Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
A small-town news reporter and a Greenpeace volunteer enlist the help of rival superpowers to save three majestic gray whales trapped under the ice of the Arctic Circle.
Big Miracle is a competent, feel-good true story about the 1988 Operation Breakthrough whale rescue. The plot is straightforward and earnest, hitting familiar beats of unlikely cooperation between rivals. Acting from Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski is solid but unremarkable. Cinematography captures the Alaskan Arctic adequately without exceptional visual ambition. The story itself, while based on real events, follows a formulaic structure for based-on-true-story rescue dramas, earning low novelty. The ending is emotionally satisfying given real-world context but bittersweet enough to avoid pure saccharine resolution.