Thanks to hits like Ben-Hur, the late 1950s existed smack-dab in the era of the Big Biblical Epic. In that vein, we head to 1959’s The Miracle.

Set in Spain during the early 19th century, teenaged postulant nun Teresa (Carroll Baker) struggles with the rules of the convent. When she meets dashing British officer Captain Michael Stuart (Roger Moore), she eventually decides to leave her religious life behind her.

In a twist, the town’s statue of the Virgin Mary comes to life and takes Teresa’s place. This leads the teen to question her choices.

Of course! Who among us hasn’t doubted our decisions when inanimate objects become sentient?

Snark aside, I can’t help but feel that plot twist damages Miracle. What could offer a simple tale of a girl who battles between her earthly desires and her commitment to God turns silly and gimmicky.

Not that I think Miracle would excel. While the goofiness of the big plot twist makes the movie literally laughable, the rest of it feels tedious at best.

Oh, Miracle comes with plenty of potential drama. In addition to the romance and Teresa’s crisis of faith, the story delivers enough military material for some action.

None of this goes anywhere even vaguely interesting. We follow Teresa as she embraces “civilian life” before she eventually comes back to the convent.

Spoiler? Maybe, but a movie like this seems highly unlikely to buck the expected trend.

Though Miracle takes a looong time to get there. Teresa goes on a variety of adventures – mostly romantic – before she gets back to where she once belonged.

Absolutely none of this brings provocative or involving material. Instead, the story simply meanders across Teresa’s life as we wait for the inevitable rediscovery of faith.

Perhaps I shouldn’t claim that a movie in 1959 couldn’t push Teresa away from a religious existence. After all, The Sound of Music debuted on stage the same year and also told the tale of a postulant who left the convent for love.

Still, Music made Maria a less fiery and conflicted character. Teresa openly turns her back on the church whereas Maria never does that.

Whatever the case, Music works because it tells an interesting narrative in a vivid way. Miracle brings us a threadbare plot that never manages to find a compelling hook.

James Bond fans will probably like this chance to see Moore before The Saint and 007 brought him fame. We don’t find much evidence Moore could act, though, as he delivers a charming presence and not much else.

Moore becomes the least of the problems I find with The Miracle, though. Tedious and overwrought, the movie fizzles.

The Miracle appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. A Technicolor and Technirama affair, the image held up well.

No real issues with softness materialized. The movie largely displayed strong delineation.

The movie lacked signs of jagged edges or moiré effects, and I saw no edge haloes. We got light grain and no print flaws.

Despite a semi-arid setting, the palette boasted a broad range of colors. The Blu-ray reproduced the hues in a vivid manner.

Blacks came across as deep and tight, whereas low-light elements felt smooth and concise. This wound up as a pretty terrific presentation.

Though not as impressive, the film’s DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack worked fine given its vintage. Speech could be a bit reedy, but lines remained perfectly intelligible and didn’t suffer from sibilance, edginess or other problems.

Music and effects offered somewhat thin tones and never brought great range. Nonetheless, they seemed fine for their age and didn’t suffer from roughness or distortion. The movie brought a more than adequate soundtrack.

Along with the film’s trailer, we find two vintage Bugs Bunny shorts from 1959. The disc provides Hare-Abian Nights (7:00) and Bonanza Bunny (6:29).

Via Nights, Bugs winds up in an Arabian kingdom and he needs to entertain the sultan to survive. Unfortunately, this just becomes a framework for a short mainly composed of clips from older cartoons, so the end result largely flops.

Set during the late 19th century Klondike Gold Rush, the Bugs of Bonanza strikes it rich and fends off bandit Blacque Jacque Shellacque. Jacque comes across as a French-Canadian Yosemite Sam, though he seems wilier. Bonanza makes Bugs less clever than usual, but he still remains smart enough to outwit his opponent and turn this into a decent cartoon.

While it seems to want to deliver a tale of religious faith, The Miracle fails to hit that mark. Instead it turns into a meandering tale with more soap opera to it than anything else. The Blu-ray delivers excellent visuals as well as pretty good audio but it skimps on bonus materials. Silly and oddly dull, Miracle flops.