Whiteout is, ostensibly, a feature-length thriller about how there are mysterious murders in Antarctica and how they can only be solved by Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) and her sexy lady-marshal intuition. And yet, it is not actually feature-length. Although it runs for 101 minutes, it is only a 40-minute movie. A 40-minute movie wrapped in an hour of nothing.
Whiteout features various kinds of nothing. One kind is montages of Antarctic scenery—which is beautiful!—set to murdery-sounding instrumental tracks like “In (Really, Really) Cold Blood” and “That Snow Truck Looks Like Wall•E (and Someone’s Gonna Die Soon).”* Another kind is a long flashback to Stetko’s traumatic past, which is repeated no less than three times, and to great effect (NOT). There is also a lot of Beckinsale waiting for things, like faxes, and breathing audibly. And then there are the invisible fight scenes, which are quite long but totally obscured by snow.
The nothing makes it hard to be too thrilled by the “thriller.” Whiteout certainly has its moments of excitement—there are a few visible fight scenes, and some mutilated corpses, and from time to time shit gets straight AMPUTATED!!!—but they would hang together much better if they weren’t spread across such a vast tundra of nothingness. (There is a difference between making a movie about Antarctica and making a movie that kind of is Antarctica, Whiteout production team.)
Possibly the most revealing fact of all, though, is that I am totally unsure that a whiteout occurred in this movie. That was how much nothing was crammed into it—there wasn’t even room left for the title to make sense.
There was just enough room for Kate Beckinsale to take a gratuitous five-minute shower, though! So that was lucky. MAE RICE
*All song titles made up.
the trailers seem to admit that there’s nothing to the movie either, having nothing to tease or entice with.
Mind you, listening to Kate Beckinsale breathe audibly, and knowing she actually has a British accent, is ultra-sexy. Add in a shower scene and I’m there!
I loved the comic books it was based on. When I heard Kate Beckinsale was cast as Carrie Stetko I knew they were going about it all wrong. Oh well. Not a surprise.