The Thing (2011)

While visiting some friends this weekend we thought we were going to see the classic 1982 John Carpenter version of The Thing, which I understand is really good, but instead we ended up watching the 2011 remake, which turns out is not very good. Both heretofore mentioned versions of The Thing are remakes of Howard Hawks 1951 movie The Thing from Another World, though hold on, in reading up on the 2011 The Thing it is apparently a prequel to the 1982 version of The Thing, I did not pick up on that. Anyway The Thing under discussion now is not very good, independent of the goodness or badness of other Things. This Thing is just kind of there. I didn't bond with any of the characters, I didn't have any emotional connection that would make any of their deaths, of which there are many, mean anything to me. I had no stakes in the game, even lead Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom I usually like, is here pretty boring. I also didn't like the effects,  I found the CGI a little off putting, its like the movie makers thought they could make up some for all the bland characters with interesting visuals, and some of them were interesting, but on the whole even though I hadn't seen anything quite like these effects before, I still felt like I'd seen it before. Also said effects were just far too illusory, they didn't have any substance or heft, it didn't feel like it was really there because it wasn't. I think Thing movies would benefit from the presence of a physical Thing, I'll bet The Thing in 1982's The Thing is a physical Thing and that's likely part of why that Thing is probably a better Thing. So in short the only Thing this Thing did well was get me to add the 80's Thing to my Netflix Thing, I mean queue.*1/2