¡Liberad a Willy!

Willy is a wild orca that was trapped and separated from his parents. He is sent to an aquarium. Jesse (Jason James Richter) is a street kid who gets caught vandalizing the tank. He still believes his mom will come back. His social worker Dwight gets him off as long as he cleans up his mess. He's placed with Glen (Michael Madsen) and Annie Greenwood. Jesse is guarded and Glen is reluctant also. At the aquarium, he befriends Willy who saves his life one night. Willy won't perform for trainer Rae Lindley (Lori Petty) but he's willing to do it for Jesse. The owner Dial (Michael Ironside) is under pressure from the non-performing whale.

It's a reasonable family picture. It has a whale and the little kids may find it fascinating. The story is compelling enough that the older kids will also like it. It's very much following a try and true formula. The young lead is acceptable even when he doesn't have the whale. He has some good drama to play off against. It's important to note that Keiko the whale was eventually freed. If that's all the movie achieves, that's plenty.

Free Willy is one that passed me by as a young teenager on its initial release, but I recently saw it with my two young daughters who both took a lot from it.

The visual storytelling is strong throughout as the filmmakers almost seamlessly blend the captive Keiko, animatronics and open water cinematography in a plausible way to tell the story of the titular orca. His scenes of interaction with human characters are very well done and all lead to a famous and cinematic conclusion that was largely spoiled by the movie posters and trailers of the time. Great use is made of the different locations to make it all seem like it's all happening in Oregon.

There is no denying the movie has a simple yet powerful message about captive animals and their exploitation for financial gain. If it went some way to deter children from visiting zoos, circuses and aquariums, that has to be a positive. That being said I find the use of a captive animal in a sentimental story about a captive animal longing for freedom (for commercial gain) quite ironic. Saying that it was a movie that raised awareness about the plight of captive orcas and resulted in people taking action, regardless of its financial motives.

Where it falters slightly is in the clichéd characters, contrived aspects of the plot and exploitative emotional moments. It is however aimed at families with children so there is only so harsh I can be, particularly when my own children enjoyed it.

It might not be the Shawshank Redemption or an equally provocative and important movie. But it's touching. As a child it was my favorite movie and I'd watch it every day for a period of about 3 months. It made me cry, but it meant a lot to me. It might have it's corny moments, but kids like it, and my parents liked it too. Compared to a lot of the movies kids force their parents to watch, this one isn't so bad.

It's really sweet, and it puts out a good message. It allows you to feel and care about things that go on it the world. I dug this out today and watched it again and it was still pretty magical to me, although I'm much older now. I don't see why this is rated a 5.2. I guess I wouldn't tell every adult to go out and watch it, but if you have kids, or just love animals, then give this a shot. It's a good film.

First of all, I want to say some of my thoughts about IMDb ratings. If you look at IMDb top 250 you can hardly find any family movie . In fact, there are only three family movie (I mean live action movies not animated flicks) in this chart. They are Princess Bride on the 99 position (haven't seen yet), A Christmas Story on 142 (a movie nobody heard of besides English speaking countries) and the E.T. on the 244 (forever classic - no point denying that). And I bet you would be unable to find another one even in top 500. On the other hand you can find in this list, for example, more than eighty thrillers or more than thirty 30 war movies. Does that result means that family movies can't be good. Obviously it is not. For me the point is that many of people as well as lots of critics don't appreciate movies sweet movies without profanity, drugs, sex and violence. Cheesy movie for kids only that's not a fair grade. Well it's only my opinion but for me it's very sad when such a beautiful movie become so undeservedly underrated. Now, more directly to our movie. I watched Free Willy no less than four or five times and found it one of the best family and animal movie ever made. The bonds of friendship between man and animal are shown incredibility well here. From this point Free Willy remembered me another beautiful animal movie The Black Stallion. The unlikely friendship between twelve years old Jesse and giant whale as the main element of the story is very sweet and touching. Overall plot is well constructed (and there's no point to complain its unreality) with decent development of the main characters. Young and definitely talented Jason Jammes Richter created terrific performance of a young lonely problem boy Jesse. Also very good in the movie were August Schellenberg (as Randolph) and Michael Madsen (as Glen). As I always mentioned cinematography is pretty good, including first-rate animal action (Keiko is so cute there). The beautiful movie soundtrack written by Basil Poleuydouris a bit resembled for me terrific Carmine Coppola's score for The Black Stallion. And finally, that's maybe the most important Free Willy is a very humanistic movie, a movie that what was made with love and care about nature. Thanks to Simon Wincer for this great masterpiece. We need more movies like this, not a laughable rubbish that Hollywood studios now provide for family entertainment. I rated Free Willy 10 out of 10 as an excellent and beautiful family friendly movie. Check out also its two sequels. They are also pretty good.

Thanks for reading and sorry for my bad English.

Free Willy is the quintessential 90s family film along the lines of Home Alone - innocent, schmaltzy and full of cloying sentimentality. It contains everything you've seen before and has passed into cliché - misunderstood kid who just wants to prove himself, heartfelt friendship with a precious animal, plot to thwart secret bad guys and so on - but it does so with such determined idealism that you can't help but feel a sheer, overwhelming joy. Free Willy is the family movie to end all family movies, a condensation of so many feelgood tropes that it collapses under its own gravity to form a singularity of Hollywood magic.