Extremely well done character driven movie

Rating: 9/10 (14 October 2012)

Excellent movie, probably one of Kurt Russel's best, and certainly the best of John Carpenter's movies that I've seen.
I'd always wondered why John Carpenter enjoys the movie making reputation he does, now I know why.
The actors pull off spectacular performances, despite many being in extremely stereotypical roles.
There is a delicious bit of irony about the whole plot structure that I don't know if is intentional. The movie begins with a group of Norwegians hunting The Thing from a helicopter. Obviously this fails as otherwise there would be no movie, but the irony is that in a way the Norwegians actually fared better against the creature than the protagonists of the movie do. They are in possession of a helicopter and are hunting the creature, while, by the end of the movie, the protagonists are waiting to die, uncertain as to whether they have succeeded in killing the alien.
Probably the biggest failing of the movie is that you would think an intelligent, space-faring alien would be less of a kill everything monster.