Movie review: "The Thing"

Generally, the philosophy for movie fans is "don't mess up a good thing." This falls on faint ears in Hollywood, where remakes, re-imaginings, and prequels to movies 30 years old happen constantly.

The Thingfalls into the third category, as it is a prequel to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film, also entitled "The Thing." Unlike most remakes/re-imaginings/prequels, this film represents almost a clear copy of the original film, which ends up being its key flaw.

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., the film takes place in Antarctica in 1982, preceding the events of the 1982 film. Norwegian and American scientists excavating in the area discover a spaceship and a "creature" presumably from the ship, under the ice.

They enlist American paleontologist Kate Lloyd (portrayed by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to unearth the creature from the ice. At the urging of the head Norwegian scientist, the team takes a tissue sample by drilling a hole into the ice block the creature is in. Unbeknownst to them, this awakens the creature which goes on a rampage against the camp.

After a time, they come to discover that the creature not only kills its targets, but replicates the cells of the prey, coming to perfectly resemble the creature it attacked.

The rest of the film deals with not only fighting the creatures, but also with the paranoia of the camp not knowing who to trust.

Going against the grain of most horror films today, which deal with gore, blood and guts, the film's scary points are built on suspense, much like the 1982 film.

The producers of the film made it a point to not "remake" the film, telling IGN.com that doing that would be like "painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa". That is where their problem lies.

Aside from some CGI thrown in, the film is almost a carbon copy of the original, in terms of the way the creature(s) are portrayed, the suspense, the paranoia and mood of the film. While it was good they didn't make a film that had no correlation to the original, this film tried way too hard to be like the original, and didn't add anything new or interesting to the mix.

In short, this version of The Thing felt like a mediocre replica of the 1982 version. It's not a bad film, but I would recommend just seeing the original version.