Directed by:
Matthijs van Heijningen jr.Screenplay:
Eric HeissererCinematography:
Michel AbramowiczComposer:
Marco BeltramiCast:
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Paul Braunstein, Trond Espen Seim, Kim Bubbs (more)VOD (3)
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Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) joins a Norwegian scientific team in Antarctica that has discovered an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, and an organism that seems to have died in the crash. When an experiment frees the alien, a shape-shifting creature with the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. Paranoia soon spreads like an epidemic as they’re infected, one by one, and a thrilling race for survival begins. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Matthijs van Heijningen (fuck how does he expect to get into the subconscious with that name) may have played Silent Hill and Dead Space and enjoyed watching Hellraiser, so it’s kind of a shame he hasn't seen the original The Thing he was prequelling. An horror movie utterly devoid of ambition where nothing works apart from the two creatures, and it's distressing to watch the film try to pretend it’s not the case. The CGI is terribly boring, the characters are as flat as Milla Jovovich, instead of a final climax we get a routine visit to a spaceship (incidentally, the fact that the hole to it was supposed to be blown by the Norwegians is somewhat forgotten), and whereas in the original the space nastiness was rather sneaky and insidious, here it rearranges rooms with the nonchalance of the Hulk. Puke up and forget.
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I was afraid that it would be a weak broth, but ultimately I was pleasantly surprised by this new Thing. A solid genre movie. Although it suffers from some ailments typical for American remakes, it still has something to offer. The disgusting things are duly revolting, Beltrami’s music thunders or sends chills down the spine, and Joel Edgerton successfully fills Kurt Russell’s shoes. I originally gave it three stars, but the scene in the closing credits that harkens back to the first Thing forced me to close my eyes and give it an extra star. This picture deserves it.
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Even in a generally good film, we often see unused potential, that magical “something” in the background, whether an idea, a thought or a hint that could have turned that good film into an unforgettable masterpiece – if its creator had grasped the essence of the story correctly, dispensed with all of the clichés and tried-and-tested formulas and gone his own way. That’s just the kind of unexploited potential I would have picked up on in Heijningen’s film today if John Carpenter hadn’t perfectly put it to use before him. Carpenter’s version was an intimate drama built into a terrifying horror flick through the creeping fear of an unidentifiable evil. Heijningen’s digital freakshow is neither intimate nor a drama; it is more literal, faster, more epic and more riddled with clichés. In spite of that, however, it worked decently for me, thanks to the brilliant idea that Carpenter embedded in my childhood nightmares, and thanks also to the few new ideas that elevated it from the position of parasitic plagiarism to the role of dignified film fiasco. I consider the emancipatory change of protagonist from the ’80s action hero (Kurt Russell) to an intelligent woman, dentist Mary Elizabeth Ripley, to be one of those good ideas. And I give thanks for the closing credits ;-).
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I don't consider myself particularly smart, but unfortunately, I can predict painfully accurately the appearance, expectations, outcome, and my overall impression of a substantial part of films. The film industry is trying to fulfill the task of producing a commercially successful film and at the same time appeal to the target audience. It was clear that the plot of Carpenter's legendary The Thing prequel could not take place among a group of Norwegians in a remote Antarctic base, because the decisive revenue still comes from the American market and the American viewer is truly self-centered, so attempts to place a blockbuster among European, Asian, or South American characters, with few exceptions, do not end well. It was also necessary to consider the female audience and the shift in the actions of female characters, who have been emancipated significantly since the 80s and are leading many action movies. Likewise, it was necessary to consider the significant American ethnic minority, and thus we have the composition of the main characters. The plots of films have also significantly accelerated since the 80s, and the audience has gotten much younger, so that had to be taken into account as well. By the way, at the expense of the film's quality, and because Matthijs van Heijningen clearly admires Carpenter and tries to follow in his footsteps, he doesn't understand what made the original film great. It was characterized by a dominant atmosphere of collective mistrust, hysteria, creeping fear of uncertainty, and the issue of who could still be trusted. If there's one thing missing in Heijningen's film, it's precisely such an atmosphere. Carpenter worked with long shots, and the key scenes were not the ones where the Thing ripped through human bodies, but the ones where the polar explorers confronted each other. If horror fans were able to discuss at length how a flamethrower ended up on a polar base, in Heijningen's film, I find incomparably more logical gaps and obvious nonsense. It's not a disaster, and within the genre, it's perhaps a decent average mainly due to the attractiveness of the source material, but this successor is nowhere near the quality of Carpenter's original film. I assumed it would turn out that way, so I avoided the premiere at the movie theater, and that was the right decision. Overall impression: 40%.
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An unoriginal and incredibly austere prequel that, while it delights with its return to a chilling setting and a detailed development of the plot concept with deep respect to the legendary first film, is not worth much as a standalone film/horror work. Carpenter had compelling characters and a psychologically exceptional script within the genre, which wrapped all that horror and depression even tighter in a unique survival drama. Heijningen's characters are bland, and there are so many that we barely have time to get truly attached to any of them, and the script is a wild parade of slightly over-digitised monsters and a bunch of clichés typical of modern blockbuster sci-fi horror. The Thing had a perfect atmosphere of isolation and despair, and managed to terrify even with simple but super-clever story motifs (the examination of drawn blood with a hot wire); here, such innovation and ideas are sorely lacking, and each appearance of the monster, however visually striking, is nowhere near suggestively shocking enough to truly unsettle us. And also, the original had a brilliant soundtrack that made the blood run cold, while the sequel boasts a soundtrack as mediocre as the vast majority of its genre peers.... It's not a dud if we, as fans of The Thing, appreciate Heijningen's nostalgic wink to the past, or rather the future, culminating in the awesome closing credits, but given the plot it should have been much better...
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