Movie Review: Free Willy 3: The Rescue
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What Parents Should Know
A slower, more deliberate pace (and a shorter running time)
adds a bedtime-story feel to this nature-loving sequel. That's
good, since the audience for this sequel to the popular
original aimed this film at 5- and 6-year-olds. Most older kids
will find the eco-lessons labored andsimplistic.
This film touts animal rights and vegetarianism. Some kids may want to become vegetarians after watching this film. On that note, a little boy faces down his fisherman/whaler father about the morality of Dad's occupation. Parents should decide how they want to present animal-rights issues to their children before acquiring this video.
Families who watch this movie may want to discuss what parents do for a living and how that interacts with their beliefs. What types of jobs encourage social change? What do kids want to do when they grow up?
Common Sense Media Review
It's no fluke: as with the last two films in this series,
there are painless rivulets of whale (and whaler) trivia
streaming through the plot. Environmentalism also continues to
be an issue.
Whale poachers are at large in the second sequel to Free Willy . In a well-made but by-the-numbers environmental sermon, Willy the Wonder Orca and boy hero Jesse must change the minds of harpoon-happy humans.
This is the most lyrical and pretty-looking of the Willy adventures. Free Willy 3: The Rescue is also the most brazen in pushing its animal-rights agenda on impressionable viewers. Little Max does everything but give the Greenpeace website to his parents. A save-the-whales phone number appears in the credits, and the cassette carries a preface updating the viewer on efforts to free Keiko, the actual orca who portrayed Willy in the first film. Parents should decide how they want to present animal-rights issues to their children before acquiring this video.
There is some balance, however. The marauding whaleboat crew are not demonized as kill-crazy monsters, but proud men carrying on a long heritage. Given the tone of these movies, that's as even-handed as you can get, even with the cliched finale in which Willy's good deeds raise the issue of whale sainthood. Not even fearsome spearguns and a heated saloon fight (between the whalers and Jesse's old pal Randolph) can boil a mist of niceness off the material. This softness will work better for the under 12s. Older viewers may yearn for a bit more edge.
Animal lovers looking for another movie for the family may want to try the landlocked Born Free.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
