Movie review: 'Big Miracle' will leave you with a big shrug

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Sitting through “Big Miracle” is an interesting experience. While the film is unspooling, it’s mildly entertaining, but the moment the house lights go up it’s hard to actually recall specific scenes from the movie.

It’s sort of the culinary equivalent of going to chain restaurant — blandly pleasant but utterly forgettable. The entire project feels more like a TV movie of the week rather than a movie you’d be happy to spend $11 to see.

Even the reliable big-screen charm of Drew Barrymore, who usually has the heft to carry most projects, can’t breathe much life into 悬疑电影推荐the based-on-true events movie about the effort to save three California Gray Whales trapped by ice off the coast of 1988 Alaska.

Barrymore gives an earnest but curiously charmless performance as a Greenpeace activist who first drums up support to save the whales. She’s assisted by her ex-boyfriend TV reporter (John Krasinski, also bland) who hopes to use the story to land a job in a state that doesn’t freeze over for more than a half a year.

Other people involved in the rescue include an oil tycoon (Ted Danson) looking for a PR boost for saving the whales, a tough National Guard colonel (Dermot Mulroney) given the task by President Ronald Reagan himself to save the whales and a sympathetic state biologist (Tim Blake Nelson).

We get lots of scenes of people arguing about how to save the whales — and a few unhelpful suggestions from the local Inuits about turning 经典悬疑电影the whales into dinner. (Hey, sushi for everyone!)

Eventually, the Soviet Union gets involved in the rescue, adding some international intrigue to the plot. Of course there is also a perfunctory rekindling of the romance between Barrymore’s Greenpeace rep and Krasinski’s TV reporter. The two actors have such sweet chemistry together you wonder why they broke up with each other in the first place.

The most entertaining aspect of the movie is the way it depicts the international media onslaught the whale rescue causes. It’s fun to see vintage clips of Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and the late Peter Jennings cover the rescue efforts on their national news programs and remember back when people actually watched network nightly news.

Besides the bland nature of “Big Miracle,” the other好看的悬疑片 big problem with the film is its inevitable happy ending. Even if you don’t remember the outcome of the story — and remember it was huge national news back in 1988 — you know what will happen for one chief reason: Hollywood wouldn’t make a movie about the unsuccessful rescue of majestic sea creatures, would they?