Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home Legendas Portu... !!INSTALL!!
We click our heels in anticipation. There's no place like home and no movie like this one. From generation to generation, The Wizard Of Oz brings us together - kids, grown-ups, families, friends. The dazzling land of Oz, a dream-come-true world of enchanted forests, dancing scarecrows and singing lions, wraps us in its magic with one great song-filled adventure after another.
Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home Legendas Portu...
As a child, my family's moviegoing outings were close to non-existent, so I remember being quite bummed to learn that my mother had taken my two siblings to see Free Willy on a day when I was at basketball camp. The movie never did become a favorite the way that the movie I would get to see on the big screen later that summer, Jurassic Park, did. But I did soon see Free Willy and enjoy it as one of the more popular and prototypical live-action family film of the '90s.I've known for a while that Free Willy doesn't compare to the most enduring of '90s family films, like Cool Runnings, The Sandlot, and Mrs. Doubtfire (to limit myself to three from '93). But I've also meant to revisit it by adding it to my DVD collection for something like fifteen years. I never got around to doing that, even when the kid-oriented package with a bright blue handle and "fun activity book" inside was selling for just a few dollars at Big Lots. Nine years into Blu-ray's existence, Free Willy finally makes it to the high-definition format today and you can bet I wasn't going to miss this opportunity to review it and finally admit it into the ranks.The human protagonist of the movie is Jesse (Jason James Richter), a Seattle badass who is around twelve years old. Jesse is familiar to police officers for running with a gang of young hoodlums who do things like steal sheet cake, graffiti where they please, and scatter when the law comes after them. Essentially an orphan since youth, Jesse clings to hope that his mother will return to take care of him, even though no one can seem to find any trace of her. After the latest sheet cake/graffiti incident, Jesse's social worker (Mykelti Williamson, Forrest Gump's Bubba) finds the troubled boy a foster home in the Greenwoods (Michael Madsen and Jayne Atkinson), a kind, patient local couple with no children of their own.Having a warm, loving foster home does not rid Jesse of his 'tude. But, while cleaning the aquatic park that he and his pals tagged, Jesse makes a new best friend in Willy, a giant Orca who has not been performing to the park's satisfaction. Give Jesse, the rebellious boy, a little time with Willy, though, and the killer whale is suddenly responding, his spirits evidently lifted. Willy's trainer Rae (Lori Petty) and the park's in-house sage Native American Randolph (August Schellenberg) are thrilled to see the two adolescents, troubled boy and whale, bond to each other's gain. Oh, and Willy saves Jesse's life one night when the boy sneaks in for an after-hours look at the whale.Jesse is all set to lead Willy in a big show that has Northwest Adventure Park and the seats of Willy's stadium filled like never before. Unfortunately, Willy suffers from performance anxiety caused by savage kids banging on his glass non-stop during his show. The park's bad guy owners (Michael Ironside and Richard Riehl) may as well have mustaches to twirl given dialogue like "It'll make money. That, my friend, is what we're all about!" Figuring the whale is worth more dead than alive, they stage an incident in the night to collect insurance money. Only Willy, Rae, and Randolph find out and aren't able to stand by idly. They are going to free Willy!While the '90s kid in me clings to some deep appreciation for the film, the critic in me sees that Free Willy is pretty awful. It's melodramatic throughout, breaking only for some unbelievable conflict and acting out. There's no way to make the character of Jesse work as intended; he's not believable as a seriously endangered streetwise punk, but you need him not to be so that he can become friends with a whale. It's as if the writers -- veteran character actor Keith A. Walker (penning his first and only screenplay) and TV-seasoned Corey Blechman -- knew they could churn out standard characters and a paper-thin good/bad narrative and still win over the public with the sight of a real 7,000-pound whale being playful and interacting with a boy. They were not wrong. Moviegoers gobbled up this sentimental, emotionally manipulative tale all summer long and into the fall. The film grossed $78 million domestically and another $76 million overseas, numbers you can double to establish the 2015 equivalent adjusted for inflation. Free Willy was the 11th highest-earning movie of '93, trailing only the PG-13 Jurassic and Doubtfire among films you could classify as family attractions.The commercial success spawned two sequels over the next four summers: Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, which opened decently but faded fast, in 1995 and Free Willy 3: The Rescue, which the public treated like the plague in 1997. Rescue's three-digit per-theater average on its first weekend in modest release still ranks as one of the worst debuts of all time. Time and nostalgia improve the reputation of every family film out there, as the kids who grew up with something secure for it a permanent fond place in their hearts. You see some evidence of that in Free Willy's IMDb user rating, which has climbed from a below-average 5.2 in 2004 to the nearly respectable 5.8 it currently holds and has since early 2014. Willy is not a new generation's The Goonies. Heck, it doesn't even generate the goodwill that contemporaries Hook and Hocus Pocus do.Nonetheless, Free Willy has made it to Blu-ray, and faster than many of its fellow '90s kids faves, including The Mighty Ducks, Cool Runnings, Beethoven, Aladdin, Rookie of the Year, Angels in the Outfield, The Goofy Movie, 3 Ninjas, Little Giants, Homeward Bound, Air Bud, Richie Rich, Andre, and The Big Green.Probably as on its last DVD, Free Willy is fitted with the current Warner Bros. Pictures logo, changing it from the sky one it would have had in initial release. That's not a practice to be admired, but it's one some studios have been known to do.
Keiko, Richter, Schellenberg, Madsen, Atkinson, and Williamson all return for a new adventure about friendship and family. Two years after setting Willy free, Jesse is still rebellious, but nothing very bad. He enjoys girls and time with his adoptive parents. Things get shaken up when he finds out his mother died and he has a half-brother named Elvis that will be staying with him for a while. They go on a camping trip and contend with sibling rivalry. Not far into the vacation, Jesse is thrilled to see Willy again. But everything is put in danger when an oil spill traps Willy and his family and endangers their habitat. Jesse leads a group to put out crooked businessmen and save his best friend. Many people did not like this one. Many people found it better than the first. The first is a typical lonely kid that becomes best friends with a non-human and saves him. This is similar, but there is more danger that adds excitement and entertainment. And the subplot with Jesse and Elvis is great too. Regardless, all Free Willy movies are great for nostalgia sake, whether you originally liked them or not. Screw those dog and chimp family movies.3/4 041b061a72