The Big Miracle Review 3/5

I’m not a huge fan of Whales. I liked the first Free Willie, but that’s about it. Whale movies Generally just annoy me with their overly sappy, excessively cliche look on life. The point of me saying this is not to offend any of you whale fans out there. I love Shamu as much as anyone. But movies about whales, or really any animal, general leave a sour taste in my mouth. The Big Miracle was no different.

If you’ve seen the previews for this movie, odds are you’ve seen the entire plot surmised into a five minute clip. Whales trapped in ice, people want don’t want whales to die, so they go to extremes freeing these whales. Which sounds interesting, right? And it would be. If it wasn’t long, and boring. The entire film is just kind of blah. I mean the highpoint for me was a 5 minute sequence of scenes with a group of Russian sailors, mostly because that scene shows how the whales not only brought America together but also the world. But not really. 

Drew Barrymore also does a decent Job. She portrays a Green Peace extremist very well. But that doesn’t make the film any more interesting, in fact it takes away from it. The characters are boring. If I hadn’t gone to see the movie with a girl I would have fallen asleep. The characters did not develop well, and some even ended up contradicting their core values established at the beginning of the film.

Finally, The message of the film was really confusing. It was part Enviormental Actvist, part “Come together for a Greater Cause”, part whale. I’m a core believer that a film can be much more meaningful if it focuses on a single point. Not to say that more than one thing can be addressed, but one thing should be addressed more. One thing should stand out from the rest of the messages, and this movie did not have it.

All in all, this wasn’t a terrible movie. It wasn’t great though. I’d give it 3/5 mostly because I like Drew Barrymore. If your a fan of Her, or whales, go see this movie. But don’t get too excited, it will just let you down.s