Free Willy: Escape from Pirate's Cove

Before I conclude “Free Willy month,” I want to apologize for not posting my review yesterday for I was out the entire day and came back really late. As to make up for it, I will post the review today.

After how bad the third movie in the Free Willy series was, filmmakers decided to give Willy one more chance in the final installment, which was a direct-to-video remake in 2010, “Free Willy: Escape from Pirate’s Cove.”

When her father (Kevin Otto) gets into a serious farming accident, Kira (Bindi Irwin) is sent from Australia to South Africa, to be taken care of by her grandfather who has a serious gambling addiction, Gus (Beau Bridges, the older brother of Jeff Bridges). Making a living inside a rundown amusement park “The Pirate’s Lair,” Kira finds it difficult to socialize, watching as Gus cons guests out of all their money. Then everything changes when an orca named Willy arrives in the nearby lagoon, instantly becoming Kira’s friend and finding a way for Gus to gamble for money more. Willy becomes the new attraction at the amusement park, and Kira helps Willy return to his pod by helping Willy sharpen his echolocation skills. Even though Gus likes the money he makes from people coming in to see Willy perform his new tricks, he’s hesitant to see Willy return to his pod. What Kira doesn’t know is that Gus is working with the owner of a competing theme park, played by Stephen Jennings, to sell Willy to his park for a huge payday.

“Free Willy” was a great family movie hit when it was released in 1993, giving the family to fall in love with and feel sympathetic for the film’s main star, Keiko. With the two sequels that came out that was only insignificantly successful and after Keiko passed away in 2003, it looked as though the series would never have another sequel since it went with Keiko.

“Escape from Pirate’s Cove” can be called a reboot, since it puts together a similar tale of captivity for the main orca, only here the story is taken away from the main place of the Pacific Northwest to South Africa, exchanging spectacular oceans for sun-kissed beaches. The new star, Bindi Irwin, is making her feature film debut in here (also strapping out a tune for the end credits) after a few years of conveying the same message that her father, the late Steve Irwin’s message of animal appreciation on the famous television show, “Bindi, the Jungle Girl.” Irwin is a beginner, but she does a very pleasing innocent impression in this film, positioning her natural cheerful personality to best match her huge co-star. Nothing too tiring in the acting department is asked of Irwin, making her performance thankfully free of very small seriousness.

Brian Orndorf said in his review of the film, “Irwin's a polite presence in a film that could use more of her, with director Will Geiger often turning on the cartoon afterburners to make a quick impression on younger viewers.” “Escape from Pirate’s Cove” is a friendly family movie, but it doesn’t have the same naturalistic weight the original film delighted itself on. Even though the messages on animal captivity is completely clear as day, Orndorf says, “this "Free Willy" adventure retains a plastic quality, a fact emphasized in Willy himself, who's either a semi-paralyzed animatronic figure to best interact with the performers or he's a slick CGI creation for underwater shots.” Any hope to see an orca in a natural shot is lost when the film goes into animated mode.

When Willy is reduced to a bad effect, the South African shots are beautiful, offering Irwin plenty of opportunities to interact with a vast amount of animals and connect in coastal monkey business. Orndorf even admitted, “I also enjoyed the film's insistence on education, as Kira devours all the information she can find to best decode Willy's predicament.” Maybe this film isn’t an overwhelming display of educational truth, but the little ideas add up here and there, hopefully inspiring younger audiences with an appreciation for animal life.

In the end, go see this remake; it’s definitely worth the watch, especially if you didn’t like either two or three or both. I personally think the first two are better, but I think this is a good movie for the entire family to sit down and watch.

Thank you for joining in with me on “Free Willy month.” I hope that I have given everyone an insight on sea life and you will now save the whales. Stay tuned for more of my reviews coming very soon. Take care.

Free Willy 3: The Rescue

I’m not looking forward to today’s review. Honestly, I am not. This is one of the worst sequels I have ever seen, period. How could anyone have thought up of the idea to make a movie like this? It’s so mean, hateful, rotten, and clearly not to be seen by any child. Sadly, like all of the other bad sequels that I have reviewed over the year and a half that I have been blogging; I have to give you my thoughts since I seem to like subjecting myself to such torture. Let’s take a look at the 1997 sequel, “Free Willy 3: The Rescue.”

“Something just occurred to me,” says the oceanic research scientist hot in pursuit of the illegal whalers. “When we find them, what are we going to do?” Just like the formula script of “Free Willy 3: The Rescue,” she does not think ahead. John Mattson, the writer of “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home,” again connects the dots to give us basically the same movie plus one.

A couple of small details have changed. Jessie has aged. To show that he is growing up, Jessie first is seen driving along, getting the attention of a car with girls in them, and listening to rock n’ roll. Once he is done with that, he goes back to being a 17-year-old who plays a part that is better for a different actor. The script tries to balance by giving him a job as a research assistant and by providing him with a younger sidekick.

The setup for this sequel to the “Free Willy” trilogy has the oceanic researcher, Drew, played expressionlessly by Annie Corley, seeing that the Orca population is down by 10% and that it is their job to find out what has happened. Besides Jessie and the ship’s captain (Matthew Walker) and mate (Roger R. Cross), Randolph is back who is, once again, the most animated of the characters.

Among the best and worst parts of the plot are the villains. The head of the whalers is a third generation whaler named John Wesley, played by Patrick Kilpatrick. John is the only complex character of the story. In easily the most refreshing part of the film, the film explores briefly the other side of an environmental issue. Hollywood long ago decided that when it comes to the environment, there is only one defensible position. The script, on the other hand, explains John’s life as a whaler with some pity to his confessedly illegal job. John tells his son Max, played by Vincent Barry, that his grandfather proudly collected the whale oil that was used to light the lamps around the country. (Max ends up getting close to Jesse and the whales and going against his father’s work although not really against his father as such.)

The problem with this formula is that it becomes hard to hate a bad guy who seems trapped in his profession and who is such a good father. Without an adequate villain, the show lacks much credible tension.

TV director Sam Pilsbury’s film feels like a direct-to-video production, which is how “Free Willy 4” ends up becoming. Steve Rhodes says, “As a two dollar rental that only the kids watch, the movie becomes a more palatable proposition. Within the confines of a theater, Pillsbury's lethargic pacing and the script's paucity of ideas become all too apparent.”

Rhodes goes on to say, “The dialog is full of the platitudes one might find in a substandard third grade reader.” Typical is John’s lecture to his son. “Whales aren’t people,” he argues. “They don’t feel. They are fish.”

The only reason to see the movie are the playing whale sequences, which are nicely shot by the rugged mountains of the Pacific Northwest coast. As the whales go around the deep blue waters, the sun is shining on the ocean’s surface. The most remarkable moments are the shots underwater, which show close-ups of the people and the whales making direct eye contact with one another. Willy is as naturally at home there as the people are amazed to be sailing in front of his mouth. Still, a half hour short film of just these scenes would have been better than a feature length film padded with the recycled material from the previous two movies.

I hate it for the fact that it keeps moving back and forth between the two ships, which gets old and annoying really fast. On top of that, where are Jessie's foster parents? Where is Elvis? Where's Randolph's daughter? Did they not want to return for this sequel? I wouldn't blame them, but why is there no mention of them anywhere in this film? Also, John is a cruel, heartless man who thinks that animals are put on Earth just for people to hunt, kill, and eat. No, people have household pets and farmers are still around to this very day you man that doesn’t deserve to be out at sea! Plus, by the end of the movie, Max forgives his father, which makes me go, “WHAT!?” If John was my father, I would have disowned him for animal cruelty. Somebody call PETA on this guy!!! 

You want to know what the surprising thing is. People actually liked this one better than the second one. No kidding, it holds a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes. Then again, I do have to reiterate what I said last week, this is all opinion based. For me, I felt tortured watching this one.

If your kids want to see this film, try to confess to them that they don’t want to subject themselves to such a cruel, heartless flick. Maybe after a good while, they will have forgotten about this film, and you can suggest a much better movie from the library or NetFlix instead.

Well that’s a relief. In the end, I say that you should avoid this movie like the plague. You will get sick for a good while, and it will take a long time for the illness to go away. Believe it or not, they actually remade the series, which I will have to admit, was needed. Stay tuned next week when I close out “Free Willy month” with the final installment.

Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home

Now we come to the sequel, “Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home,” released in 1995. This for some reason has been criticized as being worse than the first movie, and the worst in the series, currently holding a 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. In my opinion, I thought it was better than the first one. Here are my reasons why:

In this sequel, Jesse finds out from the cop from the first movie, played once again by Mykelti Williamson, that his biological mother has passed away and that he has an eight-year-old half-brother, Elvis, played by Francis Capra, who is coming to live with Jesse and his foster parents. Despite that Elvis is a fast talker, he says very little about their mother’s passing, and at first, Jesse does not want to consider himself related to Elvis, especially since Elvis can be a real nuisance. This is probably the reason why a lot of hate went into “Free Willy 2,” and in all honesty, I can see that. However, Jesse was very unstable in the first movie as well, and you might say that Elvis is worse, but remember, if you have younger siblings, they were probably a lot of trouble for your parents as well. Think of it from that point of view. Also, almost all of the original cast returns, minus Lori.

For Jesse and Elvis to bond, the family goes out on a camping trip, where Jesse is reunited with Willy. Another familiar face that pops into the movie is Randolph, who now is a whale spotter and has located where Willy is with his mother, sister, and brother. Also, Jesse finds love with Randolph’s daughter, Nadine, played by Mary Kate Schellhardt, who is impressed with Jesse and Willy’s friendship and how Jesse trains Willy. Then disaster strikes when a tanker, played by Jon Tenney, arrives onto the reef and decides that is the place for his company to dump oil into. After seeing this, everyone, including Elvis, puts their heads together to find out what they can do in order to save the whales and rid the oil company from this reef.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat said it very nicely in their review, “Free Willy 2 is fine family entertainment laced with ecological ideals.” The storyline teaches the younger audiences that they should fight for the relationship between animals and humans. Willy and Jesse grow closer to one another in this movie with both of them performing heroism. What I mean is that they both save one another from near-death experiences. The message in this movie is that all creatures are fellow travelers and spiritual companions. Also, with the environmental message in this movie to save the whales, and showing you why, I found to be stronger than in the first movie. I liked the message a lot, and I think the situation was high at the time for the filmmakers to put that in “Free Willy 2.”

Also, when you get the DVD, it includes behind-the-scenes features, Michael Jackson’s music video to “Childhood” (which plays when Elvis runs away and the family tries to find him), and theatrical trailers to all three “Free Willy” movies.

In the end, I say to give this movie a chance. I personally like this one over the first, but that’s just my opinion. I’m not saying that I’m right and everyone else is wrong, no. Remember that this is all opinion-based. However, since I have an online blog, that automatically means that my opinion is better than yours (Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah). Wait, are you all leaving? I was only kidding, please don’t leave. It was just a joke. Ok, good, now I’m feeling better.

Stay tuned next week when I talk about “Free Willy 3.”

Free Willy

For this month, I would like to take a look at the “Free Willy” movies. It’s nothing special, since the story is what we’ve heard so many times before. A boy bonds with an animal and the entire movie is focused on them getting closer. What was new was that it hadn’t been done with a whale before. Anyways, let’s take a look at the first “Free Willy” movie, released in 1993.

“Free Willy,” as I mentioned already, is about a boy and a whale, which for certain people, sounds like an awkward adaptation of the old tale about a boy and his dog. Whales are not as charismatic as dogs, not as easily trained, and cannot be hugged. Yet “Free Willy” works around the physical reality of the animal lead, which made it one of the summer’s best family pictures.

The movie stars Jason James Richter as Jesse, a 12-year-old orphan who is going through the rebellious, adolescent years of his life. He moves into a foster home, and even though his foster parents (the great Michael Madsen and Jayne Atkinson) are patient and loving, Jesse still acts rebellious towards them. He’s uncontrollable, insulting, distant, and disappears for hours at a time.

One day Jesse is caught spray-painting at the broken down “Adventure Park” near his home and is ordered to clean the graffiti as punishment. While cleaning away the mess he made on the walls of the aquarium, he meets Willy, an orca whale who was recently captured. One night, when Jesse has run away from home and is sitting under the moonlight near Willy’s tank, he notices that Willy reacts whenever Jesse plays his harmonica.

That’s where their friendship starts. Jesse and Willy both feel homeless, broken away from their real families – Willy because he has been captured; Jesse because his birth mother abandoned him and he cannot believe that she will come back for him.

Eventually two friendly workers at the aquarium, a trainer named Rae (Lori Petty, who voiced Livewire from “Superman: the Animated Series”) and a handyman named Randolph (August Schellenberg) see that Willy will only pay attention to Jesse. Overnight, Jesse now becomes the new trainer for Willy.

The scenes with Willy are very convincing. The filmmakers used a combination of a real whale and a handful of animatronic whales to create a flawless illusion. The part where Willy saves Jesse from drowning is impossible to see whether that whale is the actual whale or an artificial whale. The film also puts in the effort of giving Willy a personality. Actually, it does go a little too far. The late Roger Ebert said, “by the end of the movie, Willy spontaneously figures out how to nod his head for "yes" and shake it from side to side for "no," skills that I suspect a real orca would have little interest in developing.”

The plot involves the cunning, villainous owners of the park (Michael Ironside (who always plays a villain, doesn’t he) and Richard Riehle), who first want to use Jesse and Willy’s friendship, and then want to kill Willy for insurance money. That sets into motion the predictable, but no less effective, conclusion, in which the aspects of the boy, whale and family, are brought together nicely.

Ebert commented in his review, “"Free Willy" has a kind of gentle sweetness that I found very appealing.” It is about change – a young boy finding out who he is – and about adventure. The subplot involving “save the whales” makes it more than just an adventure, or an escapade. The screenplay is written intelligently. If you look at the relationship between Jesse and his foster parents, it has the ring of truth. The movie does appeal to the younger audiences (they may find it more accessible and definitely less frightening than “Jurassic Park”), and it’s smart enough to keep the adults attention as well.

Also, make sure to watch the credits. Michael Jackson’s “Will You Be There” plays. I find it strange that the Nostalgia Critic believes that the reason why “Free Willy” was such a hit was because of Michael Jackson singing the movie’s theme. However, the one thing that everyone harps on about is Willy jumping over a pile of rocks and not a net. I do say that I am with everyone in thinking why Willy didn’t do that. Maybe it was to build suspense if Willy could really do it and needed Jesse’s encouragement, but if Jesse did that earlier, than Willy could have leaped over the net.

In the end, watch this movie. It’s not terrible, definitely above average, but not really “that” good of a movie. Still, it’s watchable if you have little children with you.

Thanks for joining in on the first installment of “Free Willy Month.” Stay tuned next week when I talk about the sequel.