Playlist: Whiteout

This 2009 film adaptation of Greg Rucka and Steve Lieber's acclaimed comic series starring Kate Beckinsale as a U.S. Marshall hunting a killer in Antarctica had early geek buzz, then sat on the shelf for 2 years. But Kate Beckinsale in the snow doesn't get old, right?

Eh...what we got is really just a run-of-the-mill thriller in an exotic locale, complete with the requisite killer-reveal twist. Director Dominic Sena, whose greatest artistic achievement remains conning Halle Berry to go topless in Swordfish, fails to understand that his thriller's most captivating character is Antarctica itself, in all its haunting isolation. Maybe he should have rented The Thing.

Not to ride Sena too much (really, bravo on the Berry coup), but here's how he introduces his setting:

Antarctica The Coldest, Most Isolated Land Mass on the Planet

Yes, it's only 10 words on the screen for a few seconds, but I couldn't help but feel a little insulted. Oh, that Antarctica? Wait, what's all that white stuff on the ground?* It's in bits like this that slip through that we truly get to see how dumb The Machine thinks we are (Note: seeing this film shouldn't be used in our rebuttal.)

*Snow.