When Kate Beckinsale's character says she wants out of Antarctica, you could almost hear the actor speaking the same of "Whiteout." No wonder, as Dominic Sena's south pole-set whodunnit based on a graphic novel by writer Greg Rucka and illustrator Steve Lieber is of the dull sort, where tension is conveniently sapped by proceedings so insipid and a narrative arc so obvious one could easily compute for the trajectory.
Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, a US marshal haunted by a partner who double-crossed her years earlier, and finally ready to get back to civilization after holing herself up in a scientific research facility in Antarctica. Yet just as she's about to leave for warmer weather, dead bodies pile up and she's forced to look into the case through the Antarctic winter, getting stranded for another half-year with a shady UN investigator (Gabriel Macht), her pilot Delfy (Columbus Short), and a doctor (Tom Skerritt).
Intermittently kept alive by a couple of frantic action sequences amid the titular condition, whatever little success those moments achieve is ultimately diluted by Sena's standard direction, the pedestrian script, and a twist as clear as a spring sky. The remote setting and Beckinsale's tough-as-nails presence keep things mildly exotic, but the notably hackneyed affairs assure that this adaptation never deviates far from its moribund state.
Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, a US marshal haunted by a partner who double-crossed her years earlier, and finally ready to get back to civilization after holing herself up in a scientific research facility in Antarctica. Yet just as she's about to leave for warmer weather, dead bodies pile up and she's forced to look into the case through the Antarctic winter, getting stranded for another half-year with a shady UN investigator (Gabriel Macht), her pilot Delfy (Columbus Short), and a doctor (Tom Skerritt).
Intermittently kept alive by a couple of frantic action sequences amid the titular condition, whatever little success those moments achieve is ultimately diluted by Sena's standard direction, the pedestrian script, and a twist as clear as a spring sky. The remote setting and Beckinsale's tough-as-nails presence keep things mildly exotic, but the notably hackneyed affairs assure that this adaptation never deviates far from its moribund state.