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THE THING |
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This is part two of the remake weekend. This time we get a Norwegian take on the John Carpenter cult classic "The Thing" which was a remake of the 1951 classic "The Thing from another Planet".
But for the record, this is a prequel. that is established in the last scene of the film in a very cute manner! The films redeeming feature!
Otherwise, we have the same setting and the same dilemma presented in the Carpenter version; a creature that can change into whatever it touches.
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It starts out in the Arctic, when to explorers are following a signal that leads them to find a spaceship buried under hundreds of feet of ice.
Just outside the ship is a creature - presumably the alien pilot - frozen in a block of ice.
A team of experts from both Norway and the United States go up to investigate the problem. The are led by the eerie Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) who wants to find out it's genetic makeup. He has brought in Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winsted) to assist him.
She becomes fast allies with Braxton Carter (Joel Edgerton) as they want to slow down and examine it at a safe distance.
They bring the still frozen in ice critter back to their camp and begin examining it by drilling through the ice.
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Yeah, just as it did in the previous versions, the ice thaws out and the critter escapes.
He now goes on a killing spree that only the creature from "Alien" could appreciate. He kills somebody, then assumes their look and kills some more.
In the true sense of today's splatter-me-with-blood movie philosophy, director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. does a good job painting the walls with blood.
But he also gives decent detail as to how the creature assimilates its victims - an item left out of the Carpenter version. Winstead almost makes a believable macho woman, Thomsen makes a credible mad scientist and Edgerton makes a credible macho guy who actually wants to
nail the macho chick.
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For those who missed the original John Carpenter remake (and there where many because it came out on the same weekend as "E.T. the Extraterrestrial"), this version will not disappoint.
"The Thing" is no new territory from the John Carpenter version. It does explain a bit more and it does have a nifty ending that defines it in a frantic effort to justify itself.
-- GEOFF BURTON |
GEOFF BURTON |
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COPYRIGHT 2011 BY AFROTREK TRAVEL NEWS LLC |
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