Fewer
announcements of forthcoming films were met with more derision from me than
this identically titled prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The
Thing. The offense was severe, not
simply because the Carpenter film is so beloved and earned its fan-base
over many years after being maligned by critics and barely marketed by its studio, but also because that film was
itself a famous remake of a classic; Howard Hawks’ 1951 production The Thing
from Another World. Carpenter’s film
has widely been cited as one of the very few remakes that is actually good, and
Carpenter himself, with his dogged admiration for Hawks, seemed to have earned
the right to tackle such a remake. The
producers of the new Thing earned no such right, of course, but given the result,
it seems that they were aware of this and made a decisive effort to show only
the highest respect for the ’82 film.
Not once are things presented as “improvements,” but instead are
thoughtful explorations of ideas only suggested by previous incarnations. Of course, CGI is no match for Rob Bottin's and
Stan Winston’s legendary three-dimensional effects, but it is used surprisingly
effectively, if not sparingly. I was a
tough customer going into this, but I have to admit it won me over somewhat. It lacks Carpenter's unsettling pace and camerawork, but it's a film that can be considered 'good for its time;' (i.e. 2011).
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