The Thing

Peter Travers

Film Critic

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Did we need a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing? Probably not, what with Carpenter replaced by Dutch commercial director Matthijs van Heijningen. But Thing cultists won't care. Carpenter's version hinted at a Norwegian research team that found something alien buried in the ice in Antarctica. Here they are. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays a Columbia prof who joins up. Joel Edgerton is a chopper pilot who becomes her ally as the Thing invades bodies and pretends to be human until it breaks out in gory splendor. That's it. One gut-busting death after another, terror giving way to tedium. Your call.