by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (2011)
Available on Blu-ray™ and DVD on 26 march 2012 from Universal Pictures UK
“What are we going to do? A prequel? A remake? A reboot? Another thing?”
This is what first time director Matthijs van Heijningen must have asked the producers. Since John Carpenter’s The Thing is already a remake and it is already perfect as it is, then everybody decided to make a prequel, to explain what happened before Kurt Russel and Co. entered the scene.
Explain what? What is the deal with all these recent remakes, prequels, reboots? Hollywood is running out of ideas and money to invest, so the sure things are franchise movies – if well marketed – and remakes. But what is the need to remake something that was already good? Why do new generations feel the need to watch up to date movies when they could dig the classics and learn from them?
A Nightmare on Elm Street was a failure, always spoon-feeding the public and transforming the eerie atmosphere of the original into a watered down scare; Friday the 13th tried to unveil unknown secrets, but failed miserably to scare and to entertain; Halloween started on some good premises, and Rob Zombie proved to be a talented director, but it did not deliver anything more than expected; Fright Night lost all the 80s flavor and campy style to an improbable, but decent, Colin Farrel, a forgettable 3D and pretentious characters. The list would go on and on.
The Thing 2011 opens in 1982, same year of JC’s film, and it does a fine job introducing the story, the characters and setting up the terror, but that’s pretty much it. Nobody has an explained background, we never care about any of the people involved in the action, or maybe just for the one guy who does not speak English and represents the most down to earth character of all.
Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is supposed to be the heroin – since a female lead was chosen to differ from Kurt Russell’s protagonist – but she is just a lame copy of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley with flame-thrower and whatnot, but much less bad-ass and cool, and she is seldom believable when she tries to show paranoia. Paranoia is the key element of the whole story – and a great metaphor of life itself – but you never feel haunted or paranoid. As the minutes tick on the film becomes more disappointing and leaves a lot to be desired. The only thing that keeps you awake is the search of elements connected to the previous – but chronologically posterior – movie, i.e. the axe in the wall left by Sam – Joel Edgerton’s character.
The director knows the basics of how to shoot suspenseful scenes, but the movie relies visually too much on CGI, and “the thing” is always there on screen, not scaring anybody and not making anyone care. John Carpenter had to create effects with more empirical methods, but nonetheless they were more effective, and with a constant paranoia raging on, it did not take much for the movie to become a cult.
The ending is surprisingly refreshing tying perfectly this mediocre prequel to the beginning of John Carpenter’s masterpiece. At least one…thing.
