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PAGE 14, SEPTEMBER 21, 2009, THE ISLANDER “GoirT to the Show... ♦♦ with... Roland Willis WHITE O UT Starring: Kate Beckinsale, Tom Skeritt, Gabriel Macht, Columbus Short & Alex O'Loughlin Directed by Dominic Sena Written by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, Chad Hates & Carey Hayes Based on a graphic novel by Greg Rucka Running Time: 1 hour, 41 minutes Rated R - Violence Just like French cheese, some mov ies are so bad that they become good. Wliiteout is not one of these; it is stu pid, preposterous, poorly written and just plain bad. Even Kate Beckinsale can’t save this one although she does model under wear rather well. Yes, when early in the film the direc tor has Kate do a gratuitous striptease before she jumps in the shower, you know that he is out of ideas. The movie starts about twenty years earlier aboard a Russian cargo plane crossing Antarctica. Three heavily armed men are in the back guarding a box which contains something of great value. The pilot and copilot decide to grab this and the copilot goes back to gun down the guards. That’s right, the copilot has not read the instructions that came with the plane, specifically, “A gun fight on this plane is likely to lead to a nasty crash.” So the plane crashes and gradually, over the years, sinks into the ice. Flash forward to the present where we are introduced to U. S. Marshall 3dcmd CINEMAS Sea Island Rd. at Frederica Rd. www.hollywood.com MOVIES INFO. BARGAIN . 634-9100 MATINEES DAILY , r CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE 1 OF MEATBALLS (PG) Mon-Thurs 5:20,7:30 THE INFORMANT! (R) Mon-Thurs 4:30,8:00 JENNIFER'S BODY (R) Mon-Thurs 4:45,7:50 TYLER PERRY'S I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF (R) Mon-Thurs 4:40,7:55 WHITEOUT (R) Mon-Thurs 4:55,7:35 ALL ABOUT STEVE (PG-13) Mon-Thurs 5:00,7:40 (500) DAYS OF SUMMER (PG-13) Mon-Thurs 5:15,7:45 Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) at the U.S. Antarctic base. She had a traumatic law-enforce ment experience back in the States and has signed-up to provide security on this remote base to clear her mind. Her best pal on the base is Doctor John Fury (Tom Skeritt) and they are both looking forward to leaving the base as the long, dark winter is approaching. Ml but a skeleton staff will remain through the winter and everyone else will be evacuated. There is a major storm approaching and the evacuation becomes urgent because the planes cannot fly when the high winds and consequent whiteout arrive. Just then, a badly beaten body is discovered out on the ice and Carrie feels obliged to investigate in spite of the approaching storm. She needs some answers from the Russian base so she flies over there with her pilot Deify (Columbus Short). The murderer has beaten her to it, but she does run into Special U.N. Agent Robert Pryce (Gabriel Macht). The screen writers do not explain how he got there. Perhaps Delta Express flies there? Anyway, they spend the rest of the movie tracking down the murderer as he tries to kill them. In the only bright spot in this movie, the bad guy is well played by the Aus tralian actor, Mex O’Loughlin. I’ve always been a big fan of Kate Beckinsale. I liked her in Pearl Harbor, as Ava Gardner in The Aviator and as Anna in Van Helsing, but I loved her as Selene in the Underworld series {Underworld, Rise of the Lycans and Evolution). How could she get roped into this mess? She needs a better agent! It is clear that Tom Skeritt wishes he were elsewhere. He has made numer ous movies and TV series over the years and was great in A River Runs Through It and especially in Alien. Now there was a great sci-fi movie set in the numbing coldness of space rather than Antarctica. There have been great movies which effectively used the brutal conditions of the arctic or antarctic as an effective backdrop. Scott of the Antarctic which told the story of Scott’s doomed expedition starred the famous British actors John Mills, Derek Bond and Kenneth More and had a wonderful score by Vaughan Williams. There was the classic Howard Hawks production of The Thing from Another World starring James Amess, and John Carpenter’s remake starring Kurt Russell. Closer to Whiteout, as they involved a murder mystery but opposite since they dealt with the eternal daylight of the arctic summer, were Eric Skjold- bjaerg’s Insomnia and the American remake with the same title, directed by Christopher Nolan and with wonderful performances by M Pacino, Robin Wil liams and Hilary Swank. Any of these are infinitely better than Whiteout. Even the husky survival movie Eight Below is much better than this rubbish. My rating is a D. □ Last Week... 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