Review of The Thing (2011) by Muldjord — 21 Oct 2017

There's a lot to love in this film. First off, I am glad they decided to go with actual Scandinavian actors for a lot of the roles. And I like that they actually speak the language in many scenes - it helps the movie distinguish itself from Carpenters 1982 adaption.

The first half of the film grabbed me and kept me interested. This is mainly where the character development takes place and they are doing a great job of setting the scene of the movie. And I love the first scene with The Thing, where it has escaped the block of ice and hides outside, waiting. I also liked their teeth filling test. It somehow seemed more believable to me than the 1982 blood boil test, which I've always found a bit odd. I mean, why would the blood react so explosively, when it doesn't when they fire a flamethrower at it? No matter, the point of the tests make sense either way.

The movie does start to drag a lot when the action starts taking place. It's basically one big game of hide and seek, with no real interesting stuff going on than just quickly trying to figure out where the creature went, and who it copies next. Then fire that flamethrower and repeat the loop. It also become very confusing and it looses control over who is likely to have been infected and who isn't. It almost seems like it just always picks the least likely and suddenly that person IS the one infected. And those that it should / is most likely to be, it isn't.

The characters also make some immensely stupid decisions from time to time which made me cringe a bit. For instance, Kate at some point says something about not leaving in the vehicles, because you could be trapped in the vehicle with it. Then she proceeds outside with Lars, just the two of them, to disable the vehicles. So she immediately puts herself in the situation she just warned the others about...

All in all, I actually quite liked the movie, but mostly because of the first half or two thirds or so. When it all just became a looped hide n' seek, I kind of just wanted to fast-forward to the end. And the end (after the space ship part) is pretty cool, but also very expected.