Well, reading through the great John Carpenter reviews done by the great guys at the forum I felt like I owed them a review. SO here is my John Carpenters, The Thing, movie review... As we are wading knee deep through the age of CGI and animation in movies we have to appreciate the practical, physical effects done by the greats. Tom Savini instantly pops to mind, but so does Rob Bottin and Stan Winston who worked on this, in my mind the greatest physical special effects movie of all time.
The whole movie's effects done really...think about it, back in the 1980's as well. Impossible I've heard many say as they heard this fact, but could you blame them? A body exploding open, a head forming into a spider type creature, the HUGE thing, and much more. Truly amazing work. Effects alone this movie deserves 10/10. Now, for the storyline side of this movie. Over in an Antarctic base there is no life, none at all, no communications, no sign of research, and no sign of human life. A team of scientists and odd jobs guys are brought in to investigate. What awaits them the first time they enter the area shocks the group.
A frozen suicide case, forever encased forever in ice, bloodied shredded longjohns, and the occasional odd sound...but before that? Why is that man flying after those dogs, firing? Even when he lands he tries after it, blowing the helicopter he was riding to smitherines along with himself and his compatriot is killed by one mans fire. Garry, the leader of the outpost. The team are sent in after this, and indeed the horror starts. The storyline effect deserves a nice 8/10 and the actual story overall?
One point less 7/10. The actors in this movie are wonderful, even for (on the most part) bit part actors as the extra soldiers. Well the great actor, Kurt Russels screen presence as the gruff helicopter pilot MacReady is greatly improved by the setting, camera work, and dramatic tense music. As his characters trust to others develops his real acting comes out of the shell it is in during the first quater of the movie. And his bad ass/unfeeling style really bringso ut some nice support from the other characters, especially Copper, which seems like his best friend (if there is any) in the movie. Great acting in the first time they find the block of ice though, seriously creepy.
Acting gets a nice 8/10. Music is the only thing in which I questioned during the first area of the movie. It was nice and tense alright, but it was hardly someting which I pictured later on in the gore. But how wrong was I, keeping the tension clock turning is important for me alright and this movie does overtime in that department. As I haven't got much more to say on the music apart from the usual excellently composed sentence here is my mark for that, 8/10. Style is top in director greatness. If a director's style pops out to you it means he has to at least be worth a few movies. And John Carpenters dark, brooding style has brought me back many times to most of his movies. If his grainy visual effects and steadicam shots are ever out of his horrors I will eat my hat, they are his trademark, they are his for a lifetime of work. The whole creeping camera works well in some moments of the movie and not so well in others, the speed of it means it cannot focus up quick enough in some scenes, but in others it can work wonders for visual effect. For style he gets a 7/10. Only the fact the creeping camera sometimes loses point.
Any time a film has someone guessing for more than just under a dozen years (in my case, in others, much much longer) "what happened then?" After the final scene it has to be great. And the ending is one of the supreme sci-fi moments that lives on in our memorys for years. The last chess comment...who was the final Thing?
Or was there a final Thing at all? Who knows, and unless John does the sequel himself I will never take a games explanation as the truth. But any 20 year old movie that gets a game also shows how great the Thing franchise could be. Ok a short movie review but here is my final grade for it. 8/10. Only a few too many minor discrepancys make it less than a 9, but still a great movie. Buy it now.
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