you're all wrong, this movie has some fantastic cgi. it just uses it in an unrestrained manner which leads to a few moments where it's too in-your-face, it becomes difficult to ignore its unreal qualities. worsening as the film progresses. the quality of the actual animation & imagery is pretty phenomenal for the most part. it even has a good physical sense & weight to it, such as crashing through walls, shelves etc (unlike some other movies with poor cgi). getting tired of seeing people complain about extraordinary cgi that just happens to be miss-applied to a degree. also, it absolutely would have been nice if more of the original practical effects could be seen. the "blend" as described in the behind the scenes featurette the thing evolves, tipped too far towards cgi. i also had no issues with the movie covering similar ground, what did you expect? a prequel in a franchise is going to share similar moments and ideas, obviously. i'd hardly call it a remake. i was thankful that the typical 'guy willing to jeopardise safety for fame/profit'-bit was dropped not far in. there's good acting all-around, some effective action. unfortunately it's simply not as compelling as it could have been. certainly worth watching though, not nearly as bad as i've heard people make out. i felt that the biggest issues with the film were the rushed pacing, and lackluster characterisation. things go out of control quickly and it doesn't let up much thereafter, meaning that there isn't much downtime to actually build tension, suspense or familiarity with the cast. it's more of a chaotic and frantic action-focused experience than one seeping with paranoia. the monster is unusually aggressive, which is a different kind of fear. nitpick #1: ...except for the testing scene which felt artificially stretched-out. people hesitating before opening their mouths, even though they had fillings, or bothering to open their mouth when they already knew they had none etc. unrealistic behavior which oddly had no bearing on who was suspected as infected, which somewhat nullifies the central conceit. nitpick #2: it was a strange choice to have the creature effortlessly burst out of the ice when it was the same distance to the surface of the ice as it was prior to being excavated (i.e. there was nothing to stop it from getting out earlier). having the sample that was taken be the catalyst for the outbreak would have been the logical scenario, or simply a further-melted block, or perhaps having the drill-area crack open. edit: oh right, the block looks like that in carpenter's. well it could have had more difficulty getting out, but whatever.