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In short, this should have been entitled “Wipe Out”
instead of “Whiteout”. If you spent too much time in the
arctic without protective glasses you damage your eyes from
the reflection of the sun on the snow. If you watch the
movie “Whiteout” expect much the same result except it’ll
be your brain cells that are damaged by this amazingly tedious
thriller based on the Eisner nominated graphic novel. It’s
a pity that this film was made because the source graphic
novel much like “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”
will forever be tarnished by this decidedly funky (in a
bad way)movie that is as much fun to watch as it is to watch
moss grow. ***
“Whiteout” has been sitting on the shelf at the studio
for the last two years where it probably should have remained.
U.S. Deputy Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) and
UN agent Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht) after joining forces
for a murder investigation find a mystery buried for the
last 50 years. I wasn’t expecting “Whiteout” to be a rapid
fire ADD style thriller but I was expecting involving characters
and an intriguing mystery. Instead, we get a ham fisted
presentation that manages to fumble every element that was
memorable about the original graphic novel. One of the issues
that often dog films that linger in development hell going
through constant rewrites and directors are characters that
becoming less and less interesting and stories that have
plenty of plot holes. “Whiteout” suffers from both in spades.
It doesn’t help that Beckinsale has a limited repertoire
of expressions as an actor. That hasn’t stopped terrific
if limited performances from a variety of actors before
but hobbled with a Swiss cheese script and direction. ---
Image & Sound:
For a recent film “Whiteout” looks surprisingly strange.
By strange I mean that the transfer is inconsistent throughout
with scenes that look amazingly good alternating with some
that are weak in terms of detail. White and red colors pop
but other colors are rather drab looking. Digital noise
reduction is applied liberally in some scenes dulling the
impact of the image. ***
Audio sounds extremely good with a nice 5.1 TrueHD presentation.
While dialogue is occasionally swallowed by the howl of
the blizzard outside, overall this is a nicely balanced
presentation and certainly better than the video portion
of the film. ---
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