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Ask any horror fan and they will damn all the modern horror remakes. For a really, really good remake one needs to go as far back as 1982 to John Carpenter's re-imagining of a 50's B-film. But just because Carpenter chose to take huge creative choices, his The Thing really was nothing like the previous one in the first place.

So, inevitably his masterpiece would in turn be remade. There isn't any need to, as everything in the original film, from Ennio Morricone's score to Rob Bottin's amazing special effects to Carpenter's confident direction still work. But the new remake really isn't as bad as it could have been. For the makers of the remake respect Carpenter's vision so much that rather than going out their way to replicate every character and scene, they rather choose to do their own narrative. I would wish more remakers would be as considerate.

Taking place before the events of Carpenter's film, The New Thing takes place in 1982 at a Norwegian outpost in the Antarctica. They discover an ancient spaceship on ice, and call a handful of American researchers to study it, including grad student Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). The creature they discover turns up to be very much alive, and capable of both killing off the entire crew, as well as inhabiting their bodies, creating perfect replicas.

Every reviewer inevitably will compare this to Carpenter's film, which is a little unfair, although by tying the story lines together the filmmakers have really asked for it. Director Matthijs van Hejiningen, Jr. uses considerable time to build up tension and characters before they start to fight for their lives. Again, it really isn't that necessary as everyone who's seen the original knows how this will end for them, but it is nevertheless a nice gesture. There are too many characters to keep track of, but some that do grow a little close, so when they die, one isn't totally indifferent. Kate herself is a nice strong female character, if one doesn't actually expect that to mean her to be a multidimensional character as well. Winstead still does her best in the role.

As for the creature itself, it is now made primarily with (of course) CGI effects. And they aren't as scary, either, but still rather impressive-looking at least. Also his behavior isn't very logical, but that may be because he's just been thawed. The sense of paranoia is back, but of course this works the best in scenes that are almost carbon-copies of Carpenter's scenes.

I wouldn't go as far as to recommend this, but it does have several scenes that work and it really makes me want to see The Thing again. So as an appetizer or a companion piece, this gets a pass.

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Who doesn't love a good road trip movie? Todd Phillips, the director of Road Trip, returns to the genre with a dream pairing of Robert Downey, Jr. and Zach Galifianakis. Both are considered some of the funniest actors in Hollywood today. It is mostly thanks to its leading men that the viewer keeps up with the story. The crazy hijinks of the film are usually not particularly funny and sometimes outright annoying. Not to mention obvious at certain points. For instance, who among the audience doesn't get what is going to happen to a coffee jar full of a dead man's ashes the minute the topic is discussed? A couple of rewrites should've worked wonders. Particularly Galifianakis's character is close to being so utterly, life-threateningly moronic that it's nearly impossible to like him. The actor saves what he can, but is still not my favorite comic sidekick. Downey Jr.'s character's rage towards him is meant to show the character to have some anger issues, even though he's acting mostly pretty reasonable given the circumstances. Towards the end the hijinks get so crazy, this overplayed comedy works better. Actually Due Date is one of those comedies like Knocked Up that's about the main character growing up and adapting to boring mediocre family life. At the beginning RDJ is shown to not get along with children and even though his methods of handling a problem child are hilarious, they are hardly good parental advices. But during the road-trip with a huge man-child he learns to suppress his anger towards simpler people and thus is allowed to enter the family life. How sweet, but the film is no match for The Hangover. ** / *****