Being a HUGE thing fan-both the John carpenter film as well as the short story it was based on "Who Goes There" by John Campbell, I was stoked to see they were doing a remake. And a bonus! The star is Mary Elizabeth Winstead from 'Die Hard With a Vengeance'-who I used as a model for Jessie's girlfriend in 'Dr Death vs the Zombie'. She plays Kate, a paleobiologist.
The movie starts out pretty good-great acting and scenery top notch but there was a fake part pretty early on-the alien bursts out of its ice cube. I'm thinking wait-its still the exact same temperature as its been for the last 100,000 years in its ice tomb-why can it suddenly insta-thaw and bust out now? Not a huge flaw but I hope there's not more of them-enough flaws and the willing suspension of disbelief is toast. Ok let's see what happens next.
Ok another fake part to report-it goes from day to night. Apparently no one bothered to check that night or day at the poles lasts for months...sigh. I really wish I could act as scientific advisor to Hollywood-they need one so badly...ok the original Thing movie had the same flaw so I'm not too upset-I'm just sayin.
The movie picks up quickly-the drama is great and a real tribute to the original film, with the extra bonus of computer technology to make the alien more horrific and realistic than the original, when John Carpenter only had stop-motion animation to work with.
Kate clues in to the capabilities of the critter, and of course no one believes her until the bodies start dropping. Classic! I'm liking this film, man. There are some truly horrific scenes as the THING consumes its prey.
They do the horror movie deal where even though anyone could be one of the critters, people keep being alone with one other person, and everyone is allowed to wander around ALONE. HELLO! haven't any of these scientists ever seen a horror movie? Stick together! Then they lock two suspected people in a shack until they can find out if they are aliens...uh, guys? That alien busted out of several stronger buildings already-you all saw that. what makes you think a shack is gonna hold them? It reminds me of the Kav and Tony review where kids were tossing Superman around and he goes to punch an adult-illogical.
Luckily for them the creature is part stupid-it can detach parts of itself like a hand and run up your arm and jam its way down your throat. Why it doesn't just segment itself into like 50 pieces and attack everyone at once like the space crabs in Apollo 18 is a mystery.
Another part I didn't understand was-they disabled all the vehicles so the creature couldn't get away, then later the thing takes off in one vehicle and the two remaining humans give chase in another vehicle! Wtf? Did the director forget his own script? Brilliant. Gimme that damn thing-I'll read it.
The alien finally makes its way back to the spacecraft. why it didn't just slyly do this in the first place then fly to New York instead of causing all that drama is yet another mystery. These are the kind of plot inconsistencies that me and Tony strive to weed out of our Doctor Death stories-why are we the only ones???
This movie also suffers from the 'Green Lantern Syndrome'-where instead of attacking the creature at various points the protagonists stop and STARE at it instead. Come on, guys-MOVE YOUR ASS!
Kate finds her way into the alien spaceship and sees a big glowing computer grid-like energy thing and she HOLDS HER FLASHLIGHT UP TO IT! If you took her camping, she'd probably shine her flashlight on the camp fire so she could see it better. Great idea, short bus. She brings one grenade with her to pursue the creature and of course she drops it. Personally I would have brought so many grenades with me I could barely walk-but that's just me. Tony, too, I'm pretty sure would do this. But we're not big-head scientists so what do we know?
Another lucky factor for Kate is that the alien ship, unlike the Starship Enterprise, which can be riddled by photon torpedoes (because 'deflector' shields do NOTHING) and continue to function, one grenade completely disables the alien ship.
Oh yeah, one other thing-even though these guys are in ANTARCTICA, no one ever gets cold-in fact they seem to be mostly sweating in the open tundra. Stupid.
A. Kaviraj is an artist and writer at Champion City Comics. His works include Dr Death vs The Vampire, Doctor Death vs The Zombie, and The End of Paradise.
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