"Who wouldn’t want to save the whales? Maybe an oilman, more interested in drilling rights than in wildlife. Or Inupiat Eskimos, whose close relationship to whales includes hunting them. Or the governor of Alaska, uneager to risk human lives to save seemingly doomed animals.

In Ken Kwapis’s “Big Miracle,” these unlikely allies find themselves doing something unexpected: trying to save three California gray whales trapped in the ice near Barrow, Alaska. Also lending hands are a Greenpeace worker, two Minnesotans with a portable de-icer, the Alaska National Guard, the Reagan administration, the Soviets and even a journalist or two.

“Big Miracle” gets off to a shaky start, but once revved up, it becomes an involving work-against-the-clock-and-the-odds action movie. Inspired by actual events from 1988, the film shows the race to save the whales and comes with a family-friendly reach-across-the-aisle message: When people put aside politics and ill will, they can accomplish something they could never manage alone."

Get the Story:
Big Miracle (2012) (The New York Times 2/3)

Also Today:
'Big Miracle': The real story (The Anchorage Daily News 2/3)

Related Stories:
Michelle Sparck: An Alaska Native's review of 'Big Miracle' (1/27)