Just finished it. I cannot deny that I liked it, maybe not as much as Carpenter's original remake but yeah. The music was hauntingly reminiscent of Carpenter's remake as well, and so were a lot of the scenes. The "prequel" tries to follow a different route by mixing Hawks' original work with Carpenter's remake, but marked similarities with both, the original and the remake are only too glaringly evident and go a bit against this film. What made Carpenter's film disturbingly eerie was the fact that many things were left unsaid and for the imagination of the viewer; the prequel shows
almost everything, right up to the point where the story goes forward into the 80s masterpiece. The climax was a nice little touch, and the clever juxtaposition of the "beginning" with the end titles is a good addition to the continuation as well.
The performances were okay, although Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a dedicated scientist is a bit hard to swallow. The casting of many members of the Norwegian base is pretty much spot-on. The CGI was decent, but there was more than one instance when it stood out as a piece of CGI, which goes against the flow of the film. The director does a competent job maintaining the atmosphere of the film throughout, and should be commended for trying to do so. Unlike RZ's "Halloween", "The Thing" (although being a remake OF a remake) pretends to be a prequel and actually carries it off as well.
All in all, it's a decent little companion piece to Carpenter's remake of Hawks' original from the 50s. Be sure to stay for a bit as soon as the end credits show, to see that small and special end which leads to "the beginning."
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