THE THING (2011)

I'm not a filmmaker, but I would think the main reason that you would go through the trouble of making a prequel to a movie that you love (I assume the filmmakers here love John Carpenter's THE THING) is to expand the story and challenge yourself to try to make an even better movie. That's just my thinking, maybe I'm a fucking idiot. I'm using ALIEN and ALIENS as my scale of reference. So with those thoughts calculating into my expectations of this new THE THING I was really, really dumbfounded as to why this movie feels more like a remake than a prequel. In fact, if I didn't already know this was a prequel the only thing that would have clued me in while watching it was at lame tacked on ending during the closing credits. Other than that it felt like a remake...an unimaginative one at that.

A Norwegian research team accidentally discovers a huge alien spaceship in Antarctica. They call in a group of American paleontologists so they can stop talking in subtitles. A large alien "survivor" is excavated out, still encased in a large block of ice. The dogs start getting all upset, then suddenly the alien jumps straight up out of the ice like he's a goddamn acrobat and flies through the roof! Before you can say "Well, that was silly." out come the flamethrowers and everybody's in the wreck room getting tested to see if they're an alien. Yawn.

If James Cameron had gone this route, instead of Marines fighting an army of aliens and their mother on LV-426 he would have just told the Nostromo story over again, but with a CG alien. As far as I'm concerned, such a lack of imagination is inexcusable. I've seen more thought put into a porno parody than this movie.

Despite all that, I didn't hate THE THING remake, I mean, prequel . It was mildly entertaining, the pace was good and it wasn't blasphemous towards the 1982 version, but I'll never watch it again and after awhile I found myself admiring how attractive Mary Elizabeth Winstead is more than really caring what happened to the characters. Worth a single viewing, but that's about it.

Original - The Thing From Another World (1951)
Remake of original - The Thing (1982)

SLEEPER (1973)

Clever early Woody Allen comedy that suffers somewhat from dated humor.

In 1973, Miles Monroe (Allen), the owner of the Happy Carrot health food store, goes to the hospital for a simple surgery. There's a complication, so doctors place him into an cryopreservation state. He stays frozen until the year 2173, when he's illegally thawed out by scientists who are part of a rebellion against the oppressive government and they plan to use Miles as a spy because he has no "biometric identity" and can be tortured for months and months without giving up any useful information. That might sound dark, but it's not at all.

Audiences back in 1973 must have found this film to be pretty funny (since it ended up making back 9 times its budget at the box office), but SLEEPER is pretty dated. Jokes about Howard Cosell and Charles DeGaulle might have flown back in 1973, but I can't see them bringing many laughs today. That's not to say there isn't any humorous moments thought...the robot scenes were pretty funny.

If you're a huge Woody Allen fan then SLEEPER is a required watch, but others would be better off sticking to early Allen classics like ANNIE HALL or LOVE AND DEATH.

MY SOUL TO TAKE (2010)

Alright, see if you can follow this (because I barely could): a guy unknowingly has multiple personalities, one of them being local serial killer "The Riverton Ripper". When he accidentally discovers that he's The Ripper he goes bonkers, kills his pregnant wife and is in the act of attacking his young daughter when the coppers bust in and shoot him. Stuff happens and while he's being transported to the hospital he stabs an EMT in the neck, causing the ambulance to wreck and explode.  His body is never found. Within the hour, 7 babies are born at the local hospital and then sixteen years later on their sixteenth birthday the "Riverton 7" start getting killed off one at a time. Could the culprit be The Riverton Ripper? A reincarnated soul?  Somebody else completely? A wookalar? Or maybe The Ripper's ghost returning to haunt/possess/murder the seven teenagers?

If MSTT was made by a first-time director I might be a little more forgiving, but seeing how it was written, produced and directed by horror legend Wes Craven who's been in the business since 1971, I can't help but be disappointed at how amateurish the whole thing felt. I didn't hate the film, but that's not saying much or even an accurate statement because there isn't much happening in MYTT to hate. It's literally too bland to even make a critical judgement about. There isn't one single original idea in the entire movie; the story is ancient; we never even get a clear shot at the killer (he appears to be a large, scruffier version of Rob Zombie); the characters are all bland stereotypes we've already seen a million times before (lonely nerd, abusive jock, power-hungry preppy; prude prayer chick, etc.) and with almost zero violence, gore, blood or nudity I don't even know what Wes was thinking the audience would be entertained by!  The chick with the dark hair was attractive though.

Not face-punchingly bad, just boring and formulaic. Skip it with a vengeance...or watch it to make fun of.