With all the snow and very cold weather gripping us here on the East Coast, it seemed perfectly natural to watch a film that is set in Antarctica in blistering cold conditions, right? After all, why watch a film set in the tropics with all that lush green foliage and warm temperatures. Well, that is the choice I made when I decided to check out Whiteout. Was it a good one? Well…..

Film

Frankly, with the exception of one of the opening sequences of the film consisting of a shower scene with star Kate Beckinsale, I have to say no. I was not really familiar with this film prior to receipt of this disc and watched it with a totally open mind. While it is supposed to be a thriller, I found it far from thrilling and mostly mundane and predictable. A thriller without the thrills I guess.

The film centers mostly on Kate Beckinsale’s character, U.S. Marshall Carrie Stetko, the only US. Marshall stationed on the U.S. research facility Amundsen-Scott in Antarctica. I guess the reason for only one marshall is simple, there have been no murders ever committed on the continent or precious little crime for that matter. All of that was is about to change with the discovery of a dead body out in the snow quite a distance from the station.

The rest of the film involves carrie Stetko seeking to discover who the man was that was found dead, whether he was the victim of a homicide and who was behind his death and why. Tried as I might, I just couldn’t get pulled into the narrative. The plot was totally predicable with the men behind the death obvious from the the early scenes in the film. It is that obvious.

Whiteout is based on a graphic novel and is frankly not a very well thought out film and looks and feels like a short story stretched out to the length of a feature film, with some serious gaps in the narrative, especially those involving Carrie Stetko’s past. If you have nothing better to do or just love Kate Beckinsale, feel free to check out this release. The rest of you may just want to skip it entirely.

Video

To say that I was disappointed with the video here is an understatement. The video does have a few things going for it, namely deep and stable blacks and a fairly natural color palette but that is about it. I say a fairly natural color palette as some of the scenes are skewed to the color cyan, looking a bit cold and blue, no doubt a stylistic choice on the part of the director given the film’s locale.

Where this film really failed for me is in the level of detail, both facial detail and background detail which varies from scene to scene and even within a scene. Some scenes look quite good, with good detail and good levels of overall clarity. However, some scenes are very murky looking with little in the way of detail or clarity.

What I really found confusing was the differences in detail within a scene and even within a frame itself. An example of this is the early scene with Kate Beckinscale and Tom Skerritt. Some frames in that scene have tight shots of each within the same frame. While Tom Skerritt’s face looks fairly detailed, Ms. Beckinscale’s does not, looking smoothed over although not exactly clay faced. I can only assume that the detail in her face was removed digitally, perhaps to make her look younger? I don’t know the reason or reasons behind the inconsistent levels of detail but it does result in a very disappointing looking film. With more consistent detail, the film would rate 4 stars out of 5. Without it, it rates a 3.5 at best.

Audio

Frankly, I was just as disappointed with the audio on this release, which lacks much in the way of dynamics and immersion and fails to contribute any degree of tension to the film. A sound design can go a long way to contribute to the drams of the narrative, even supplementing a sense of tension that is missing from the script itself. Such is not the case here.

The overall fidelity of the sound is good although hardly exceptional. The overall dynamics of the sound are really a disappointment, sounding soft and muted during the entire film, even during the plane crash sequence that opens the film, which hits with more of a whimper than a thud. The dialogue track is fairly well recorded and placed in the mix. While the surrounds are active throughout the film, they are not engaged, very aggressively with much in the way of volume. Even during the scenes with swirling winds , the winds just don’t rip through your room like you would have thought they would. Even with the surrounds engaged, too much of the film is front heavy for my tastes, especially for a thriller.

Special Features

The extras included on this release are rather threadbare, which should tell you something about how the folks at Warner’s felt about the film. The release does come with a digital copy that is compatible with Macs and PCs. The extras contain two featurettes on the making of the film “The Coldest Thriller Ever Story” with the cast and crew on location and “Freeze Frame: From Page to Screen”, where the writer and artist involved in the creation of the graphic novel, discuss the making of the film. Both of these featurettes are presented in HD. Additional scenes are also included in HD. The release is not BD-Live enabled.

Final Thoughts

All in all, this release is a disappointment, from the writing of the film to the video and audio presentations. As such, I can’t give the release a recommendation other than as a rental. Most of you would probably be better off skipping this one completely.