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.
Review of Free Willy
