The Thing (2011)

At an Antarctica research site, the discovery of an alien craft leads to a confrontation between graduate student Kate Lloyd and scientist Dr. Sander Halvorson.

Director:

Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (as Matthijs van Heijningen)

Writers:

Eric Heisserer, John W. Campbell Jr. (short story "Who Goes There?")

Stars:

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen

5 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mary Elizabeth Winstead	...	Kate Lloyd
Joel Edgerton	...	Carter
Ulrich Thomsen	...	Dr. Sander Halvorson
Eric Christian Olsen	...	Adam Finch
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje	...	Jameson
Paul Braunstein	...	Griggs
Trond Espen Seim	...	Edvard Wolner
Kim Bubbs	...	Juliette
Jørgen Langhelle	...	Lars
Jan Gunnar Røise	...	Olav
Stig Henrik Hoff	...	Peder
Kristofer Hivju	...	Jonas
Jo Adrian Haavind	...	Henrik
Carsten Bjørnlund	...	Karl
Jonathan Walker	...	Colin (as Jonathan Lloyd Walker)

Storyline

Paleontologist Kate Lloyd is invited by Dr. Sandor Halvorson to join his team who have found something extraordinary. Deep below the Arctic ice, they have found an alien spacecraft that has been there for perhaps 100,000 years. Not far from where the craft landed, they find the remains of the occupant. It's cut out of the ice and taken back to their camp but as the ice melts, the creature reanimates and not only begins to attack them but manages to infect them, with team members devolving into the alien creature.

---

Plot Keywords:

snow | alien | scientist | antarctica | alien creature | 

---

Taglines:

In a place where there is nothing, they found something.

---

Genres:

Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

---

Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for strong creature violence and gore, disturbing images, and language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [France]

Country:

USA Canada

Language:

English Norwegian Danish

Release Date:

14 October 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Thing: The Beginning

Filming Locations:

British Columbia, Canada

Box Office

Budget:

$38,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$8,493,665, 16 October 2011, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$16,928,670, 17 November 2011

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$31,505,287

Company Credits

Production Co:

Morgan Creek Entertainment Group, Universal Pictures, Strike Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

103 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Datasat SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The creature effects were done primarily with cable-operated animatronic robots on the director's insistence, since it would improve the performances of the cast if they saw what they had to react to. Computer-generated images were used to add elements to the animatronics (such as tentacles), or in some cases, to replace the entire animatronic if it didn't behave convincingly.

---

Goofs

When Kate is introduced, she is examining a cave bear. She is doing so under normal room temperature conditions. Hence the corps of the animal will thaw and rapidly decay. Specimen like frozen animals are kept frozen all the time to prevent the decay.

---

Quotes

[first lines]
Peder: [In Norwegian] Okay, I've got another one. A good one. A man and woman are making love one night when their young boy walks in.

---

Crazy Credits

SPOILER: There are a few short scenes during the first part of the end credits, which tie the ending of this film to the beginning of the 1982 film.

---

Connections

Featured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Episode #2.14 (2011)

---

Soundtracks

Who Can It Be Now
Written and Performed by Colin Hay
Courtesy of Lazy Eye Records America

User Reviews

Misses The Mark

First off, I will have to make a disclaimer: I love the 1982 John Carpenter's "The Thing". That being said, this review will try to be fair. Hopefully.

First off, "The Thing" is a prequel. I always have a fascination of prequels because they have a unique approach to writing in that the events must lead up logically to a movie already made rather than taking the idea of the first movie and going in different directions with it. This creates a lot of confinement and there have been some really cool prequels that, even in this confinement, still feel fresh and take whatever franchise into a new direction (case in point, From Dusk Til Dawn 3). So already, this movie has both a reputation to live up to (the 1982 movie is very highly regarded by John Carpenter fans, horror fans and even fans of good drama and story telling) and adding in the fact that the writers must somehow lead up to the original movie is a tough task to undertake. Overall, it was a valiant effort...but missed the mark.

The entire concept of the monster of this movie is that it dissolves any sort of trust between people. When these people are in a confined location like Antarctica, it becomes a boiler room situation with wills being tested, fears being escalated and the overall sense of any safety even with someone you've known for a while completely in chaos. I feel that this Thing movie missed that sense of despair, confinement and overall breakdown of the relationships between colleagues and comrades and even enemies when a shape shifting impostor is thrown into the mix. This is made blatantly evident when over half the characters don't seem worthy of care by the audience. Most have no personality to connect to, and the sheer number of characters just makes it worse to get to know these people. So when they start dropping like flies, one really doesn't care a whole lot.

And really, that's the fundamental flaw with the movie and why the whole thing feels forced. The pacing wasn't as deliberately slow, the whodunnit aspect didn't feel properly in place, and finally...and again, this criticism is as a fan of the original movie...why on earth did the thing not try to hide more than it did? At one point, it seemed like the movie shifted gears into a simple monster movie with *insert beastly monster* just running around killing which was completely uncharacteristic of the original movie where the thing, even when found out, would try to make an escape to hide again...

So in all, as a standalone movie, it wasn't bad at all. It was a nice return to gory disgusting things that go bump in the dark. But as a prequel, it missed the mark I think the film makers were trying to hit. John Carpenter laid out a very specific and deliberate tone to the original movie that this one just couldn't seem to figure out how to replicate...no blood test needed to find this impostor.