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White Noise 2 (HD DVD)
Universal // PG-13 // January 8, 2008 // Region 0
List Price: $39.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
White Noise may have been just about universally panned by critics and audiences alike, but the movie still raked in just shy of $100 million at the box office worldwide, so a sequel looked inevitable even if there weren't exactly any dangling plot threads leftover from the original. This followup bowed theatrically overseas but is making its debut directly on DVD and HD DVD on these shores, and that's familiar territory for director Patrick Lussier, who'd previously been at the helm of those great DTV Dracula 2000 sequels.
To go ahead and get this out of the way, White Noise 2 is a sequel in name only. Yeah, there are a few quick mentions of Electronic Voice Phenomena along with a couple of glimpses of a newspaper article of the kidnapped woman in the original movie, but that's it, and it's really just as well. White Noise was a muddled mess and almost aggressively boring, and even though this followup is hardly perfect, it's a dramatic improvement in just about every conceivable way.
To really fire up the Television without Pity crowd, White Noise 2 carries over the stars of two of Universal's cult sci-fi franchises: Serenity's Nathan Fillion and Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff. Cap'n Tightpants stars as Abe Dale, a successful family man ringing in his ninth wedding anniversary by taking his wife and young son out for breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Abe cries out for help when the two of them start violently convulsing with seemingly no provocation, only to be met by a gunman who strolls in and shoots them dead before turning his pistol on himself. His family ripped away from him, Abe turns to fistfuls of antidepressants and bottles of booze to trudge through the next few months, but he inevitably succumbs to that all-consuming grief and takes his own life.
Just as Abe follows that storied white light and sees his family once again in arm's reach, he suddenly careens back to Earth. He's revived a changed man, spotting bright auras around a handful of the people around him and plagued by the sounds of static interference and horrific visions. Dr. Karros (William MacDonald) is able to fill in some of these blanks; just as Jonathan Rivers could turn to VCRs and audio cassettes to receive messages left from the other side, Abe is himself an 'untuned receiver' and can experience these visions freely. The haloes that Abe sees point him to those who are soon to die, and taking this as a sign that some good can come from the murder of his family, he embraces this newfound power. Carving a notch for each person he saves into a mirror frame plastered with pictures of his late wife and son, Abe manages to rescue three people from the clutches of death, including Sherry (Katee Sackhoff), the bubbly nurse who tended to him after his suicide attempt. As he delves into the life of the man who murdered his family, Abe gradually realizes that even though he can rescue others from imminent death, sidestepping the natural order of things has its own set of dire consequences.
Almost everything I disliked about the original White Noise is drastically improved upon in this sequel. Instead of moping around and staring at a 20" VVega, Abe's gift -- or curse, depending on how you look at it -- demands that he be much more proactive, infusing the movie with an energy and nimble pace that White Noise sorely lacked. Matt Venne's screenplay is also much more sharply written, never betraying the rules he establishes and ensuring that every character and concept he introduces is eventually paid off. He plays around with some of the usual expectations; there's another exposition-doling mentor-type, but instead of bellowing ominous pronouncements, Doc Karros practically laughs it off since a lack of answers about the afterlife means more grant money in the kitty. A lot of the twists and turns Venne takes aren't exactly untread territory for this sort of supernatural thriller, but it never felt dusty or stale the way White Noise so often did.
I've loved Nathan Fillion in everything I've seen him in, and he's one of a select few actors where I'll give a movie a look just because he's billed on it somewhere. His turn as Abe Dale isn't tinged with the sort of smirking sense of humor I usually associate with him, making it more of a showcase for his dramatic talents. Hopefully that $20 million breakthrough role for him is just another movie or two away; Fillion's a star, but Hollywood hasn't managed to catch up quite yet. There's a palpable spark between him and Katee Sackhoff, and fans used to her sweetly gruff turn on Battlestar Galactica should be intrigued by her effortless charm and exuberance here. There's enough chemistry between the two of them that I wish they'd had more scenes together, really. A romance between two lonely people still reeling from a profound loss is a mainstay for this sort of movie, but their relationship feels so much more sincere and convincing than the "well, that's what it says in the script" matchmaking in most thrillers.
On the downside, White Noise 2 is far more of a thriller than it is a horror movie, leaning much too heavily on tepid jump scares with gray, mangled corpses in its stab at filling the genre quotient. Also, quite a few minor roles are carried by fairly weak actors, and their lack of polish stands out against the rest of the cast. Director Patrick Lussier gives his sequel much more of a stylish look than the original film -- there's a dizzying confrontation with a pianist in a hotel that looks particularly outstanding -- but not all of those choices work, with Abe's stillborn ascent into heaven coming across as particularly goofy. White Noise 2 is at its best when it shrugs off the visual effects and the hours in the make-up chair, something I'm not all that used to saying about a horror flick these days.
There's a lot I liked about White Noise 2, but I have to admit that the movie as a whole just didn't connect with me. It's considerably above average for a direct-to-video genre outing -- not surprising, considering how great Lussier's DTV flicks have been over the past few years -- but it doesn't leave much of an impression. White Noise 2 is one of those lazy Sunday afternoon movies, the sort of thing I might put on at 2 PM, watch, enjoy well enough, and immediately forget about. It's almost overwhelmingly okay, not leaving me with much to rant or rave about, positive or negative. I enjoyed White Noise 2 enough that I'd still recommend this HD DVD as a rental, though, especially for Browncoats and particularly rabid Battlestar Galactica fans.
Video: This sequel has a very different look to it than the original White Noise, opening with a warm, nostalgic glow before settling into a steely, desaturated palette that reflects Abe's bleak view of the world around him. Particularly after it flashes forward three months, White Noise 2 looks great -- the image is nicely defined, if a bit softer than I'm used to seeing from a day-and-date release, and bolstered by a strong sense of fine detail. This HD DVD didn't catch me off-guard with its crispness and clarity the way White Noise did at times, but the sequel is more consistent when the camera pulls back, one of the few weaknesses of the original movie's high-def presentation. The weight of the film grain is also more consistent throughout, never appearing intrusive and just perceptible enough to give the image a slightly coarse texture. The light grain inherent to this sort of film shoot thankfully hasn't been smeared away, and I was unable to spot any flecks of dust, wear in the source, or compression artifacts. White Noise 2 isn't as visually dazzling as many of the best day-and-date releases that have bowed on HD DVD, but it's still a solid effort.
Like the original film, White Noise 2 arrives on HD DVD at its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and is encoded with VC-1, Universal's codec of choice. White Noise 2 is being issued as a combo release, sporting this high-def presentation on one side of the disc alongside a standard definition version playable in any traditional DVD deck on the other.
Audio: White Noise 2 serves up its six channel soundtrack in both Dolby Digital Plus and lossless TrueHD. The mix of the original movie was unusually subdued, but the sound design is a lot more active this time around. Atmospherics in particular shine, complementing the gloomy cinematography in setting the film's eerie mood. Because Abe is so often immersed in sound, it follows that this static and electrical interference frequently leaps from one channel to the next, and the chorus of moans from the undead frequently fills the room. Bass response is tight and punchy throughout, with the lower frequencies also showcased much more often in this sequel. A couple of lines of dialogue are overwhelmed in some of the more bombastic sequences, but that's not a frequent concern, and the line readings are otherwise rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. The mix still isn't as aggressive as most horror/thrillers, but it's definitely above-average for a direct to video sequel and is a strong fit for the material.
Subtitles are also offered in English and French. For whatever reason, Universal continues with their odd habit of only including Spanish audio and subtitles on the DVD side of the combo disc.
Extras: White Noise 2 is a web-enabled HD DVD release, although as I write this, the only online extras are trailers, TV spots, and promotional reels for other Universal releases -- nothing at all related to this particular movie.
Presented on the disc itself is a full half hour of deleted and extended scenes. There isn't much in the way of additional scares, though; most of these scenes better flesh out Abe's torment in the wake of his family's grisly murder, his close friendship with his business partner Marty, and his difficulty in coming to grips with these prophetic visions. This extensive collection of footage is presented in standard definition and letterboxed in a 4x3 frame.
The rest of White Noise 2's extras are offered in high definition, somewhat of an unexpected surprise for a Universal release. "Exploring Near Death Experience" (15 min.) is the first of the disc's three featurettes, compiling stories from several different people who've died and come back to tell the tale as well as their guesses as to what a near-death experience represents in their own words. "Making of White Noise 2" (8 min.) starts off as your usual lightweight, garden variety EPK, but the featurette gets quite a bit better when it shifts gears and tackles the religious iconography scattered throughout the film, Caine's gruesome make-up, the extensive stuntwork, and a fanboy shoot-off between Mal Reynolds and Starbuck. This making-of piece is much too short to dig into production in any meaningful depth, but it's still worth a look. Unlike most EPKs, though, it's really heavy on spoilers, so steer clear until you've watched the movie in full. Last up is "Journey into Madness", a six minute tour of the haunted asylum where much of White Noise 2 was shot. He's joined by location P.A. Barbara Copp, but it's mostly Nathan Fillion quipping his way from one room to the next, kinda bringing back memories of the similar extra he put together for Slither a year or two back.
Conclusion: This sequel-in-name-only stomps all over the tepid thrills of the original White Noise, but even with a pair of particularly charismatic leads and a much sharper script this time around, the movie just doesn't leave much of an impression. White Noise 2 is well-made but kind of disposable, the sort of thing I'll enjoy giving a spin once but really have no burning desire to ever watch again. Still worth a rental, particularly for Firefly and Battlestar Galactica fans intrigued by the thought of seeing a couple of their favorites land top billing, but I personally wouldn't recommend shelling out thirty bucks to buy this HD DVD sight-unseen. Rent It.
Related Reviews: Brian Ondorf has written a much more positive review of White Noise 2, if you'd like a second opinion. DVD Talk also has an HD DVD review of the original White Noise for those of you eyeing a double feature.
The images scattered around this review are promotional stills and aren't meant to represent the way the movie looks in high definition.
To go ahead and get this out of the way, White Noise 2 is a sequel in name only. Yeah, there are a few quick mentions of Electronic Voice Phenomena along with a couple of glimpses of a newspaper article of the kidnapped woman in the original movie, but that's it, and it's really just as well. White Noise was a muddled mess and almost aggressively boring, and even though this followup is hardly perfect, it's a dramatic improvement in just about every conceivable way.
To really fire up the Television without Pity crowd, White Noise 2 carries over the stars of two of Universal's cult sci-fi franchises: Serenity's Nathan Fillion and Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff. Cap'n Tightpants stars as Abe Dale, a successful family man ringing in his ninth wedding anniversary by taking his wife and young son out for breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Abe cries out for help when the two of them start violently convulsing with seemingly no provocation, only to be met by a gunman who strolls in and shoots them dead before turning his pistol on himself. His family ripped away from him, Abe turns to fistfuls of antidepressants and bottles of booze to trudge through the next few months, but he inevitably succumbs to that all-consuming grief and takes his own life.
Just as Abe follows that storied white light and sees his family once again in arm's reach, he suddenly careens back to Earth. He's revived a changed man, spotting bright auras around a handful of the people around him and plagued by the sounds of static interference and horrific visions. Dr. Karros (William MacDonald) is able to fill in some of these blanks; just as Jonathan Rivers could turn to VCRs and audio cassettes to receive messages left from the other side, Abe is himself an 'untuned receiver' and can experience these visions freely. The haloes that Abe sees point him to those who are soon to die, and taking this as a sign that some good can come from the murder of his family, he embraces this newfound power. Carving a notch for each person he saves into a mirror frame plastered with pictures of his late wife and son, Abe manages to rescue three people from the clutches of death, including Sherry (Katee Sackhoff), the bubbly nurse who tended to him after his suicide attempt. As he delves into the life of the man who murdered his family, Abe gradually realizes that even though he can rescue others from imminent death, sidestepping the natural order of things has its own set of dire consequences.
Almost everything I disliked about the original White Noise is drastically improved upon in this sequel. Instead of moping around and staring at a 20" VVega, Abe's gift -- or curse, depending on how you look at it -- demands that he be much more proactive, infusing the movie with an energy and nimble pace that White Noise sorely lacked. Matt Venne's screenplay is also much more sharply written, never betraying the rules he establishes and ensuring that every character and concept he introduces is eventually paid off. He plays around with some of the usual expectations; there's another exposition-doling mentor-type, but instead of bellowing ominous pronouncements, Doc Karros practically laughs it off since a lack of answers about the afterlife means more grant money in the kitty. A lot of the twists and turns Venne takes aren't exactly untread territory for this sort of supernatural thriller, but it never felt dusty or stale the way White Noise so often did.
I've loved Nathan Fillion in everything I've seen him in, and he's one of a select few actors where I'll give a movie a look just because he's billed on it somewhere. His turn as Abe Dale isn't tinged with the sort of smirking sense of humor I usually associate with him, making it more of a showcase for his dramatic talents. Hopefully that $20 million breakthrough role for him is just another movie or two away; Fillion's a star, but Hollywood hasn't managed to catch up quite yet. There's a palpable spark between him and Katee Sackhoff, and fans used to her sweetly gruff turn on Battlestar Galactica should be intrigued by her effortless charm and exuberance here. There's enough chemistry between the two of them that I wish they'd had more scenes together, really. A romance between two lonely people still reeling from a profound loss is a mainstay for this sort of movie, but their relationship feels so much more sincere and convincing than the "well, that's what it says in the script" matchmaking in most thrillers.
On the downside, White Noise 2 is far more of a thriller than it is a horror movie, leaning much too heavily on tepid jump scares with gray, mangled corpses in its stab at filling the genre quotient. Also, quite a few minor roles are carried by fairly weak actors, and their lack of polish stands out against the rest of the cast. Director Patrick Lussier gives his sequel much more of a stylish look than the original film -- there's a dizzying confrontation with a pianist in a hotel that looks particularly outstanding -- but not all of those choices work, with Abe's stillborn ascent into heaven coming across as particularly goofy. White Noise 2 is at its best when it shrugs off the visual effects and the hours in the make-up chair, something I'm not all that used to saying about a horror flick these days.
There's a lot I liked about White Noise 2, but I have to admit that the movie as a whole just didn't connect with me. It's considerably above average for a direct-to-video genre outing -- not surprising, considering how great Lussier's DTV flicks have been over the past few years -- but it doesn't leave much of an impression. White Noise 2 is one of those lazy Sunday afternoon movies, the sort of thing I might put on at 2 PM, watch, enjoy well enough, and immediately forget about. It's almost overwhelmingly okay, not leaving me with much to rant or rave about, positive or negative. I enjoyed White Noise 2 enough that I'd still recommend this HD DVD as a rental, though, especially for Browncoats and particularly rabid Battlestar Galactica fans.
Video: This sequel has a very different look to it than the original White Noise, opening with a warm, nostalgic glow before settling into a steely, desaturated palette that reflects Abe's bleak view of the world around him. Particularly after it flashes forward three months, White Noise 2 looks great -- the image is nicely defined, if a bit softer than I'm used to seeing from a day-and-date release, and bolstered by a strong sense of fine detail. This HD DVD didn't catch me off-guard with its crispness and clarity the way White Noise did at times, but the sequel is more consistent when the camera pulls back, one of the few weaknesses of the original movie's high-def presentation. The weight of the film grain is also more consistent throughout, never appearing intrusive and just perceptible enough to give the image a slightly coarse texture. The light grain inherent to this sort of film shoot thankfully hasn't been smeared away, and I was unable to spot any flecks of dust, wear in the source, or compression artifacts. White Noise 2 isn't as visually dazzling as many of the best day-and-date releases that have bowed on HD DVD, but it's still a solid effort.
Like the original film, White Noise 2 arrives on HD DVD at its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and is encoded with VC-1, Universal's codec of choice. White Noise 2 is being issued as a combo release, sporting this high-def presentation on one side of the disc alongside a standard definition version playable in any traditional DVD deck on the other.
Audio: White Noise 2 serves up its six channel soundtrack in both Dolby Digital Plus and lossless TrueHD. The mix of the original movie was unusually subdued, but the sound design is a lot more active this time around. Atmospherics in particular shine, complementing the gloomy cinematography in setting the film's eerie mood. Because Abe is so often immersed in sound, it follows that this static and electrical interference frequently leaps from one channel to the next, and the chorus of moans from the undead frequently fills the room. Bass response is tight and punchy throughout, with the lower frequencies also showcased much more often in this sequel. A couple of lines of dialogue are overwhelmed in some of the more bombastic sequences, but that's not a frequent concern, and the line readings are otherwise rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. The mix still isn't as aggressive as most horror/thrillers, but it's definitely above-average for a direct to video sequel and is a strong fit for the material.
Subtitles are also offered in English and French. For whatever reason, Universal continues with their odd habit of only including Spanish audio and subtitles on the DVD side of the combo disc.
Extras: White Noise 2 is a web-enabled HD DVD release, although as I write this, the only online extras are trailers, TV spots, and promotional reels for other Universal releases -- nothing at all related to this particular movie.
Presented on the disc itself is a full half hour of deleted and extended scenes. There isn't much in the way of additional scares, though; most of these scenes better flesh out Abe's torment in the wake of his family's grisly murder, his close friendship with his business partner Marty, and his difficulty in coming to grips with these prophetic visions. This extensive collection of footage is presented in standard definition and letterboxed in a 4x3 frame.
The rest of White Noise 2's extras are offered in high definition, somewhat of an unexpected surprise for a Universal release. "Exploring Near Death Experience" (15 min.) is the first of the disc's three featurettes, compiling stories from several different people who've died and come back to tell the tale as well as their guesses as to what a near-death experience represents in their own words. "Making of White Noise 2" (8 min.) starts off as your usual lightweight, garden variety EPK, but the featurette gets quite a bit better when it shifts gears and tackles the religious iconography scattered throughout the film, Caine's gruesome make-up, the extensive stuntwork, and a fanboy shoot-off between Mal Reynolds and Starbuck. This making-of piece is much too short to dig into production in any meaningful depth, but it's still worth a look. Unlike most EPKs, though, it's really heavy on spoilers, so steer clear until you've watched the movie in full. Last up is "Journey into Madness", a six minute tour of the haunted asylum where much of White Noise 2 was shot. He's joined by location P.A. Barbara Copp, but it's mostly Nathan Fillion quipping his way from one room to the next, kinda bringing back memories of the similar extra he put together for Slither a year or two back.
Conclusion: This sequel-in-name-only stomps all over the tepid thrills of the original White Noise, but even with a pair of particularly charismatic leads and a much sharper script this time around, the movie just doesn't leave much of an impression. White Noise 2 is well-made but kind of disposable, the sort of thing I'll enjoy giving a spin once but really have no burning desire to ever watch again. Still worth a rental, particularly for Firefly and Battlestar Galactica fans intrigued by the thought of seeing a couple of their favorites land top billing, but I personally wouldn't recommend shelling out thirty bucks to buy this HD DVD sight-unseen. Rent It.
Related Reviews: Brian Ondorf has written a much more positive review of White Noise 2, if you'd like a second opinion. DVD Talk also has an HD DVD review of the original White Noise for those of you eyeing a double feature.
The images scattered around this review are promotional stills and aren't meant to represent the way the movie looks in high definition.
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