First off I want to start by saying I'm a huge fan of the 1982 original film, and regard it very highly, among the top 5 horror films ever made, so I was skeptical about this prequel/remake, and as a a consequence have only just got round to watching it, so I'm interested in people's thoughts on this.
Let's get this out of the way: this movie is not as good as the original, but it comes closer than I thought it had any right to. The film gets a '15' certificate here in the UK, which gave me alarm bells as I feared the gore, which was such a feature of the original, would be watered down. That fear didn't last long, as this film has got just as many gross, twisted transformations in it as Carpenter's version, and could have probably warranted an '18' certificate. Most of the FX are clearly CGI, but they're decent enough for the time and you can also tell they were trying to make them look as close to the first film as possible, and it largely works with a few exceptions.
Issues? Sure. The characters are pretty thin and bar one or two I struggled to differentiate most of them and didn't care that much about them as there was next to no backstory. Even the main characters are wasted here, especially Egerton who seems to do or say very little. This film has a fairly lean runtime that could have possibly have benefitted from some extra character work, but given the nature of this movie I guess I can kind of excuse the filmmakers using the cast as largely fodder to be picked off by the alien.
The other issue I take with it is the actions of the alien itself. This thing can perfectly imitate people, yet time and again it's running around the place in the guise of a 7 foot spider with human bits sticking out of it, screaming and dripping in gore, which towards the end takes the tension out things a little as it degenerates into standard monster stalker fare, which if I'm honest isn't exactly unexpected. I read another review on IMDB that suggests that the creature isn't experienced with humans and by the time Kurt Russell turns up has learnt it's lesson, so again, I can let this go to a degree.
I think this film's strongest aspect though is that it's clearly been put together with great care and love for the original movie, right down to the sets, the axe and other stuff Mcready's crew discovers when they arrive, the music, horrible sounds that the alien makes and a neat twist on the blood test scene in the 82 movie. It nicely sets the scene for the original film to begin, and I think justifies it's existence.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel that it's a great companion piece to the classic original, and is a few tweaks away from being an excellent film.
Let's get this out of the way: this movie is not as good as the original, but it comes closer than I thought it had any right to. The film gets a '15' certificate here in the UK, which gave me alarm bells as I feared the gore, which was such a feature of the original, would be watered down. That fear didn't last long, as this film has got just as many gross, twisted transformations in it as Carpenter's version, and could have probably warranted an '18' certificate. Most of the FX are clearly CGI, but they're decent enough for the time and you can also tell they were trying to make them look as close to the first film as possible, and it largely works with a few exceptions.
Issues? Sure. The characters are pretty thin and bar one or two I struggled to differentiate most of them and didn't care that much about them as there was next to no backstory. Even the main characters are wasted here, especially Egerton who seems to do or say very little. This film has a fairly lean runtime that could have possibly have benefitted from some extra character work, but given the nature of this movie I guess I can kind of excuse the filmmakers using the cast as largely fodder to be picked off by the alien.
The other issue I take with it is the actions of the alien itself. This thing can perfectly imitate people, yet time and again it's running around the place in the guise of a 7 foot spider with human bits sticking out of it, screaming and dripping in gore, which towards the end takes the tension out things a little as it degenerates into standard monster stalker fare, which if I'm honest isn't exactly unexpected. I read another review on IMDB that suggests that the creature isn't experienced with humans and by the time Kurt Russell turns up has learnt it's lesson, so again, I can let this go to a degree.
I think this film's strongest aspect though is that it's clearly been put together with great care and love for the original movie, right down to the sets, the axe and other stuff Mcready's crew discovers when they arrive, the music, horrible sounds that the alien makes and a neat twist on the blood test scene in the 82 movie. It nicely sets the scene for the original film to begin, and I think justifies it's existence.
I thoroughly enjoyed it and feel that it's a great companion piece to the classic original, and is a few tweaks away from being an excellent film.
