tom skerritt

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The first sequel to Poltergeist did quite well, easily enough for the powers that be to want to make another film, but most of the cast had had enough. But when did a little thing like 80 percent of the cast refusing to return stop a studio from trying to cash in yet again on a successful franchise? They talked 12-year-old Heather O’Rourke into coming back as Carol Ann and sent her character off to live with some relatives in New York City. Naturally, the ghosts follow her. It’s actually not half bad, all things considered.

Carol Ann was sent to New York to attend a special school for kids who are both gifted and have emotional problems. She lives with her Aunt Patricia (Nancy Allen), her Uncle Bruce (Tom Skerritt), and their daughter Donna (Laura Flynn Boyle). Bruce is in charge of a fancy, new, very modern skyscraper, which they all live in.

Carol Ann is having a pretty rough time at it. Patricia is annoyed at her existence, and didn’t really want to take her in. Bruce is more sympathetic, but he’s very busy running the place and doesn’t have nice things to say about the rest of her family (he thinks they dumped her on them because of some bad real estate deals Carol Ann’s daddy got into, and doesn’t believe any of the haunting nonsense). Donna is very nice, but she’s also a teenager more interested in partying with her friends and dreaming about boys than dealing with a young girl’s problems. The dude that runs the school is a jerk, thinks Carol Ann made up all the paranormal stuff from her life, and is faking her newfound psychic abilities.

So yeah, her time in New York has been tough, and now the ghosts are coming back, especially the specter of Kane, who now is fully a ghost and can’t take on a physical form like he could in the last movie. He’s after Carol Ann because she can lead him to the next life or something.

Tangina (Zelda Rubinstein) comes back too, mostly to explain to the family that the ghosts are real and Carol Ann’s powers are true. Most of the story is utter nonsense, but the skyrise is a nice setting for this sort of thing. Most of it seems to be made of mirrors, and the ghosts now live inside mirrors, so there is a lot of fun with reflections and the like. I’m honestly not sure how the special effects team pulled some of the visuals off.

It isn’t a very good movie by any means, but I liked it more then the second one. The mirror work really is quite fun, and they also do some cool stuff with puddles of water.

whiteout movie

Sometimes you watch a movie knowing ahead of time it is going to be bad. You do so thinking maybe it won’t be that bad. Maybe it will at least be entertaining. And maybe, just maybe, it will defy expectations and actually be pretty good.

Mostly, you turn out wrong.

Or maybe that’s just me.

I knew going into it Whiteout wouldn’t be good. It actually has a kernel of an interesting idea – a lone US Marshall in Antarctica must solve a murder. But that’s also the kind of snappy idea that Hollywood all too often screws up.

I should have known not to watch it when I realized it stars Kate Beckinsale. I don’t actively hate Kate Beckinsale. I don’t think she’s necessarily a bad actress. She just has a habit of starring in a lot of bad movies. I don’t know if she just has bad taste, or she’s rarely offered anything any good or what. Maybe she has a terrible agent. But looking through her filmography I see very few movies that I either thought were good or that look anything like interesting.

But, like I said, this film has a setup that could be really cool so I took the plunge.

The biggest problem with the film is that it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a mystery, a thriller, or a horror film. It even throws in a bit of World War II conspiracy for good measure.

Beckinsale plays Carrie Stetko, the sole US Marshall in Antarctica. Most of the base is preparing to fly out. Winter is coming and at the bottom of the world, winter is long and hard. Minimal staff is required.

Stetko usually stays but this time she’s leaving. As is her friend, the base’s only doctor, John Fury (Tom Skerritt). As an example of just how poorly this film thinks things through that is the base’s only law enforcement agent and doctor leaving for several months. There is no indication that anyone is being sent to replace them. While most of the personnel do leave for the winter, not all of them do. What happens when a crime is committed or someone needs healthcare?

But of course, the film doesn’t think about this because it knows those two characters aren’t going to be leaving the base. A crime will be committed and someone will need medical attention and they will stay.

A body is found lying face down in a remote part – a “no man’s land” of the continent. His face is smashed to bits so it is impossible to tell who he is. Stetko and Fury investigate. Stetko realizes he must have taken a great fall. She knows this because, as we see in a flashback she once shot a man causing him to take a tumble out of a high-rise building.

The film loves its flashbacks. They pretty much all surround that one event in Stetko’s life, but the film doles it out like it is some great mystery that will reveal some insight into this current case. But really it is a pretty simple thing that lets us know what she’s doing in remote Antarctica in the first place.

The murder leads them to a remote station which then leads them to a WWII airplane buried in the snow. This should be an interesting mystery, a weird surprise for the audience. Except the film began with us watching the plane crash and showed us why. The only mystery left is what was in the box on the plane that everyone winds up fighting over. It might be old nuclear stuff which would be bad. Really bad. I guess.

Then Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht), a United Nations security agent shows up. He’s there awfully fast for a guy who wasn’t in Antarctica before the movie began. Making us think perhaps he’s the killer. He’s not, but the movie likes throwing red herrings out like that. Anyone who has seen an episode of Law and Order will be able to figure out who the Big Bad really is before he’s revealed.

Oh, also, there is a huge storm rolling in causing the entire base to be evacuated in a few hours. Because this film doesn’t have enough going on, it needs to add that into the mix.

It is based on a graphic novel so maybe some of the script problems come from the source material. All of the plot twists and turns might work better in a comic. I’ve just started reading the book and it does seem to be more of a mystery than anything, and it definitely doesn’t begin with the plane crash so I’m prepared to say most of the film’s problems do come from the script. But only time will tell on that front.

Beckinsale isn’t bad. I don’t think she’s a particularly bad actress. But she doesn’t elevate the material either. And the material is bad. It is too much of everything and not enough of something specific.