Thursday, July 12, 2012

Movie Musings: THE THING (2011)


John Carpenter’s version of THE THING is one of my favourite films of all time. So if you want to harp on me for being overly critical of this entry, by all means, feel free.
But, in all actuality, it’s not too terrible.
It suffers from an overdependence on using previously established motifs from the earlier entry and that makes the whole movie feel overly familiar. Why would I want to watch the 2011 jump through the same old hoops when I’ve seen the pleasure of watching the 1982 version do it all first?
The filmmakers clearly decided to run down a list of “things people expect to see in THE THING” and chose to pass up on one or two really good opportunities to make their own mark on the franchise.
This is the commercial pseudo-remake version of the film. Its light, frothy and more concerned with not fucking shit up then it is swinging for the fences.


1 comment:

  1. I had a similar feeling. I kept seeing stuff that looked familiar from the original movie, but didn't feel right. At moments I was wondering if the appeal of the first movie was all Kurt Russell or not.

    But in the end I got an answer that satisfied me: even if you take Kurt (and other good actors in that cast, to be fair) from the picture, remaking a movie from 30 years ago and adding nothing new is not a recipe for success. That, and the bad script :)

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