It took me a while to get warmed up to the idea of a prequel/semi remake. Especially since in my opinion it's not needed in any shape or form. Still I wanted to give it a shot since with the right approach it could offer a nice experience.
Well, let me get this out right from the start. This version is one incoherent mess that defies all of the logic set up and established in John Carpenter's version. Even without knowledge of the original it is hard to swallow the events that are displayed on the screen. And I was willing to overlook the flaws in logic if at least the tension was as good as in the original. But none of that is to be found. Carpenter knew how to build up tension by the use of the location, all male cast and the premise of not knowing who the creature was. The latter in combination with strong characters is what made it thrilling. Because some of them were uncooperative, annoying and obnoxious making it hard to determine if they were real or not. Also in Carpenter's version the alien worked methodical and logical. It was always one step ahead of the characters. And it added to the insanity these characters were landed in. In this prequel we go from one event to another with sometimes a cool looking CGI scene of the monster but with barely any impact at all. Which brings me to the events themselves. Apart from a few of them everything is a rehash of Carpenter's version. This being a prequel, you would at least expect something different. At one point the director might have realized this and out of the blue brings us to the space ship where we get a little glimpse of the inside. What completely puzzled me was the way how this space ship was being ignored and then suddenly brought back into the plot with no sensible reason. In the beginning we see how huge the alien ship is and you would have thought that the focus of the exploration would have been the inside of this ship. In stead they focus on the alien creature that is frozen in and would have remained frozen as long as they did not mess with it. So they basically had all the time they needed to explore both the ship and the creature. There were so many scientists present it is rather mind boggling why they could not have split up the team in groups to do the explorations. I don't buy it for one second that you would leave an alien ship unexplored. Surely any logical being would have found more info on the creature found frozen in the lake inside somewhere. Don't even get me started on the inclusion of our main character Mary Elizabeth Winstead and the other Americans. That simply made no sense. The only thing I enjoyed was the the CGI alien creatures.They looked nice. Although it wasn't remotely scary or effective as the practical effects done by make up effects master Rob Bottin for The Thing (1982). I think I can find a million more reasons more to say what is wrong with this film. But by now I think you must get the point. Avoid this one and go see John Carpenter's version which till date is a masterpiece and not dated at all.
Also read:
No comments:
Post a Comment