The Thing - Lisa's Review

So tonight I finally managed to watch all of The Thing.  I have started to watch it many times in the past, as pretty much everyone and their aunt fanny rant about how good it is.  Sadly each and every time I've tried, I've grown so incredibly bored I've had to give up.  Tonight I was on a mission... I WILL WATCH THIS MOVIE!  So how did it go?  Well lets say I fell asleep more times than I was able to count in the end and I had to scan back my DVD over and over and over.  In the end I spent all damn evening watching it!!  Let me tell you, I can think of much better uses of my time on an evening.  Nope, I was indeed not wrong the first time I sat down to watch it, nor any of the others.  It just IS exceedingly boring!

I can hear the nay-sayers already.  How dare she?!! The Thing is an awesome movie!  Well I'm afraid I disagree.  For me the only saving grace was a perv at Kurt Russell, but even he wasn't enough to hold my interest after a while.  Let me put it to you like this.  I switched it off at one point and a program about the Manchester Midland Hotel was on the TV.  This woke me straight up and was riveting viewing in comparison!

I'm probably not the best person to come to about a premise given my sleep activity, but here is a very basic one.  A group of American researchers in the Antarctic suddenly are interrupted by a Norwegian Helicopter chasing a Malamute dog.  The helicopter crashes and one Norwegian dies.  The other seems intent on killing the dog and injures one of the American team whilst shooting at the dog.  He is hastily dealt with by the Center Commander.

Given the fact that this movie is called The Thing, we are aware from the start that there is something a bit iffy going on.  The bit iffy arrived with that cute doggie.  All is not as it seems and the dog wrecks havoc at the centre by revealing itself to be something not of this world.  It quickly works its way around the centres dogs and then moves on to the humans,  It turns out that this 'thing' can assimilate into any person/creature meaning that the men soon start to doubt one another.  They don't know who has been affected and who hasn't.  Therein you have the gist of the movie.  Throw in some animatronic special effects, that I have to admit made me laugh out loud (not that they weren't good, but the general way in which they were used amused me) and that's about it.

Supposedly the movie was about the futility of distrust, but what can I say?  It just bored me.  I've tried watching it quite a few times and I've yet to enjoy it.  So it's with that in mind that I'm telling you to AVOID!