Whiteout Leaves Critics Cold

Antarctica's a great setting for a thriller, say critics, but the new Kate Beckinsale movie Whiteout is too mundane to bear much resemblance to a great thriller.

• Joe Neumaier, Daily News: Whiteout, based on a graphic novel, has the makings of an enjoyable, cheesy thriller, but then "wimps out, starting out like The Thing and winding up like CSI: South Pole."

• Claudia Puig, USA Today: While the snowy setting, with Manitoba doing a fine job of standing in for Antarctica, "can be mesmerizing, little else about this movie is captivating. It's a standard-issue thriller, with a twist you see coming a continent away."
• Lael Lowenstein, Variety: Despite a steamy shower scene from Beckinsale, audiences are likely to be left cold by the "frozen concoction of red herrings, incongruous plot points, and thinly developed characters."

(More Kate Beckinsale stories.)