The Informers:
Based on short stories by Brett Easton Ellis (American Psycho), this multi-stranded 1980s-set drama vaguely follows the lives of a collection of mostly unlikeable well-to-do types in Los Angeles. It looks the part, but we're so distanced from the characters (be they likeable or not) that you don't give a stuff about what's happening on-screen. Some of the characters drift in and out with little impact (let alone story) and even the ones afforded some kind of arc don't have an awful lot to do. Instead it feels like a series of half-established strands that are left half-resolved by the end of it ... now, intentional or not, it doesn't make for particularly good viewing. On the other hand American Psycho, and Rules of Attraction (both Ellis adaptations), got the mix right. They featured some downright loathesome characters but we were pulled along for the ride by them the whole way - we were invited into their respective worlds, whereas in The Informers you're kept at such a distance by a bunch of half-developed gits that you can't help but wonder why you've bothered to pay any attention in the first place.
The Ward:
Or "John Carpenter's The Ward" as it's otherwise known ... but quite honestly there's nothing in this pretty standard horror flick (set in a mental asylum) that suggests Carpenter's involvement. It could have been directed by anybody - and that's a real shame. It's nicely shot, but the plot is both thin and uninspired (rather disappointingly), so when the pretty decent final minutes rock up it's all a bit too little too late. In brief though, it's the 1960s, Amber Heard burns down a farm house and gets banged up in the nut house with a collection of other fruity-loop femmes. Cue disappearing girls, predictable LOUD NOISE 'scares' and a potent sense of a missed opportunity.
Rango:
Gore Verbinsi trades Pirates for reptiles and the Caribbean for the desert, but keeps Johnny Depp in this really rather rockin' CGI flick from Nickelodeon. The eponymous reptile - previously of home comforts - finds himself lost in the desert where he re-invents himself as Rango, a gun-slinging hero from the "far west" who once killed seven bad guys with one bullet (the seventh "died of infection"). Quite quickly he finds himself the new Sheriff in town - that being the town of Dirt - a dying frontier-style settlement where water is the commodity of choice and fast running out.
It's surprisingly really good fun - I expected it to be fun, but I wasn't expecting this much fun. Crammed with references going from the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone (especially in one inspired sequence at the end of Act II) to a brief but beautifully witty nod to Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, it's a real blast. What's more it looks just incredible - and so it should considering the visual consultant was none other than the exceptionally talented cinematographer Roger Deakins, who performed similar duties on Pixar's WALL.E - indeed it's such a visual treat that it straight-up matches (and sometimes out-strips) WALL.E itself. There are numerous competitors to Pixar - who have a pretty spiffing track record - but none of them ever manage to match Pixar's deft balance of great storytelling, heart-felt emotion, and technical prowess ... but I think we've just found a true contender.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Quadruple Bill Mini Musings: New Year, New Musings...
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011):
The uniquely talented and ever-reliable David Fincher sidesteps the 'English remake syndrome' with aplomb by delivering an equal to the original Swedish-language film in which Noomi Rapace so memorably portrayed Lisbeth Salander, the punk-with-a-photographic-memory. Complimenting the Swedish version, David Fincher's take provides us with two same-but-different looks at one international best selling book about a journalist's investigation into the decades-old unsolved case of the murder of a girl - a member of the wretched Vanger family (a self-involved, in-fighting lot, some of whom were members of the Nazi party).
Fincher's vision is a perfect match for the subject matter; his precise direction and particular style are as darkly intriguing as the content of the dense script. Many of the scenes are brief, but crammed with information. At two-and-a-half-hours it is surprisingly pacy, however there is one issue - Salander (Roony Mara) and Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) don't share enough screen time. In the Swedish original they felt like a real pairing, whereas here they feel like two able-minded independent bodies who sometimes check-in with each other. That said, Mara's Salander is every bit as spring-coiled as Rapace's famous rendition, and interestingly Craig's Blomkvist is a slightly different character here - in the Swedish version he felt very much like a rumpled journalist with a hardcore agenda that bordered on vengeance at times ... in this version he's much more understated and stoic.
Each film does many things the same, but they also do a number of things differently in different ways, and each includes or excludes certain elements more or less than their counterpart. I very much enjoyed the Swedish film, and I very much enjoyed this.
Young Frankenstein:
Now I know where the dramatic musical sting in that dramatic chipmunk YouTube video came from. A must-see Mel Brooks comedy that I've finally got around to seeing. Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, and Teri Garr - among others - make up a brilliantly talented and hilarious cast. This comedic rendition of the classic Frankenstein tale (Wilder plays the titular mad doctor's grandson) is a genuine, honest-to-goodness, laugh riot.
Silent Night Deadly Night 2:
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I saw The 41 Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It - the worst movie I saw in the entirety of 2011, and one of the worst I've seen in my whole life ... and now I've already found a strong contender for the worst movie I'll see in all of 2012. The first Silent Night, Deadly Night was a decent slasher - very much cobbled together - but decent, sinister, slasher fun nonetheless. The same cannot be said of the sequel - in any way, shape or form - in fact it's downright criminal that the producers charged money for admittance to this rip-off. Out of the first 40 minutes of the movie, a good 30-or-more minutes is - I kid you not - a trimmed-down version of the best bits from the first movie, as recounted (poorly) by Billy's psych-ward-dwelling brother Ricky. Considering that the budget was a quarter of that of the original, it's hardly surprising a third of the sequel is the original, but still - come on!
The adult Ricky may have the physical presence to be a killer, but he sure doesn't have the acting chops ... oh dear, does he not have the acting chops (here at least). Mustache-twirling maniacal laughs, crazy eyes, and scene-chewingly-awful line delivery is the order of the day here (have a look for the "garbage day" sequence on YouTube - it's the best part of the whole flick). Dull, boring, flacid, half-arsed, useless, inept ... I could easily go on. I've seen some cheap sequels in my time, but this really takes the biscuit - I was genuinely shocked by the sheer brass neck displayed by the producers in the first clip-heavy 40 minutes. Once again it's not so bad it's good, it's just rubbish - but, perhaps masochistically, it's so bad that you can only understand by viewing it for yourself ... but I'd rather be on the Naughty List.
The Green Hornet:
I never got around to seeing this superhero flick in the cinema, but catching up to it on Sky Movies has been a real joy - it's actually a really fun time. Michel Gondry brings his skewed style to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's cheeky & breezy take on a long-standing, but not-so-well-known superhero. Rogen plays Britt Reid, the son of a now-deceased newspaper mogul, who teams up with Jay Chou's Kato - an engineering, martial arts, and coffee-making master - to take on the crime boss of Los Angeles (as played with relish, and suprisingly good comedic chops, by Christoph Waltz - who was fresh off Inglorious Basterds at the time).
The third quarter of the flick is a bit saggy, Cameron Diaz's Lenore Case is mostly dispensible, and there's never quite enough of Waltz's enjoyably off-kilter japes as villain Chudnofsky - however, for the bulk of the running time it's really good fun. What's more it features one of the coolest movie cars since The Tumbler in 2005's Batman Begins.
The uniquely talented and ever-reliable David Fincher sidesteps the 'English remake syndrome' with aplomb by delivering an equal to the original Swedish-language film in which Noomi Rapace so memorably portrayed Lisbeth Salander, the punk-with-a-photographic-memory. Complimenting the Swedish version, David Fincher's take provides us with two same-but-different looks at one international best selling book about a journalist's investigation into the decades-old unsolved case of the murder of a girl - a member of the wretched Vanger family (a self-involved, in-fighting lot, some of whom were members of the Nazi party).
Fincher's vision is a perfect match for the subject matter; his precise direction and particular style are as darkly intriguing as the content of the dense script. Many of the scenes are brief, but crammed with information. At two-and-a-half-hours it is surprisingly pacy, however there is one issue - Salander (Roony Mara) and Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) don't share enough screen time. In the Swedish original they felt like a real pairing, whereas here they feel like two able-minded independent bodies who sometimes check-in with each other. That said, Mara's Salander is every bit as spring-coiled as Rapace's famous rendition, and interestingly Craig's Blomkvist is a slightly different character here - in the Swedish version he felt very much like a rumpled journalist with a hardcore agenda that bordered on vengeance at times ... in this version he's much more understated and stoic.
Each film does many things the same, but they also do a number of things differently in different ways, and each includes or excludes certain elements more or less than their counterpart. I very much enjoyed the Swedish film, and I very much enjoyed this.
Young Frankenstein:
Now I know where the dramatic musical sting in that dramatic chipmunk YouTube video came from. A must-see Mel Brooks comedy that I've finally got around to seeing. Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Peter Boyle, and Teri Garr - among others - make up a brilliantly talented and hilarious cast. This comedic rendition of the classic Frankenstein tale (Wilder plays the titular mad doctor's grandson) is a genuine, honest-to-goodness, laugh riot.
Silent Night Deadly Night 2:
It was only a couple of weeks ago that I saw The 41 Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It - the worst movie I saw in the entirety of 2011, and one of the worst I've seen in my whole life ... and now I've already found a strong contender for the worst movie I'll see in all of 2012. The first Silent Night, Deadly Night was a decent slasher - very much cobbled together - but decent, sinister, slasher fun nonetheless. The same cannot be said of the sequel - in any way, shape or form - in fact it's downright criminal that the producers charged money for admittance to this rip-off. Out of the first 40 minutes of the movie, a good 30-or-more minutes is - I kid you not - a trimmed-down version of the best bits from the first movie, as recounted (poorly) by Billy's psych-ward-dwelling brother Ricky. Considering that the budget was a quarter of that of the original, it's hardly surprising a third of the sequel is the original, but still - come on!
The adult Ricky may have the physical presence to be a killer, but he sure doesn't have the acting chops ... oh dear, does he not have the acting chops (here at least). Mustache-twirling maniacal laughs, crazy eyes, and scene-chewingly-awful line delivery is the order of the day here (have a look for the "garbage day" sequence on YouTube - it's the best part of the whole flick). Dull, boring, flacid, half-arsed, useless, inept ... I could easily go on. I've seen some cheap sequels in my time, but this really takes the biscuit - I was genuinely shocked by the sheer brass neck displayed by the producers in the first clip-heavy 40 minutes. Once again it's not so bad it's good, it's just rubbish - but, perhaps masochistically, it's so bad that you can only understand by viewing it for yourself ... but I'd rather be on the Naughty List.
The Green Hornet:
I never got around to seeing this superhero flick in the cinema, but catching up to it on Sky Movies has been a real joy - it's actually a really fun time. Michel Gondry brings his skewed style to Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's cheeky & breezy take on a long-standing, but not-so-well-known superhero. Rogen plays Britt Reid, the son of a now-deceased newspaper mogul, who teams up with Jay Chou's Kato - an engineering, martial arts, and coffee-making master - to take on the crime boss of Los Angeles (as played with relish, and suprisingly good comedic chops, by Christoph Waltz - who was fresh off Inglorious Basterds at the time).
The third quarter of the flick is a bit saggy, Cameron Diaz's Lenore Case is mostly dispensible, and there's never quite enough of Waltz's enjoyably off-kilter japes as villain Chudnofsky - however, for the bulk of the running time it's really good fun. What's more it features one of the coolest movie cars since The Tumbler in 2005's Batman Begins.
Friday, 6 January 2012
Stirling Castle - Scotland 2011...
I took some video and photographs at Stirling Castle when I was on holiday north-of-the-border a few months ago, and I've been meaning to cut together a little video using them. Well, in these dark days in the aftermath of the joyous celebrations of the festive season, I finally got around to it. Like Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle was one of the locations used to film the John Landis movie Burke & Hare.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
The Thing (2011) - the spoiler-ific, twenty-point gripe-fest...
Alright, you can see my spoiler-free review HERE, but now it's time for the fanboy gloves to come off and take a closer look at this prequel/remake hybrid - beware: spoilers-galore ahead!
1) The inherent problem with prequels - especially when we damn-well-know it all went pear-shaped for the Norwegian Camp - is that there's no mystery for the fans of the franchise. Indeed, knowing the outcome, but not the specific details of how the horror unfolded at the Norwegian Camp is exactly why it's such a haunting part of John Carpenter's 1982 film.
2) Marco Beltrami's score feels disappointingly generic. He was never going to be able to match Ennio Morricone's excellent score for the 1982 film, but deary me, this score doesn't have anything about it.
3) John Carpenter's film has a large cast, just like this 2011 version, however the key difference is that the characters in the 1982 film were distinct despite their lightly drawn manner. The 1982 cast rehearsed together extensively, so a lot of the character work is unspoken ... meanwhile in the 2011 film they're just lightly drawn, and at times downright dull, uninspired, or out-right generic.
4) Early complaints about the film featuring a female character (Kate Lloyd) at the research station were idiotic. Not only were there women at these camps for decades prior to the 1980s, but so what if there's a female lead?
5) The first reveal of the spaceship within the ice is just as dull as our first venture inside it ... and you know what, the third act inside the spaceship is dull as ditchwater too.
6) The portions of the Norwegian Camp that we see (in a destroyed form) in JC's flick are pretty well recreated here. So kudos there.
7) The 'bad scientist'/'good scientist' schtick between Dr. Sander and Kate Lloyd is an eye-roller of a dynamic. It's cliched and you can see the third act face-off coming from a million miles away.
8) Prior to the film's release there was a preview scene - the one where Jameson stares at the ice block and one of the drunken Norwegians screams "boo!" at him from behind. Then the alien bursts out of the ice and shoots up through the roof - the scene was shite out-of-context and it's just as shite in-context. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense, and it just feels lazy.
9) The first kill - of Henrik - not only involves far too much squiggly-wiggly CGI, but it's far-too public (a common trend in this flick). There's zero stealth involved and then everyone of the surviving cast sees the monster with its own eyes. Premature, shall we say. In JC's flick the attacks themselves were rarely seen, and we only saw an attack when an infected victim was cornered and had no other choice but to 'go loud'. This increased the mystery and horror of who was infected and who wasn't. No such effort is made for the 2011 film.
10) The autopsy of the ice-block-creature is pretty good - Gillis & Woodruff Jr's practical work actually gets a proper airing (i.e. it's not replaced, or covered, by CGI). It's all nicely detailed (e.g. the translucent skin on Henrik's semi-absorbed face), but it lacks the ick-factor of Rob Bottin's masterful work, and Dean Cundey's slightly obscured photography, in the 1982 film.
11) The second attack (aboard the helicopter) - is yet again a case of CGI overload and lacking in stealth. What's more it doesn't make enough sense - the alien reveals itself once again, but in-so doing destroys itself, or does it? It's one of a few plot holes in the movie.
12) The discovery of the bloody fillings and shower is pretty cool, as-is the subsequent discovery that it's all been cleaned-up. However, Juliette transforming behind Kate, makes for yet another stealth-free, OTT-CGI sequence. Any tension or misdirection during this portion of the film was short-lived, to say the least.
13) Speaking more generally about the use of CGI, the designs are good, but the execution is poor. It's far too obvious and over-used, and what's more if you layer CGI over practical effects then you might as well have done the entire thing in CGI as none of it ends up looking practical. The same damn thing happened with Rick Baker's work on The Wolfman.
14) Too many scenes and plot points are all-too-familiar from Carpenter's film ... hence the ever-so-curious 'remake-that-isn't-a-remake-because-it's-a-prequel' vibe.
15) The initial creation of the two-faced creature - as so memorably seen (in a frozen state) in the 1982 film is pretty decent - but, yet again, the use of CGI covers any-and-all practical elements and spoils it. What's more, it's also a shame that they essentially turn this once-mysterious creation into a 'big scary chase monster' ... and, continuity wise, the body wasn't anywhere near-as burnt in the 1982 movie as it was here in the 2011 movie - especially on the split-face.
16) They claim to have paid close attention to what the Norwegians did in the 1982 movie, but where on earth is a sequence showing the team blowing up the ice to reveal the spaceship? Nowhere is where - instead, stupidly, the ship's engines appear to melt the ice and reveal it.
17) Which brings me onto this point - if the ship's engines were working, then why on earth did the alien ever leave the ship in the first place? Or does being frozen for 100,000 years repair broken engines? This is perhaps the largest plot hole of the entire movie and sums up the sloppiness of the entire third act.
18) As mentioned before, the third act face-off between Kate, Carter, and a 'thinged-up' Dr. Sander is dull, dull, dull. It's CGI overload time and as a sequence it lacks any suspense or thrills.
19) The confrontation, just before the end credits, between Kate and Carter doesn't make total sense. We see that he has an ear-ring in his left ear before entering the ship, then once they've dispatched Dr. Thing, she spots that he's missing the ear-ring and he checks the wrong ear ... so she burns him. Fair enough, but he seems to beg like a real human, never attacks her, and the look on her face seems to suggest that she's not entirely sure if he actually was infected ... or am I giving the film too much credit by thinking there was subtext somewhere in there? What's more - I wonder what happens to Kate Lloyd? Does she just decide to freeze-to-death and get covered in snow, so that the Outpost 31 crew can't see the two snow vehicles?
20) The sequence (during the end credits) that links the 2011 prequel to the 1982 original is the best part of the entire movie. It's a tad awkward that the dog - now an alien - remained totally hidden at the camp whilst the other alien(s) yomped around dumbly in the open, before escaping the camp in-full-view after the helicopter arrives. However, that awkward scripting aside, having Lars become the mad Norwegian with a rifle who gets gunned-down by Garry at the beginning of JC's flick is cool. The same helicopter and emulation of shots from the original gets all the right fan-senses tingling - but it's too little, too late. Weirdly, this sequence is the most prequel-like portion of the entire movie.
1) The inherent problem with prequels - especially when we damn-well-know it all went pear-shaped for the Norwegian Camp - is that there's no mystery for the fans of the franchise. Indeed, knowing the outcome, but not the specific details of how the horror unfolded at the Norwegian Camp is exactly why it's such a haunting part of John Carpenter's 1982 film.
2) Marco Beltrami's score feels disappointingly generic. He was never going to be able to match Ennio Morricone's excellent score for the 1982 film, but deary me, this score doesn't have anything about it.
3) John Carpenter's film has a large cast, just like this 2011 version, however the key difference is that the characters in the 1982 film were distinct despite their lightly drawn manner. The 1982 cast rehearsed together extensively, so a lot of the character work is unspoken ... meanwhile in the 2011 film they're just lightly drawn, and at times downright dull, uninspired, or out-right generic.
4) Early complaints about the film featuring a female character (Kate Lloyd) at the research station were idiotic. Not only were there women at these camps for decades prior to the 1980s, but so what if there's a female lead?
5) The first reveal of the spaceship within the ice is just as dull as our first venture inside it ... and you know what, the third act inside the spaceship is dull as ditchwater too.
6) The portions of the Norwegian Camp that we see (in a destroyed form) in JC's flick are pretty well recreated here. So kudos there.
7) The 'bad scientist'/'good scientist' schtick between Dr. Sander and Kate Lloyd is an eye-roller of a dynamic. It's cliched and you can see the third act face-off coming from a million miles away.
8) Prior to the film's release there was a preview scene - the one where Jameson stares at the ice block and one of the drunken Norwegians screams "boo!" at him from behind. Then the alien bursts out of the ice and shoots up through the roof - the scene was shite out-of-context and it's just as shite in-context. It doesn't make an awful lot of sense, and it just feels lazy.
9) The first kill - of Henrik - not only involves far too much squiggly-wiggly CGI, but it's far-too public (a common trend in this flick). There's zero stealth involved and then everyone of the surviving cast sees the monster with its own eyes. Premature, shall we say. In JC's flick the attacks themselves were rarely seen, and we only saw an attack when an infected victim was cornered and had no other choice but to 'go loud'. This increased the mystery and horror of who was infected and who wasn't. No such effort is made for the 2011 film.
10) The autopsy of the ice-block-creature is pretty good - Gillis & Woodruff Jr's practical work actually gets a proper airing (i.e. it's not replaced, or covered, by CGI). It's all nicely detailed (e.g. the translucent skin on Henrik's semi-absorbed face), but it lacks the ick-factor of Rob Bottin's masterful work, and Dean Cundey's slightly obscured photography, in the 1982 film.
11) The second attack (aboard the helicopter) - is yet again a case of CGI overload and lacking in stealth. What's more it doesn't make enough sense - the alien reveals itself once again, but in-so doing destroys itself, or does it? It's one of a few plot holes in the movie.
12) The discovery of the bloody fillings and shower is pretty cool, as-is the subsequent discovery that it's all been cleaned-up. However, Juliette transforming behind Kate, makes for yet another stealth-free, OTT-CGI sequence. Any tension or misdirection during this portion of the film was short-lived, to say the least.
13) Speaking more generally about the use of CGI, the designs are good, but the execution is poor. It's far too obvious and over-used, and what's more if you layer CGI over practical effects then you might as well have done the entire thing in CGI as none of it ends up looking practical. The same damn thing happened with Rick Baker's work on The Wolfman.
14) Too many scenes and plot points are all-too-familiar from Carpenter's film ... hence the ever-so-curious 'remake-that-isn't-a-remake-because-it's-a-prequel' vibe.
15) The initial creation of the two-faced creature - as so memorably seen (in a frozen state) in the 1982 film is pretty decent - but, yet again, the use of CGI covers any-and-all practical elements and spoils it. What's more, it's also a shame that they essentially turn this once-mysterious creation into a 'big scary chase monster' ... and, continuity wise, the body wasn't anywhere near-as burnt in the 1982 movie as it was here in the 2011 movie - especially on the split-face.
16) They claim to have paid close attention to what the Norwegians did in the 1982 movie, but where on earth is a sequence showing the team blowing up the ice to reveal the spaceship? Nowhere is where - instead, stupidly, the ship's engines appear to melt the ice and reveal it.
17) Which brings me onto this point - if the ship's engines were working, then why on earth did the alien ever leave the ship in the first place? Or does being frozen for 100,000 years repair broken engines? This is perhaps the largest plot hole of the entire movie and sums up the sloppiness of the entire third act.
18) As mentioned before, the third act face-off between Kate, Carter, and a 'thinged-up' Dr. Sander is dull, dull, dull. It's CGI overload time and as a sequence it lacks any suspense or thrills.
19) The confrontation, just before the end credits, between Kate and Carter doesn't make total sense. We see that he has an ear-ring in his left ear before entering the ship, then once they've dispatched Dr. Thing, she spots that he's missing the ear-ring and he checks the wrong ear ... so she burns him. Fair enough, but he seems to beg like a real human, never attacks her, and the look on her face seems to suggest that she's not entirely sure if he actually was infected ... or am I giving the film too much credit by thinking there was subtext somewhere in there? What's more - I wonder what happens to Kate Lloyd? Does she just decide to freeze-to-death and get covered in snow, so that the Outpost 31 crew can't see the two snow vehicles?
20) The sequence (during the end credits) that links the 2011 prequel to the 1982 original is the best part of the entire movie. It's a tad awkward that the dog - now an alien - remained totally hidden at the camp whilst the other alien(s) yomped around dumbly in the open, before escaping the camp in-full-view after the helicopter arrives. However, that awkward scripting aside, having Lars become the mad Norwegian with a rifle who gets gunned-down by Garry at the beginning of JC's flick is cool. The same helicopter and emulation of shots from the original gets all the right fan-senses tingling - but it's too little, too late. Weirdly, this sequence is the most prequel-like portion of the entire movie.
The Thing (Matthijs van Heijningen Jr, 2011) - spoiler-free review...
What with the festive season this one got kind of buried - so, better-late-than-never, have at it.
When I first heard rumours of a new version of The Thing (why on earth they couldn't call it, for example, 'The Thing: Outpost 30', or whatever number the Norwegian Camp was, is beyond me), I thought what most other fans must have thought - oh no, here comes another remake ... however, that's not the case, for the most part. When is a remake not a remake? When it's a prequel - a prequel that can't decide whether it's a prequel or a remake, that is.
Filling in the blanks of what happened at the Norwegian Camp, as visited by some of the members of Outpost 31 in John Carpenter's masterful sci-fi/horror/suspense flick from 1982, this 2011 remake-that-isn't-a-remake continually suffers from the one key problem that plagues almost all prequels - we already know the outcome.
Yes, those who haven't seen the superior 1982 film won't be so bothered about this, but on the other hand they won't get any of the nods and winks towards Carpenter's film - which really, when all is said and done, is the only real reason to bother watching this movie.
It's not all that bad, but it's not all that good either. Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Kate Lloyd (a Paleontologist) is whisked to Antarctica to help dig up something that has been found in the ice. Accompanied by box-ticking Americans (and a Brit, for some strange reason), she and the Norwegians venture inside the ice-bound alien spacecraft (which is sorely underwhelming on both visits during the movie) to have a look-see before dragging an occupied block of ice back to camp.
Then the obvious series of events happen - events that won't surprise anyone who has seen the 1982 film.
Prior to the release of the movie, after fan concerns about the use of CGI, there was a lot of championing of the practical effects used on this new one - this immediately got my suspicions on alert. Sure enough, while there are some practical effects on display (one example is an impressively detailed, but not Rob Bottin-level icky, autopsy sequence), the vast majority of effects are CGI ... and subtlety hasn't been employed - at all. Anything that was once practical and needed to move on-screen has been either entirely replaced by CGI creations, or has been so covered-up by layers of CG-tweakery, that it all just looks like it was never anything other than CGI ... i.e. the fan fears are most definitely founded regarding that aspect. It's most disappointing.
CGI aside, little attention has been paid to the methods of the titular nasty - in this 2011 version it doesn't give a stuff about being stealthy. No, what we have instead is a creature that's ever-so-ready to reveal itself (slowly, in leering close-up, so we can all examine how marvellous the pixels apparently are) and make a load of racket. Add in some plot holes, an iffy twist regarding "non-organic material", and a cast of characters that are more-often-than-not interchangeable or forgetable, and it all adds up to a bit "so what?" Now sure, non-English-speaking Lars (who becomes very important) and wild-eyed-and-beardy Jonas (who is annoyingly underused) stand-out, but it's not hard when the other characters make little impact. Juliette is dull, Dr. Sander is the cliched 'bad scientist' to Winstead's 'good scientist', Carter is no match whatsoever for 1982's MacReady, Colin is just a grumpy Brit, Peder doesn't do an awful lot, and Jameson (Mr. Eko from Lost) has three-fifths-of-bugger-all to do throughout ... and that's just the ones I know the names of.
It's a missed opportunity, but then again could it have ever been a truly worthwhile exercise? It does make complete career sense for Winstead to take this flick on (I respect and enjoy her work), but she's never used to her full potential here unfortunately. It's all a bit of a mostly-tension-free damp squib - not terrible, but not much cop either beyond a few fanboy nods and winks to tie it in with John Carpenter's far superior chiller. If you're going to watch The Thing - make it the 1982 version.
When I first heard rumours of a new version of The Thing (why on earth they couldn't call it, for example, 'The Thing: Outpost 30', or whatever number the Norwegian Camp was, is beyond me), I thought what most other fans must have thought - oh no, here comes another remake ... however, that's not the case, for the most part. When is a remake not a remake? When it's a prequel - a prequel that can't decide whether it's a prequel or a remake, that is.
Filling in the blanks of what happened at the Norwegian Camp, as visited by some of the members of Outpost 31 in John Carpenter's masterful sci-fi/horror/suspense flick from 1982, this 2011 remake-that-isn't-a-remake continually suffers from the one key problem that plagues almost all prequels - we already know the outcome.
Yes, those who haven't seen the superior 1982 film won't be so bothered about this, but on the other hand they won't get any of the nods and winks towards Carpenter's film - which really, when all is said and done, is the only real reason to bother watching this movie.
It's not all that bad, but it's not all that good either. Mary Elizabeth Winstead's Kate Lloyd (a Paleontologist) is whisked to Antarctica to help dig up something that has been found in the ice. Accompanied by box-ticking Americans (and a Brit, for some strange reason), she and the Norwegians venture inside the ice-bound alien spacecraft (which is sorely underwhelming on both visits during the movie) to have a look-see before dragging an occupied block of ice back to camp.
Then the obvious series of events happen - events that won't surprise anyone who has seen the 1982 film.
Prior to the release of the movie, after fan concerns about the use of CGI, there was a lot of championing of the practical effects used on this new one - this immediately got my suspicions on alert. Sure enough, while there are some practical effects on display (one example is an impressively detailed, but not Rob Bottin-level icky, autopsy sequence), the vast majority of effects are CGI ... and subtlety hasn't been employed - at all. Anything that was once practical and needed to move on-screen has been either entirely replaced by CGI creations, or has been so covered-up by layers of CG-tweakery, that it all just looks like it was never anything other than CGI ... i.e. the fan fears are most definitely founded regarding that aspect. It's most disappointing.
CGI aside, little attention has been paid to the methods of the titular nasty - in this 2011 version it doesn't give a stuff about being stealthy. No, what we have instead is a creature that's ever-so-ready to reveal itself (slowly, in leering close-up, so we can all examine how marvellous the pixels apparently are) and make a load of racket. Add in some plot holes, an iffy twist regarding "non-organic material", and a cast of characters that are more-often-than-not interchangeable or forgetable, and it all adds up to a bit "so what?" Now sure, non-English-speaking Lars (who becomes very important) and wild-eyed-and-beardy Jonas (who is annoyingly underused) stand-out, but it's not hard when the other characters make little impact. Juliette is dull, Dr. Sander is the cliched 'bad scientist' to Winstead's 'good scientist', Carter is no match whatsoever for 1982's MacReady, Colin is just a grumpy Brit, Peder doesn't do an awful lot, and Jameson (Mr. Eko from Lost) has three-fifths-of-bugger-all to do throughout ... and that's just the ones I know the names of.
It's a missed opportunity, but then again could it have ever been a truly worthwhile exercise? It does make complete career sense for Winstead to take this flick on (I respect and enjoy her work), but she's never used to her full potential here unfortunately. It's all a bit of a mostly-tension-free damp squib - not terrible, but not much cop either beyond a few fanboy nods and winks to tie it in with John Carpenter's far superior chiller. If you're going to watch The Thing - make it the 1982 version.
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