Going into Big Miracle I can say that I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that it was based off a real-life event from 1988 in which a family of gray whales get trapped in rapidly freezing water at the northern tip of Alaska.  I didn’t realize that this man-vs-nature movie was going to bring a lot of emotion and heart that shows how determination can overcome any obstacle and how the best stories are those that happen closest to home.

Let’s set the table right here – this is not a documentary about the gray whale or the events of Operation Breakthrough that transpired in 1988. Big Miracle is a movie that is about heart and humanity and how various factions were able to come together and free the family of trapped whales.

John Krainski plays Adam Carlson a field reporter for Anchorage, Alaska’s NBC affiliate, who is in Point Barrow doing human interest stories about the Inuit tribes. During this time he stumble across the story of his career – three gray whales trapped in water that is rapidly freezing. The whales are able to use a large section of the ice that hasn’t frozen yet to get air before going back to the water and underneath the ice. The problem the whales have is that the gray whale has a soft head and they can’t punch through the ice. Because of this, they are unable to make their way back to their migratory path due to the ice and without external (human) help they will die.

Adam sends the story to his station for his nightly report where they in-turn send it to the NBC offices in New York where it gets picked up for the national nightly news. The plight of the whales captures the attention of:

• Green Peace whose Anchorage chapter is run by Adam’s ex-girlfriend Rachael Kramer (played by Drew Barrymore). She wants to help free the whales so they can get back to their native migration course from Alaska to Mexico.
• The President of the Unite States who issues an edict that the National Guard go to Prudo Bay to retrieve a hover barge from an Alaskan Oil company run by J.W. McGraw (played by Ted Danson). This barge has the ability to break the ice and free the trapped whales as well as become a great Public Relations tool for J.W.’s oil company.
• The national media as the networks all send their reporters to Point Barrow to report on the whales and what the local Inuit tribes are doing to chip away the ice and keep the whales safe till the hover barge arrives.
• The Russians and their icebreaker ship as an aid to the United States and a start to the thawing of the Cold War.

I have to say that the movie is good but does have some problems when it comes to the plot and acting. I thought that Barrymore and Krainski do a fine job working together but I never really felt the romantic connection between the two.  Another issue I had was that Krainski’s Adam goes from telling the story as a reporter to becoming part of the story due to his involvement with Barrymore’s Rachael. There are a lot of familial faces that you’ll recognize from television and at times it makes Big Miracle seem almost as if this could be a made-for-TV-movie on Lifetime or the Hallmark channel. Overall the director did a great job with showing how the plight of the whales captured the hearts of the nation.

In an odd thought, Big Miracle reminded me of 2006’s Gridiron Gang. Both movies were based on a true event that focused on different factions coming together to overcome the odds. Of course if Dwayne Johnson had been in Big Miracle then the National Guard wouldn’t of been needed to break the ice, as The Rock could have busted the ice open and carried the whales to freedom. One thing that I really liked about both movies was that during the ending credits actual footage from the real story is played next to the recreated footage allowing the audience to see the parallels that were used.

Rated PG with a run time of 107 minutes, Universal Pictures delivers a family friendly movie for the whole family to enjoy.

Rating – 3 stars