Phonearl
Good start, but then it gets ruined
Odelecol
Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
sorendanni
As remakes of John Carpenter his movies go, this is one of the better.It starts out to be a real great movie and it stays that way form most of the time. Ufortunatley it gets out of puff in the last 15 minutes. I was not really satisfied with the ending (yes it does make a nice refference to the original movie but it just does not make for a satisfying closure of the story imo) that is why I give this one only a 7/10. But for the rest there are actually enough good things that make this worth watching. Looking back at it, I might also notice that it did not offer the sort of tension you get with movies like Stephing Kings movie adoptation of The Mist: people turn agains each other as the tension rises, but it could had been build up a bit better. Still, no big deal for me: what I got was enough?Is it better then the original? No; not even close. But is it better then a lot of other horror remakes I saw? Yes, definetly!
Blueghost
I don't remember too much of Carpenter's film to really comment on this as a prequel to that film, but I do seem to recall it was a bit more grounded and, as per other reviews, didn't rely on massive CGI visuals to carry some pretty thin story material.I don't like horror. I really don't. I think it's a stupid genre. But the original "Thing" movie from the 50s had , like I say, a kind of plausibility or grounded approach to the story. This film is purely a gimmick combined with elaborate visuals.I just had a real hard time getting through it as the gimmick of "who might be next" wore out its welcome the minute the first victim hit the floor. And as for the CGI, it's just needlessly expository, and gross in both gory and just silly presentation. That is to say you know it's going to be something pretty scary, but when it's finally presented the novelty wears off. There's also no real theme or message the author is trying to convey. It's essentially a cash cow to keep an old property alive and making money by creating a market tie in. Unlike the original film from the 1950s, which had an actual message to it, this one is just another CGI fest with a hack and slash bent to it.I'll also add that for all the effort put into explaining the science or to make it contemporary for the sake of younger science savvy viewers who demand something that at lest looks like plausible science, there isn't a whole lot of additional scientific effort going on here, again unlike the original film, or even the remake of which this is supposedly the backstory.It's a thriller without meat relying on one trick. And the plausibility or said trick is never tested by the characters. In this way the script is pretty vapid for a scifi film with horror overtones. In short, it's one long corporate film making snooze fest in spite of all of the thrills and action injected into the thing. I mean technically it's not a poorly executed film. If this were made in the 80s by some C-average UCLA director, we might have gotten something that was more in B-movie territory with little coverage and a lot of master shots with unconvincing dialogue and flat performances. Kudos to this film for avoiding that pitfall. But it's otherwise a yawn-fest that suffers from a lack of interesting material and relying on "wow" caliber CGI visuals.In the end it's not that good a film. Howard Hawks' film was noted for being intriguing. Carpenter's was noted for being an imaginative update of the same material. This is attempting to inject money into production values to make more money.There's very little here.Watch at your own risk.
Paynebyname
This really is shockingly bad and lazy. It had the potential to be interesting and it's own film, yet cops out with incredibly lazy writing that relies on the viewers knowledge of the JC version to fill in the blanks or make allowances for the amazing speed that the heroine connects all the dots.Stuff happens for happening sake or to look cool/gross out but doesn't advance or contribute to the story. At some points they try to make their own film, yet in others blatantly copy scenes and imitated shots from the JC version.To some extent I'm not sure if this new version is trying to emulate the alien by offering us a dodgy copy of the JC version that although tries to look the same is simply a lame, bogus and empty imitation.I've literally just fast forwarded through the last 40 minutes because it was so awful I didn't want it corrupting the kudos of the JC version.What a cheap, nasty, lazy tie in. The studio should be ashamed of themselves for so shamelessly exploiting the reputation of one of their classics for such a grubby, undeserving piece of crap.
Lee Lydston
When I went to see this movie, I knew full well that it was a prequel. As such, I did not compare it for 1 second with John Carpenters updated, special effects version of the original "The Thing From Another World".Instead, I viewed it for what it was. Namely, the answer to the question of "What Happened" and why were they shooting at the dog.Any other interpretation is simply making presumptions about what YOU thought it would be.Those that are old enough can recall the sheer horror of the character created by James Arness in that remote Arctic outpost as the characters are hunted for their blood and breeding purposes.John Carpenters work was great but it simply didn't have the magnitude of horror that the original movie had and comparing this prequel with Carpenters version just does the viewer an injustice.Simply put, everything came together quite well in the ending 5 minutes which quickly defined this as a prequel.
