Overly long and overly repetitive, Big Miracle, directed by Ken Kwapis, is nothing if not straight from the heart. Or at least aiming to be. After all, everybody loves whales, most especially in the middle of 1988, right in the midst of a Presidential election.
Based on Operation Breakthrough, the effort of many people and multiple countries to rescue three gray whales trapped in ice in the Beaufort Sea near Point Barrow, Alaska, Big Miracle is not trying to impress, but rather suppress any real emotion, in favor of cotton candy feelings. The media coverage generated from this real life story made this whale tale one of the biggest human interest piece of the year.
The film stars John Krasinki, Drew Barrymore and Kristen Bell among many others. And there are many others, like Ted Danson as a not-so-greedy oil man, Rob Riggle and James LeGros as a pair of not-so-stupid inventor hicks, Dermot Mulroney as a not-so-grumpy Coast Guard officer and Vinessa Shaw as a not-so-cold White House aide.
In fact, aside from Barrymore’s fiercely Greenpeace-y Greenpeace employee Rachel Kramer and Bell’s fiercely ambitious news anchor, the entire film is not so much of anything at all really. It’s a nice, kind story in which the stakes are consistently upped, even though their are no real stakes to speak of. We know the ending will be generally happy, if not because it’s based on a 13-year old true event, then because the name of the movie is Big Miracle.
Krasinki’s the lead actor here by default only. His Adam Carlson is that rare person that only exists in movies: not that interesting, not that gifted but completely necessary. He also gets everything he wants. But then, I guess, everyone involved gets everything they want. Parents get two hours of near-silence from their children and get not to feel bad about it, children get a movie about WHALES and all those involved in the production get paid. To be sure, this kind of pre-packaged enjoyment makes movie critics almost obsolete. But here’s some more criticism anyway.
Kwapis relies heavily on the assumption that the temporary love the public felt for these whales in the late 80s (for a week or so) will wane itself back into existence on the silver screen. It’s not a bad assumption. Traditionally, animal-friendly rescue films a la Eight Below strike a chord with many, subverting the dismal news and general unhappiness of the every day.
And while he happily ignores the bigger problems suggested in his film, in which the entire world unites for these 3 whales and promptly ignores every other problem on the globe (in real life, this operation cost over $1 million, receiving much criticism after the fact), Kwapis does a nice job including some of the political entanglements involved pulling off such a big P.R. stunt. A cameo by the great Stephen Root as the conservative Alaskan governor sums it up perfectly. Kramer confronts him about saving the animals, to which he explains he has not the time, money or resources to care about three whales. Scenes later, she’s cornered the governor by making the story national news, so he jumps on the whale bandwagon and enjoys the ride. That’s politics and Hollywood filmmaking rolled into one. It’s moments like these – in which Kwapis seems to wink just below the surface of his own film – that makes this whole silly story watchable for anyone above the age of 12.
Big Miracle is now in wide release.