‘big Miracle” shouldn’t really work, but it does. It’s an exciting, charming and often quite funny family film inspired by the real-life 1988 rescue of three gray whales trapped in ice near Alaska’s northernmost point.
It’s also a romantic comedy — as well as a surprisingly sharp satire about environmental politics and the media.
At the center of this three-whale circus is Drew Barrymore, at her most endearing as a fictionalized version of Greenpeace activist Cindy Lowry (renamed Rachel Kramer).
Rachel’s (fictitious) ex-boyfriend (John Krasinski), a local TV reporter from Anchorage, breaks the news that local Inuits have discovered the family of migrating whales stranded in a tiny ice hole five miles from the ocean.
As an army of reporters from around the world descends on tiny Port Barrow, the confrontational Rachel goes to work recruiting an unlikely army of rescuers, many of whom are actually unconcerned about the fate of the whales.
What’s especially interesting is that “Big Miracle,’’ for all of its corny touches, makes it very clear that these unlikely allies are participating (at least at first) strictly to burnish their public images, garner votes and/or land drilling contracts.
Among them are an oil mogul (Ted Danson), the Alaska National Guard pilot (embodied by Dermot Mulroney) and the Reagan administration (top- ranking aide Vinessa Shaw). There are also the Inuits, who are worried about having their whale-hunting rights curtailed unless they help out.
Except maybe for wide-eyed Krasinski (who has his own big-time ambitions), the assembled media are no less cynical — a ruthless young LA reporter (Kristen Bell) double-crosses her own anchorman (John Michael Higgins) in pursuit of a whale scoop.
With all of this going on, “Big Miracle” director Ken Kwapis (“He’s Just Not That Into You”) never loses focus on the increasingly desperate rescue efforts as the weather worsens and options to free the whales run out.
They range from helicopters towing a huge ice-breaking barge across hundreds of miles of ice to a pair of wacky Minnesota inventors arriving with a home-made device they claim will keep the hole from freezing over in minus-50 degree weather.
Even when screenwriters Jack Amiel and Michael Begler’s own inventions border on the bizarre — Rachel swims in subfreezing water with the whales to free the youngest from a net and Krasinski’s character thaws someone’s frozen eyelid by licking it — the movie is never less than thoroughly entertaining.
You could probably cut the Barrymore-Krasinski romantic plot (there’s another, more factual one between the Mulroney and Shaw characters), but they do bicker becomingly and have terrific chemistry together. I’ve usually found Krasinski an annoying presence on the big screen, but he’s a perfect foil for Barrymore here.
The huge, excellent cast (Tim Blake Nelson, Kathy Baker and James LeGros all turn up) includes Ahmaogak Sweeney, very good as an Inuit youngster who serves as film’s surrogate for juvenile audiences.
Kids will love the plentiful whale scenes, with remarkably convincing effects work by the New Zealand firm that did “Whale Rider.’’
In the end, it’s up to President Reagan, no less, to decide whether to call in a Soviet destroyer from the “Evil Empire’’ for a Hail Mary effort to unblock the whales’ last obstacle to the sea.
Given the film’s spoiler-ish title, it’s not exactly a surprise when the bit actor playing the Great Communicator picks up the phone and drawls, “Oh, Gorby . . .”
“Big Miracle’’ also has a potpourri of terrific archival news footage for ’80s nostalgists eager to see Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw in their prime.
And stick around during the closing credits for a clip with Joey Buttafuoco (Barrymore once played his girlfriend, Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher, in a TV movie). And, appearing with Krasinski through digital wizardry, a former Alaska TV weather girl who went onto bigger and better things.
History? Sorta. Fun? You betcha.