A film review by Craig J. Koban February 15, 2012 |
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BIG MIRACLE
John Krasinski: Adam / Drew Barrymore: Rachel / Kristen Bell: Jill / Ted Danson: J.W. McGraw / John Pingayak: Malik
Directed by Ken Kwapis / Written by Jack Amiel and Michael Beggler, based on Tom Rose's book |
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Word
spread through the local community and unavoidably to the media: Reporter
Tom Rose covered the sad and pathetic plight of the ice-trapped whales and
later published a book on covering the efforts tp rescue them (FREEING
THE WHALES: HOW THE MEDIA CREATED THE WORLD’S GREATEST NON-EVENT).
It highlighted the exceedingly unlikely alliance between parties as
far ranging as Greenpeace activists, oil tycoons, the local Inuit, and,
among other things, the leaders of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to secure the
creatures’ freedom while many an unscrupulous and ratings-hungry
reporter covered their collective efforts. I have
vague memories of this story – ah, to hell with it, I don’t
have any recollection of this news story at all - but I will concede that
there is compelling material here for an inevitable Hollywoodization of
this unbelievable, but very true story.
BIG MIRACLE – a remorselessly unoriginal title when compared to
the aforementioned book – is a family film
adaptation of the events involving the whales and the rescue efforts in
the late 80’s, and the film’s heart is most definitely in the right
place and certainly tells a worthy and involving story. It’s
main dilemma, though, is that it’s so limply written, so drearily
formulaic, so overly calculated, and so lacking in any semblance of
cynicism with its underlining story that you almost begin to doubt its
veracity. BIG MIRACLE
is a film of modest and warm-hearted charm, but it seems so annoyingly
content with telling a cute story of marine wildlife activism that it
essentially forgets to delve into some of the intrinsic controversies of
the unilateral effort to save these stranded mammals.
As a tailored-made and mechanically derived audience pleaser, BIG
MIRACLE has its pleasures, but for the rest of us more discerning
filmgoers it barely registers above the lower echelon of an overly
sentimental TV-movie-of-the-week. At
least the film – directed by Ken Kwapis (HE’S
JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU) – keeps the reality-based 1980’s
setting of the true story, albeit with many fictionalized trappings.
We are introduced to an Alaskan reporter, Adam Carlson (John
Krasinski, who’s becoming alarmingly typecast playing awfully decent
minded and nice guys with a heart of gold) who covers stories of
mind-numbing triviality in Barrow. Like
many reporters trying to desperately make a name for themselves in small
remote towns, Adam yearns for a big proverbial break that will take him to
the national spotlight. When
three whales poke their heads through a tiny opening in the ice, Adam
catches sight of it and immediately sees news potential.
He does a small story that eventually generates North American
interest
on the mainstream networks, so much so that a big city network reporter, Jill
Jerard (Kristin Bell) is ordered by her bosses up to Alaska to further
cover it.
As
Adam’s seemingly modest covering of the trapped whales begins to attract
vast media attention and national interest, his ex-girlfriend and rabid
Greenpeacer, Rachel Krammer (Drew Barrymore, plucky and cute, but almost
sanctimoniously irritating as a ferociously single minded activist) also
gets in on the action by coming up to Barrow and ensuring that everything
possible is being done to ensure that the whales – affectionately named
after Flintstone characters – are saved, especially from the local
hunters, led by an elder named Malik (a wonderfully natural John
Pingayak) who wants to hunt the whales, seeing as their local hunting economy is
suffering and the whales seem like they'll apparently die.
As the whales’ plight deepens, a multitude of divergent parties
decide to
act in the best interests of the mammals and bind together to save them,
which involves, at one point, a plan to use the military to helicopter-pull
a massive barge through the ice to carve a clear path for the whales to
the ocean. When that does not work, two Cold Warring countries find
themselves in a unique position: should they work against one another or
together to liberate the whales? The one
thing I did like about BIG MIRACLE is that it looks and feels like a
genuine part of its time and place. Trying
to fake its icy-cold and frosty Alaska winterscapes with greenscreen work
or substituting in warmer areas would have dampened the film’s overall
immersion, but Kwapis thankfully shoots BIG MIRACLE in and around
Anchorage to give the proceedings an immediate sense of believable
geography. Clearly, ample
real-life footage, animatronics, and CGI were possibly all used to
showcase the trapped whales, to be sure, but they seem integrated
seamlessly in with the rest of the human co-stars. Yet,
the film really gets detoured by far too many superfluous story threads
that either hit too many perfunctory notes or seem haphazardly rendered.
The film has a trumped up love triangle between Krasinski, Bell,
and Barrymore that stumbles through every methodical beat imaginable (gee,
I wonder if the small town reporter will become attracted to the big city
one, but then will realize that he still loves his environmentalist ex?).
Then there’s a subplot involving a rich and smarmy oil executive
(Ted Danson) that wants to use his participation in saving the whales as a
feeble publicity stunt and then - gosh darn it - begins to care not only
for the whales, but also for the hipster Greenpeace chick that has been
making his life a living hell (uh huh).
Then there are the Inuit hunters that want to use the whales to
feed their starving families (they have some semblance of an excuse in not
wanting to free them) but then change their tunes and decide that saving
the whales - and not munching on them - would be a better course of
action. Lastly, there are
some extraneous characters that seem included for the purposes of lame
comic relief, as is the case with two Minnesota brothers that bring their
ice-melting machine to Alaska to help the rescue efforts; they’re like
rejected simpleton extras from FARGO. BIG
MIRACLE also fails to deal with…well…some big issues, like
whether the media actually gave a more of a damn about the plight of these
whales and pitied them or more about gaining valuable viewership.
Also, what of the political maneuvering by both the U.S. and Russia
at the time? Did they
contribute resources and aid because they cared or because they saw it as
a race to see who could gain more socio-political clout and respect?
Also, the real-life rescue effort cost a then-whopping $1 million
and was criticized by some scientists around the world as to whether or not it
really did anything to ensure the whales’ long-term survivability.
BIG MIRACLE sidesteps pessimism as if it were a damning plague to
its cheerful entertainment value. I
don’t mind films that have gracious ideals and want to tell
reality-based/feel-good stories, but BIG MIRACLE is so mournfully
by-the-numbers in its efforts to dutifully put smiles on our faces that it
becomes tiresomely dull as a result. |
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