Sauvez Willy

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.

Its a real family movie with lots of love. This film is a great way for kids to learn about Whales, family and friendship. Its one not to be missed, its makes you feel all warm in side. It made me cry back when I was 5 and it still does today. This Film will always be in our hearts. If you have kids this is the one to show them, they will laugh, cry and learn to love the adorable killer Whale Willy which a lot of us have done. This film has taught us a lot about captivity and the need of freedom. There should be more films like this. If you are in need of a friend there will always be on in animals and this film has shown us so with Jesse and Willy. This film will continue to touch many hearts of the world.

While the plot is quite hackneyed, it's fine that we have movie like this. The news is out on the treatment of Orcas by places like Sea World. These magnificent creatures are kept in tight quarters and made to perform at shows. Willy is one of those whales, and a young boy, who has had a checkered past, and his friend decide it is time to put him back in the open sea. The movie has to do with the logistics of getting this done. As is usually the case, there are some bad people determined to stop this. While it's lightweight and pretty hard to believe, it's a nice movie with a good heart. I'm happy that my children enjoyed this and developed a good attitude about the treatment of animals.

5.2 is shameful. I loved this movie. It has all of the elements of a great film; compelling characters, plot, and an end lesson. I think that most family movies these days lack a lot of moral posturing that made films like this one so memorable. I know that I wanted to "Save the Whales" after I saw this movie. Heck, I wanted to be a whale. I don't care how many stars it got, this movie is a childhood treasure for me and I think of it every time I hear the Michael Jackson song, "Will You Be There?" I wish that my younger siblings remembered this movie or the amount of joy it brought us slightly older kids in my family. The sequel certainly left something to be desired, but not the original. Yep, it will hold a special whale-shaped place in my heart.

After 12-year-old orphaned delinquent Jesse (Jason James Richter) is arrested for vandalizing the Northwest Adventure Park in Portland, Oregon, Jesse is placed in the care of prospective foster parents Glen (Michael Madsen) and Annie Greenwood (Jayne Atkinson) who despite their best-efforts Jesse doesn't take too. While cleaning up the graffiti on the tank of Orca whale Willy (Keiko), Jesse forms a bond with the whale which has had behavioral problems due to being captured at an older age. Over the summer Jesse manages to train Willy and befriends Willy's caregiver Randolph (August Schellenberg) and vet Rae (Lori Petty) but after the park's unscrupulous owner Dial (Michael Ironside) determines Willy to worth more for the insurance, Jesse undertakes efforts to free Willy.

Free Willy is a 1993 family drama directed by Simon Wincer and written by Keith A. Walker and Corey Blechman. Walker conceived the idea for the film while working with executive producer Richard Donner on The Goonies with the film eventually setting up for development at Regency Enterprises who had a deal with Warner Bros. Given a massive promotional push by Warner Bros, the film opened at a rather inauspicious fifth place during the Summer behind holdovers such as The Firm, Jurassic Park, and In the Line of Fire but thanks to positive word of mouth from audiences the movie managed to stay within the top five for many weeks and eventually amassed $75 million domestically against its $13 million budget and $150 million worldwide making the film a sleeper hit and leading to two theatrical sequels, a TV cartoon series, and a DTV sequel. Despite being a massive success in its day Free Willy hasn't really had much cultural staying power with the exception of its ending which is often subject to parody (and was spoiled by its theatrical release poster) because the movie itself is rather unexceptional.

When you get down to brass tacks with Free Willy, the movie is yet another entry in the "Boy and his (blank)" sub-genre of family films where you team up a child actor with a dog, an alien, a bird, or some other creature and put them through standard paces usually in some kind of coming-of-age manner or adventure story. As far as how Free Willy's handling of it goes, it's largely thanks to the acting that the movie works as well as it does. Jason James Richter gives a committed performance as Jesse, Jayne Atkinson and Michael Madsen are likable as Jesse's foster parents, Lori Petty and August Schellenberg are good as Willy's caretakers and Jesse's eventual friends and the always reliable Michael Ironside manages to make the very stock villain of Dial kind of engaging despite there not being much to him. Willy the whale is brought to life nicely by real life whale Keiko (who was later returned to the wild) and a set of animatronic whales and there is a certain charm to the scenes between Jesse and Willy. Pretty much everything you can fault in Free Willy comes down to the script which is basic to a fault and makes Jesse way too unlikable to excuse some of things he puts people through. While it's understandable to a degree that Jesse would be distrustful of people since he was abandoned by his mother, Jesse never softens his abrasive edges towards his foster parents or even Rae and Randolph all that much and pretty much does everything he can to be awful to the Greenwood's. I'm not saying I want it to be completely positive, but when the only time the character says "sorry" in this movie is sarcastically and it's in regard to the graffiti he put on Willy's tank in the opening it shows that maybe the character was in need of another re-write before being committed to screen. There's never any scene where Jesse expresses guilt, remorse, or shame and the writers seem to think him wallowing in self-pity is a substitute for him making any kind of amends to the people he's casually cold and cruel towards and it just isn't.

Free Willy is harmless when taken for what it is, but it's a movie that aims more for the heart than it does for the brain. There's a reason that what most people take away from this film is the iconic "jump" scene because everything surrounding that is competent but also unexceptional.