Free Willy

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.

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.

It was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I had followed Keiko ever since. I was happy that he was finally free, but I was very sad that he ended up with a tragic story because of people's mistakes. As for the movie, its impressive music and the scenes where Keiko played with Jesse were enjoyable and beautiful. I wish that amazing final scene on the poster looked like that in the movie. Instead, a phenomenon called animatronics was implemented. Yes, such a scene with an orca may have seemed impossible at that time, but it did not look as good as the poster. It could be worth more. It's a production with some messages.

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.

Even though I didn't grow up with this film, I can see why this would have had an impact on someone who was a child when this was originally released. It is a very sweet, charming, and touching film. Although the overall the plot is a little shaky and so is some of the dialogue.

I love the ending but still feel that they could have extended the ending to wrap up other plot points.

And Willy (Keiko) was probably the best character and somehow still underused in my opinion. But it is a pretty good film that people of all ages could enjoy together.