Miracle Schmiracle

Whale tale flops, but superhero Chronicle kicks serious butt

(Feb. 9, 2012) BIG MIRACLE starts off with a boring title (one that gives away the ending) and goes downhill from there. Directed by Ken Kwapis, who alternates between helming funny, effective television shows (The Office, The Bernie Mac Show) and mirthless, mindless Hollywood romantic comedies (License to Wed, He’s Just Not That Into You), Miracle is full of clichés and misplaced 1980s nostalgia.

The story behind the movie is true, and potentially pretty heartwarming. In 1988, a family of whales got trapped by an unexpected freeze near Barrow, Alaska. This quickly became international news, and a huge, disparate group of people united, moving heaven and earth to clear the whales a path to the Pacific. The dramatized version of these events focuses on the fledgling newsman who breaks the story (John Krazinski) and his Greenpeace-activist ex-girlfriend (Drew Barrymore).

Big Miracle

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Again, it’s no surprise how the movie ends, and the insubstantial sketches-of-characters that populate the film are equally predictable. Trying to tie in Cold War politics, Native Alaskan fishing rights, oil drilling and TV news brass-ring grabbing is overly ambitious and misguided. None of these elements is serviced well enough to be effective. PG. 107m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

CHRONICLE, on the other hand, is bright and refreshing — an unexpected delight. It’s rare for a movie to add something original to the superhero genre, and rarer still for a fake found-footage documentary to prove watchable. Chronicle succeeds, resoundingly, on both fronts.

After three high school seniors find a big, weird, glowing thing in a cave, they’re imbued with impressive telekinetic powers. These secret abilities forge an unlikely bond among the three, who couldn’t be more different: Steve (Michael B. Jordan) is the Big Man on Campus. Matt is the handsome philosopher pothead. Andrew (Dane DeHaan) is the much-abused outcast, and it’s through his camera’s lens that we watch events unfold. As they learn to use and control their formidable power, they come to disagree about how it should be used. While Steve and Matt are content to amuse themselves and levitate inanimate objects, Andrew’s feelings of impotence and mistrust find a potentially lethal outlet.

Plot-wise, the movie doesn’t offer anything revelatory, but it does go in consistently surprising directions. The filmmakers make clever use of the found-footage device when one of our protagonists figures out how to float his camcorder around, freeing it from the nauseating hand-held choppiness we so often get. And the actors all turn in natural, lived-in performances as youngsters contending with something unbelievable. The climax and denouement offer some of the most intense, satisfying moments I’ve ever seen in an effects movie. PG13. 83m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

THE IRON LADY. Meryl Streep’s performance in The Iron Lady is pretty remarkable. Of course it is. Disappointingly, the rest of the movie can’t match it.

The story picks up late in Margaret Thatcher’s life. We find her living alone, struggling with the early stages of senile dementia. She can’t fully accept that her husband is dead, or that she is no longer Britain’s prime minister. To cope, she spends her days talking to ghosts, drinking whisky and gazing into photographs, thus giving the filmmakers jumping-off points for flashbacks.

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