The Thing (Remake Prequel Thing)

I was really expecting to hate this film, after all John Carpenters The Thing holds a well deserved spot in my all time top movies and a prequel seemed an unnecessary addition to a perfect stand alone movie. The fact that it shares an identical title to it's source material indicates that it should be viewed as another piece of a larger whole and despite my initial concerns that it would be nothing more than a lazy knock off the Thing (prequel) holds up well because it treats the source material with the respect and reverence it deserves and never tries to step out of the shadow if the original. The special effects while obviously relying heavily on cgi still bear similarity to the original films animatronic masterpieces and if anything the freedom of cgi enables the body snatching alien to seem more mobile and in some ways more threatening than ever.

The cast perform well, even if many of the performances seem to be copy and pasted from the original and fans of the Carpenter masterpiece like me will delight in spotting references and locations that are familiar and the film does link perfectly to its chronological predecessor.

Of course we are also treated to the always enjoyable Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who does well enough as the understated heroine and one of the few characters with any gleam of intelligence. Although ultimately none of the cast are given much chance for characterization

All in all if you enjoyed the original then you should find alot to like here, it's not perfect by any means but when viewed solely as a companion piece to the original it does a much better job as a prequel than some others movies (*cough* Phantom Menace).

Overall whether viewed as a standalone movie or a companion to the original you could do alot worse than this and I for one think it's well worth a watch!