Category: Thing movies

The Thing (2011, Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.)

The big problem with The Thing, besides it being pointless (though it needn’t be), is its stupidty. While van Heijningen is a perfectly mediocre director, he doesn’t know how to add mood or make something disturbing. Some of it probably isn’t his fault… I can’t see him caring about the addition of Eric Christian Olsen’s third wheel in the romantic chemistry between Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton, for example. It’s just the filmmakers in general. They aren’t bright.

For example, who casted Olsen as a smart guy in the first place? He’s clearly not smart. Poor Winstead and Edgerton try–and Winstead can sell the scientist pretty well–but they’re stuck in a terrible cast. Ulrich Thomsen’s mad scientist belongs in a Roger Corman knockoff.

The filmmakers seem to understand they shouldn’t be telling the story of some Norwegians in English, but whenever the Norwegians panic, they speak English. That detail seems somewhat nonsensical.

If The Thing were a traditional sequel or prequel (i.e. coming within ten years of the original), it might concern developing the original’s mythology. But coming almost thirty years later, with zero participation from the original filmmakers, it’s not… it’s a potential (and thankfully failed) franchise starter.

It could have been neat though, since it’s essentially a remake of the original Thing from Another World in terms of plot. Sadly, it’s not neat. It’s terrible and cheap.

Eric Heisserer’s script is asinine.

Watching it, I just felt bad for Winstead. She’s too classy for it.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.; screenplay by Eric Heisserer, based on a story by John W. Campbell Jr.; director of photography, Michel Abramowicz; edited by Peter Boyle, Julian Clarke and Jono Griffith; music by Marco Beltrami; production designer, Sean Haworth; produced by Marc Abraham and Eric Newman; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kate Lloyd), Joel Edgerton (Sam Carter), Ulrich Thomsen (Dr. Sander Halvorson), Eric Christian Olsen (Adam Finch), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Derek 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) and Ole Martin Aune Nilsen (Matias).

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The Thing from Another World (1951, Christian Nyby)

The Thing from Another World is a singular motion picture. It’s a combination of Howard Hawks’s fast-paced, overlapping dialogue and 1950s science fiction. It might even be the first of the 1950s sci-fi genre, the one setting the standard. There is a lot of supposition about the director’s chair–it is hard to believe television director Christian Nyby turns in such an exquisitely directed feature (his first), especially when Hawks is the film’s producer and so much of it has Hawks’s fingerprints. James Arness (the eponymous thing) has said it was Nyby, with Hawks on set a lot. Regardless, the film has some fantastic scenes, unlike anything in science fiction movies for years to come (until the filmmakers who watched The Thing got around to making their own movies).

But the technical achievement–down to the excellent use of Dimitri Tiomkin’s score for mood-generating effect–gets ousted, eventually, by the problematic script. The Thing is a metaphor for the battle against Communists in our ranks. If one’s looking for it, he or she can certainly read it in that manner. But just looking at the picture itself is far more interesting, because it reveals the defects related to propagandizing an unwilling production.

In the film, the scientists urge to discover–outweighing self-preservation–is evil. It’s also unbelievable. It doesn’t help Robert Cornthwaite’s make-up makes him look like a suspicious, mildly British intellectual, who must be bad news. The script sabotages any chance for Cornthwaite to turn in anything but a hackneyed performance. His character has less depth than a guest star on “The Love Boat” and makes a lot less sense.

There’s also the problem with Douglas Spencer, who plays the Hawks reporter. The Thing doesn’t exactly have room for a reporter, so they make room for him. He tells jokes (but not the film’s funniest ones, which involve air force captain Kenneth Tobey’s misadventures romancing Cornthwaite’s assistant, Margaret Sheridan) and spouts off about freedom of the press and gets to make the big “Watch the Skies” speech at the end. The reporter character is the film’s silliest part–it doesn’t fit and always seems contrived–and it really doesn’t help how bad a performance Spencer gives.

But on to the good performances. Tobey’s great as the captain and his romance with Sheridan provides all the tension relief the film needs. Tobey projects that 1950s sci-fi leading man calm perfectly, with the writing coming through to make he and his crew into (Hollywood) believable combat veterans. But it’s Dewey Martin who takes over the last third of the film as an enlisted man who comes up with every good idea. It’s a strange move–everyone just waits for him to tell them what they should do next–given the character isn’t even named in the end credits, just “Crew Chief.”

The film’s problems are those of its era, which–try as they might–can’t defeat its superiority. The Thing from Another World runs less than ninety minutes and, from around minute five, has the viewer totally engrossed (with nothing more than a plane flying over white Arctic expanses).

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Christian Nyby; screenplay by Charles Lederer, based on a story by John W. Campbell Jr.; director of photography, Russell Harlan; edited by Roland Gross; music by Dimitri Tiomkin; produced by Howard Hawks; released by RKO Radio Pictures.

Starring Margaret Sheridan (Nikki), Kenneth Tobey (Captain Patrick Hendry), Robert Cornthwaite (Dr. Carrington), Douglas Spencer (Scotty), James R. Young (Lt. Eddie Dykes), Dewey Martin (Bob, Crew Chief), Robert Nichols (Lt. Ken McPherson), William Self (Corporal Barnes), Eduard Franz (Dr. Stern), Sally Creighton (Mrs. Chapman) and James Arness (The Thing).

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The Thing (1982, John Carpenter)

I always say John Carpenter needs to direct something else, something non-genre. A romantic comedy perhaps or a family drama. I guess it never occurred to me, but with The Thing, Carpenter is directing something else. It’s kind of too bad, his best film is the one–in some ways–least like his others. In The Thing, Carpenter maintains his exquisite (there’s really no other word for it) Panavision composition, but he introduces a couple new elements. First, the suspense angle. It could just be Ennio Morricone’s score, but Carpenter takes a far more Hitchcockian approach to suspense in The Thing than he’s done before or since. I watched the film with my wife, who’d seen some of it, but forgot the dog’s importance, so I watched it with that first time experience in the back of my head (I guess with The Thing, which I’ve only seen six or seven times, it’s still possible). Carpenter doesn’t offer any hints, just makes almost everything suspicious (except Kurt Russell–does that make him Jimmy Stewart?). That suspense goes on for over an hour, even after the story revelations, until the beautiful blood test scene.

The blood test scene is probably the best example of the second element (like the segue?). The quietness. The fade-outs. The Thing‘s script, just due to the limited locations, inevitably reminds of a play, but one with an excellent adaptation. Carpenter’s infrequent (I think there are around six) fade-outs, which sometimes emphasize, sometimes silence, are kind of peculiar for him. He’s not known for his gentleness, but with the exception of the special effects sequences and some (not all) of the arguments, The Thing is an incredible gentle film. In some respects, it’s even passive. This second element is the parts working for the whole–Carpenter’s composition, Dean Cundey’s photography, the script, Todd C. Ramsay’s editing–it all comes together in these parts and makes The Thing something different.

As for the actors, who I haven’t mentioned. The Thing is one of those perfectly cast films where it’s pointless to go through and list all the good actors because they’re all good. They’re all perfect, no one else could do a better job in the film’s roles. For Russell, it’s a solid leading man role, but one of those special leading man roles where he’s leading others. He manages to command attention, even though the character’s rather understated. Other singular performances, Richard Dysart, Keith David, Donald Moffat and Thomas G. Waites. Dysart has a lot of screen time in the beginning and is great for all of it. David’s–I have no idea what his job is in the film–a perfect foil for Russell. Moffat and Waites both have small outstanding moments in their otherwise good performances.

Carpenter’s made a lot of great films and he’s made a few of cinematic importance, but The Thing is the one of the greatest artistic importance. It’s something totally different (and totally ignored–I’ll never forget seeing it as a fourteen-year-old after reading Leonard Maltin’s one-and-a-half star dismissive capsule), not just from what Carpenter tends to make, but from Hollywood films and genre films as well. By not rambling on in exposition until the details make some kind of sense (I just discovered overexplain is not a real word), which is a serious genre pitfall, The Thing is sublime.