Review: "The Thing"

Let me confess right up front that "The Thing" has a high bar to hurdle for me -- I absolutely adore John Carpenter's spare, minimalist 1982 sci-fi thriller/horror film. So any remake has to square off with outsized expectations left over from my childhood.

Though "remake" isn't quite right. This new movie from Dutch director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and screenwriter Eric Heisserer is set in the days leading up to the events in the '82 flick. You may remember it opened with a couple of Norwegians chasing a dog across the frozen Antarctica tundra in a helicopter, trying to kill it. They chase it into an American scientific outpost and are themselves slain in the ensuing melee.

Carpenter's movie was the real remake, of 1951's "The Thing from Another World." Both the '51 and '82 pictures were based on a novella about a shape-shifting alien by John W. Campbell Jr., though the latter of the two is more loyal to the book.

Got all that? So this new movie is a prequel of a quasi-remake of a film adapted from a novella.

Van Heijningen is a feature film rookie, and it shows. He seems to want to channel Carpenter's aesthetic -- even opening and closing his movie with a variation on Ennio Morricone's pulsing theme music -- but abandons it again and again for the convenience of the plot.

For example, one of the great things about the original (which is what I'll call the 1982 film for our purposes) was the sense of absolute and total isolation. Cut off from the rest of the world and unable to communicate, there was a sense of raised stakes -- no rescue is coming, because no one even knows what's going on.

Right away, the filmmakers undermine this by showing Sanders (Ulrich Thomsen), an unctuous scientist, recruiting young American hotshot Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) to come dig something mysterious out of the ice. It seems Sanders has been tipped off by his Norwegian colleagues about stumbling across a whole massive spaceship buried under a glacier.

If word had gotten out to the outside world, there's simply no way it would have remained a secret for long. At the very least, Kate or Sanders or his assistant Adam (Eric Christian Olsen) would've at least mentioned where they were going to somebody.

Another thing I liked about Carpenter's version is that we never really learn anything personal about the motley crew of (all) men, yet simply based on how they're played by the actors and how their characters react to the threat, they're completely distinctive.

Here, there's a huge cast that gets lost in the shuffle. The Norwegians quickly become a flaxen-haired blur. Fortunately, the creature soon starts thinning them down to a manageable level.

Speaking of the creature effects, they're pretty good and pretty gory, for those who are into that sort of thing. But they're not markedly better than Carpenter's flick, which is pretty astonishing considering the nearly three-decade technology gap. The filmmakers stick to physical special effects to a large degree, with some CG animation thrown in.

Joel Edgerton and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (best known as Mr. Eko from TV's "Lost") pop up as a pair of American pilots who could get up in the Euromess. (Funny that, casting an Aussie and a Brit as Yanks.)

The movie doesn't quite know what to do with them, and for a bit we think Edgerton is going to morph into the Kurt Russell role. But that more or less belongs to Kate, who's always a couple of steps ahead of the guys in figuring out the boogums needs to be exterminated, not experimented upon.

Maybe she learned everything she knows about the alien from the last movie.

2 stars out of four

Video review: "In A Better World"

A surprise winner of the Oscar for best foreign language film, "In A Better World" got a bigger emotional reaction out of me than any other movie I've seen in the last year. It's a story about boys and men, about pacifism and aggression, and how responding to violence with violence may be the most satisfying thing, but it nearly always begets more of the same.

Danish director Susanne Bier, screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen and the cast strike a perfect balance between rage and heartbreak. The story centers around two 12-year-old boys, Elias (Markus Rygaard) and Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), who are bullied at school and burdened with fathers who are largely absent.

Christian stands up for Elias at school, in a shocking escalation of violence that exposes the boys to the power they can wield. On that flip side is the lesson of Christian's father, Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), a doctor who faces off with an adult antagonist in an entirely different, and braver, way.

No character in the film is entirely beneficent or truly irredeemable. Even Anton, a healer by vocation and temperament, is shown to be capable of hurting those closest to him. We also sense that his confrontation, while ostensibly a lesson in non-violence for the boys, is as much for Anton's own benefit, reassuring himself of the choices he's made.

The performances by Rygaard and Nielsen are stark and unornamented, and represent some of the best film performances by child actors you're ever likely to see.
"In A Better World" perfectly captures what it's like to be a boy on the verge of manhood, and tempted by both limitless good and irrepressible evil.

Video extras, which are the same for DVD and Blu-ray editions, are solid without bowling us over.

There's a feature-length commentary track by director Bier and editor Pernille Bech Christiansen, an interview with Bier and several deleted scenes.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars out of four

Review: "In a Better World"

I've noticed a curious trend with the winners for the Academy Award for best foreign language film.

It seems like in recent years, somewhere between two and four of the nominees will have gotten a U.S. release by the time of the Oscars, and a clear front-runner will emerge. Then, a nominee seemingly out of left field that few people have seen will win the statue.

I have harrumphed when wonderful films like "Pan's Labyrinth," "Waltz with Bashir" or "Biutiful" get stiffed by an interloper. Then, months later, the Oscar-winning film finally comes to these shores, and I find myself nodding in agreement with the Academy.

"The Lives of Others," "The Secret in Their Eyes" and "Departures" were all examples of latecomers deserving to win the best foreign film prize. Add the 2010 Academy Award winner, "In a Better World," to the list.

This stunning film from Danish director Susanne Bier ("After the Wedding") is a searing emotional journey between the polar edges of the human heart, both violent and pacifistic. It does not settle for simple answers, recognizing that sometimes fighting back is the most satisfying response to aggression, but understanding that violence almost always begets more of the same.

No one in "A Better World" is entirely a villain, and even the most saint-like character has flaws and doubts.

The story revolves around two 12-year-old boys, Elias (Markus Rygaard) and Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen), in a pair of performances amazing from performers so young, stark and unadorned. Bier, her young actors and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen perfectly grasp what it is like to be a boy on the verge of manhood, when possibilities for both good and evil are endless, and relationships with friends gain heft as those with parents fray.

Theirs is a world where fathers are loving but largely absent, where bullies roam the school unhindered and abuse is simply to be endured ... until.

Christian is the new boy at school, the son of a recent widower. It is unspoken but firmly understood that he blames his father (Ulrich Thomsen) for, in his eyes, abandoning his mother and then abandoning Christian himself with his frequent business trips. Christian has grown hardened, both toward his remaining parent and the world at large.

On his first day at school he spies Elias being picked on by the schoolyard thug, Sofus (Simon Maagaard Holm). Elias is sweet-faced and harmless, with big liquid blue eyes and an expression of innocence. Christian stands up for Elias, and as a result becomes a target himself. Until, that is, he escalates the situation in a shocking turn.

Don't you know that violence never solves anything, his father asks him?

"It does if you hit hard enough the first time," Christian responds with icy calculation.

The other major figure is Anton (Mikael Persbrandt), Elias' father and a doctor who works in the most wretched corner of Africa, stricken with poverty and warlords. Anton is a healer, and it pains him that the only wound he cannot mend is the one he left on the heart of his wife (Trine Dyrholm).

While he is at home, Anton breaks up a fight between Elias' little brother and another boy, and the other boy's father (Kim Bodnia) reacts with rage, slapping Anton in full sight of the Elias and Christian.

The boys' budding machismo cannot comprehend why Anton does not fight back. He explains it to them, and then takes an extraordinary step to prove his principles, but we sense that he's really convincing himself. The boys, for their part, are not persuaded and take matters in a dire direction.

"In a Better World" is an absolutely gripping cinematic experience that had me by turns boiling with rage and tearing up at moments of absolute tenderness. This wonderful film has mastered both extremes.

3.5 stars out of four