…And Another THING! – Counter-Attack

by Chris October 14, 2011

I can’t argue with most of what Eros has complained about. What I can do is focus on the positive – sure, The Thing 2011 is no The Thing 1982, and had the chance at really being something special, and is certainly not a great movie… but that’s just glass-half-empty stinkin’ thinkin’. In the half of the glass that’s full, we have about 100 minutes worth of obvious respect for Carpenter’s film, in the attention-to-detail department anyway, from the pre-burned recreated sets to those blue lens flares to the exact positions all those charred bodies at the Norwegian camp meet their fate in. And not to spoil anything, but there are a few other things in this movie that will please fans. And we have Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who does a lot with what could have been an annoying role.

The deal-breaker here is the ridiculously bad CGI in certain key scenes. How anyone involved with the making of this looks at some of those shots and feels okay with showing them to an audience is just demented. But again, just trying to focus on the positive here, which there was enough of for me to make this an enjoyable time, and one I’d recommend to anyone with an interest in John Carpenter’s The Thing …as long as they don’t expect an exact replica.