's survived!

Now the problem here is that it may be a prequel, and attention to detail in scenes linking both films together is rather ace, but it's devoid of freshness, the makers pretty much following the exact same formula of Carpenter's film. Cue a group of scientist types getting spooked by something ghastly stalking them, cue one by one them getting offed in grizzly ways by an assimilating menace and cue paranoia and suspicion. They even put in the test sequence from 82, only with a metal slant instead of blood, while the creatures are the same only bigger in body horror terms and budget. Instead of Kurt Russell's mighty machismo, we get Winstead's spunky lady (she's the one without the face fuzz here), but it's the same old same old routine, only for the "Scott Pilgrim" crowd. When all is said and done, this is pretty much a remake of a far far better film.

Yet for all that is annoying and unadventurous about it, it's still a bunch of fun, the director is capable in having us wonder what is around the corner, utilising the cramped interiors for maximum fret. The various creatures born out of the Thing itself are monstrous, especially the two headed one which we see horrifically birthed, and even though the CGI is there, with some of it poor, much of it is blended with practical work and the human actors to stop it from being "all" about the effects. It's also nice to report that there is undeniably love and respect for the 82 cut. Leading cast performances are efficient, but Winstead is just too young and looks out of place, she does not, however, fail for lack of effort to make her thinly written part work. Bonus is the Norwegian actors adding some intense character dynamics to the plotting. Beltrami's score nods appreciatively to Morricone's original, and on Blu-ray Abramowicz's steely coloured photography really pings out of the screen.

In an alternative universe where there is no John Carpenter film, this would be a well regarded entry into the creature feature stable. With enough shocks and squirmy screams delivered for the genre eager crowd. But unless you are someone who hasn't seen Carpenter's superior movie, then this will feel like a shallow imitation, just like, ironically enough, one of The Thing's assimilated humans. A generous 7/10 from me because I did have fun watching in the privacy of my own home with the lights off. Other Carpenter fans, though, are most likely to start rating from my 7 and work backwards I feel...

**_More of the same with a female protagonist, but well done_**

An American paleontologist (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is recruited by a doctor and his assistant (Ulrich Thomsen and Eric Christian Olsen) to travel to a Norwegian base in Antarctica to examine a colossal craft buried under the ice and a nearby frozen specimen. They bring the latter into the base; big mistake.

“The Thing” (2011) is a prequel to the Kurt Russell movie from 29 years prior. The ending fittingly paves the way for the 1982 film, which featured an all-male cast. This one attempts to “fix” that arguable issue with the inclusion of Winstead and another female character, but I wouldn’t look for romantic complications because this flick runs 6 minutes shorter than the ’82 film and so only has time to focus on the life-or-death challenges of the remote station.

It's basically a re-do, just with a female protagonist à la “Alien” & “Aliens.” The laughable torso jaws return, but this shows faithfulness and consistency. The ’82 film is revered by devotees so this movie was never going to measure up in their eyes. However, it’s pretty much on par and I appreciate the presence of Winstead, plus it does do something different in the last act that I’m not going to give away.

The film runs 1 hour, 43 minutes, and was shot at Pinewood Toronto Studios near the shore in Port Lands, as well as nearby Stouffville and the Canadian Forces Base in Trenton, the latter of which is a 2-hour drive east of Toronto. Exteriors were shot in British Columbia.

GRADE: B