A small group of American's, including Palaeontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton), join a Norwegian expedition in the Antarctic. The expedition has discovered something phenomenal; what appears to be an alien space craft buried for thousands of years under the ice.
Even more amazing is what they find next; an alien life form preserved in the frozen tundra. They extract the specimen and take a tissue sample before leaving it in cold storage inside their base. What they don't realize is that it is still alive.
Soon they have a highly dangerous, highly aggressive alien life form inside their base. To make matters worse, it has the ability to replicate its victims, thereby hiding amongst its prey completely unseen. The team quickly begins to succumb to terror, paranoia, and infighting as the thing strikes again and again. It seems that only the level headed Kate has what it takes to lead what is left of the expedition to survival, if it's not already too late.
Before anyone gets uppity about this "remake" of The Thing, please be informed/reminded that in fact John Carpenter's very excellent 1982 film by the same name was in fact a remake in its own right. If you don't believe this then you haven't yet heard of the 1951 film The Thing From Another World. Good, now that the groaning about it being a remake and being too much like John Carpenter's film have been laid to rest, let's look at the merits of the film itself.
This version of The Thing is actually a prequel to the original film. In Carpenter's film, the thing comes to an American outpost in the form of a dog which comes from a nearby Norwegian outpost which they later learn has been destroyed. This film actually takes us through the original discovery of the creature by the Norwegians, the events leading to their destruction, and its escape.
But at the same time, and without copying exactly from the previous film, the 2011 version of The Thing is of course very similar to Carpenters in many ways. Even some of the scenes and story line progression are very similar to Carpenters. In this way the film pays homage to Carpenter's classic, without remaking it scene for scene.
The Thing is relatively successful in capturing the suspense and claustrophobia of its 1982 counterpart. Nobody, including the viewer, knows where, or who, the thing may be at any moment... or when it may strike again. But where Carpenter focused on the psychological aspect, leaving the viewers imagination to do some of the work, this film is a lot more in your face with the gore, and the creature itself. The original shocked viewers with scenes like the severed head that sprouted legs and crawled away. This film takes that kind of imagery to the extreme, piling on the cool visuals of the thing and its attacks.
The Thing is well worth checking out for fans of the 1982 film, and others who are in to sci-fi inspired horror films.
4 flame-throwers out of 5
Rated R for strong creature violence and gore, disturbing images, and language
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