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5/10/2014

Big Miracle (2012) or, Those Three Whales Must Live!



Whales are at the center of this film, and so also appropriately on its poster here, for Ken Kwapis' Big Miracle

QUICK REVIEW:

3 whales are trapped around an air-hole in Alaska, when a reporter brings the story, and his Greenpeace-ex-girlfriend jumps on it. Soon the whole nation is involved: They must be saved!
Ted Danson (Saving Private Ryan (1998)) is good as a not so unbearable oil-tycoon, and Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)) is equally good as an ambitious news-bimbo. John Krasinski (The Office (2005-13)) slant-smiles his way through the film to quite annoying effect, but Drew Barrymore's (Donnie Darko (2001)) hysterical, combative character is, however, worse. Those are the two leads, which isn't exactly lucky for Big Miracle.
Everything pretty much looks like cartoonish caricatures in the first act, and no miracle seems in sight. Later the good story, - the film is based on actual events, - wins back a lot.
It is all tied together in a SPOILER feel-good-ending with romantic ornaments. Big Miracle is a sometimes sweet trifle. The whales are great, and I could have wished for a better movie for them.
For all of us who like ourselves a hope-filled, inspiring true-story family movie, it is a shame that Big Miracle flopped badly at the box office.
Director Ken Kwapis (He's Just Not That Into You (2009)) is busy today with his next film, A Walk in the Woods (2015) a dramedy with Robert Redford, Nick Offerman and many other good names.

Drew Barrymore touches a whale that has touched her, in Ken Kwapis' Big Miracle

Watch the trailer for the film here 

Budget: 30-40 mil. $
Box office: 24.7 mil. $
= Huge flop

What do you think of Big Miracle?
What's the world come to, if people won't take their kids to see a happy movie about saving whales?

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