"The Thing" is the same Thing as the original "Thing"

Greetings fellow viewers! This is Ninja101 here and I'm finally giving a movie review. I absolutely love science fiction, so I thought that this film would be well suited to be the first review. This film is "The Thing", directed by Matthejis van Heijningen jr.

"The Thing" 2011 is actually a prequel to a much older film with the same name, The Thing, directed by John Carpenter and released in 1982(I have included a lil spoiler for those who have seen the original at the bottom of this post). I will give a review on the original shortly after this one!

Well, the plot for the film is that a Norwegian research facility, in Antarctica, discover a UFO buried deep in the snow. They also find its occupant not too far away frozen in solid ice. The lead scientist, Sander Halvorson(played by Ulrich Thomsen), brings in a paleontologists, Kate Lloyd(played by Mary Winstead), to help excavate it. They bring the body back to base and just like any good ol' fashioned scifi film, the scientists go too far and accidentally let the creature loose. The creature then proceeds to absorb the crew members. The interesting part about this film to me is that when the "thing" absorbs something, it can imitate it perfectly. So through out the film, you witness the trust that the crew members once had in each other, deteriorate.

Why should you see this movie? Here is what I think about this film. As a stand alone film, meaning you have not seen the original, it is mediocre. The directing is poorly done. The events and flow of the film feel disorganized. In a large and expensive film like this, there should not be any silly mistakes in it. There are also major loose ends that leave you with questions.

Even though the directing was bad, the acting was pretty good. I felt like Mary Winstead was like a young Sigourny Weaver from the Alien movies. Also Joel Edgerton did not get nearly enough screen time! He is a good actor in my opinion but his character was underdeveloped, so you ended up not giving a damn about him!

Let's not forget about "The Thing" itself. In the original film, "The Thing" was a physical prop/puppet. In this modern film, "The Thing" is, for the most part, a computer generated and extremely violent monster. They made good use of the graphics by allowing "The Thing" to transform more aggressively, jump around and attack more viciously than ever before.

Now is this an actual scary horror movie? Through out the whole movie, I was not scared at all. The scares are very easy to see coming. As long as you can brace yourself for the obvious, you should be fine. Well I guess how "The Thing" looks can be pretty scary as well. But the Xenomorph from Alien still haunts me to this day. "The Thing" I saw in this film did not phase me at all.

Things are not looking so good for this movie. So why should you see it? In my honest opinion, if you are even a little interested in "The Thing" and LOVE scifi, go and see this movie. As a matter of fact, I highly recommend that you watch this prequel before watching the original. The original is a bit more innovative and better directed. So might as well save the best for last. Also, coming from some one who watched the original first, I watched the prequel extremely critically. Looking for answers through out the whole movie. Some one who has not seen the original may enjoy it more with out that critical eye.

On a side note, I believe that no matter what a person says about a movie, if you have an interest in it, go and watch it, give it a try! Alright every one, hope you found this review helpful, this was Ninja101 cyall next time.

SPOILER:

This is a short spoiler for people who have already seen the original film. The events that take place in the original are extremely similar to the prequel. They follow the same exact formula! Essentially you are watching the same movie twice but slightly different. Its kind of sad really...