“Big Miracle” is a portrayal of the 1988 effort (called Operation Breakthrough) to free three gray whales from pack ice. The fact that it’s actually based on true events, and not in the “Blair Witch Project” sense, helps to distinguish the movie from myriad other environmental family films.

The story follows Adam Carlson (John Krasinski), a reporter stationed in small-town Alaska, when he discovers the whales trapped under the layer of ice. After this, we get to watch as numerous parties, each with their own agenda, rush off to save these whales.

Throughout the story, they interpose real footage of the rescue effort in between the drama of our heroes. This works to the film’s advantage because it would be forgettable otherwise.

This is a bit of a mixed bag because this 123-minute movie is also following: a Greenpeace volunteer (Drew Barrymore), an oil tycoon (Ted Danson), a reporter from Los Angeles (Kristen Bell), two guys from Minnesota, Ronald Reagan’s assistant, a general, a governor, the Inupiat community, and two Soviet icebreakers. Don’t worry about having to follow all of these people; none of them get too much development anyway.

Now, this story was about how people from all walks of life came together for a common cause, but this represents one of my major gripes with the movie: it’s trying to do too much. At its core, “Big Miracle” is a story about people from all walks of life coming together to help save some whales. This is what it should have focused on, but it ends up being bogged down by all these characters who feel like they’re from entirely different movies.

It wants to be a family film filled with a colorful cast, but it also sees fit to add two romances. It wants to be an environmental film, yet the only environmentalist in the movie is portrayed as a strawman whose liberal views aren’t meant to be taken seriously. The one time that I felt moved by one of Drew Barrymore’s many speeches is when she, shockingly enough, explains why she wants to save the whales.

As I mentioned before, this is a story driven by emotion. When Drew Barrymore’s character gives the speech about how everyone wanted to save the whales because they could see themselves reflected in the giant creatures, I genuinely felt captivated.

My problem is that the extent of the audience’s interaction with what should be the stars of the movie, the whales, feels glanced over. I don’t think the scene that’s meant to make the audience fall in love with the whales should be Drew Barrymore swimming with a computer generated whale, when they have real footage they could have used.

As a whole, “Big Miracles” is a harmless film that will prove mildly entertaining to any little kids around the house. The emotional scenes work well enough, and I can admire its efforts to attempt to portray every player’s part in this story, but I wish that it had been done more gracefully.