The Thaw

Thanks to Roku/Netflix for letting me watch this without wasting money on an actual rental. Hey, I was excited about a global-warming based horror/thriller, but I was equally disappointed once I started it.

This movie tried very hard to emulate The Thing and failed miserably at it. That's my impression anyway.

Due to the nature of this type of movie, it would have served better to show the movie in chronological order, rather than having some of the footage shown out of order. I felt the cinematic approach used hurt the story rather than help it.

When I first read the description for this movie, a wooly mammoth was mentioned. In fact, the description made it seem as though the wooly mammoth might be the problem. That would have been a better movie.

Basically, the movie starts with emphasizing the effects of global warming, and that new archaeological finds are popping up. Even though it's next to impossible to tell from what is shown, the audience is supposed to "assume" that this tiny uncovered square of fur is really a small part of a wooly mammoth.

Okay, I can accept that, even though I believe that the researchers would have uncovered the whole thing right away... That's not the only thing I have problems with. The audience, without any actual reasoning or references to known paleontological facts, is supposed to accept that some parasitic organism would be able to survive all this time in the head of the wooly mammoth and then "pop-out" of its head as soon as it's unearthed.

Perhaps it's because of the archaeology classes I took, or all the related shows I've watched, but I found it extremely difficult to buy into the fact that a parasitic worm could survive all that time in the carcass of the wooly mammoth until it found a new host. I understand suspension of disbelief and can appreciate it. This movie just couldn't accomplish that for me. In fact, it failed miserably in holding my attention.

This was one of few movies I didn't waste my time watching. Not only was the premise not carried out believably, but the movie stagnated in so many areas that you could watch in fast forward (no subtitles) and not feel like you actually missed anything. This movie was a waste of Val Kilmer's abilities.