Good and bad but so memorable that I had to write about it - spoiler (kind of)

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 2000)

Okay, so this is a bit of a classic, made in the same year I was born. I must say I was really liking this movie until the last ten minutes. There were way too many implications and plot glitches. So anyway, let's weigh up the pro's and cons.
Special effects: good for the time. Kurt Russell's best role. Palmer is f--kin rad. Always something happening. (seldom boring) Excellent tension build up. the token black guys are also cool. The music is very fitting. (and chilling)
On the bad side there are a number of plot problems.let's look at who is and isn't the thing over the movie: (spoiler bit) Is: palmer, windows, norris, Bennings, Blair? isn't: fuchs, nauls, garry, childs,clarke,doc,macready.
They didn't have to kill everyone, and why did they just end up with the hero and one random guy? how did clarke not become the thing too? how do we know who was the thing first out of norris and palmer? who infected them? was it blair? what's the deal with blair? or was it the corpse of that dog or Bennings? The Norwegian guys and Clarke were unfairly killed and no one really seemed to give s--t.
Ultimately I probably sound pretty stupid and have missed a number of things - I was watching this very late at night.
I also wonder about some of the metaphorical aspects of the film. Maybe the ending is more realistic, but the supernatural premise of the film is unrealistic so they may as well just have had the token "sentimental" ending. The arctic setting is barren and agoraphobic, it reminds me of movies like Batman, where it seems the city or place they live in is the whole world and it doesn't matter what is happening everywhere else.
Ultimately it's quite the interesting film and fun to speculate over too. I guess I can overlook the bad points and I'll just have to concentrate on the goods.