Free Willy Escape From Pirate's Cove

A lot of film makers' dream of achieving the pinnacle of financial success; the movie franchise. When you look at the high grossing, and therefore most popular movies the majority of them are part of a series. While horror, fantasy and action flicks are particularly conducive to such a treatment the kid oriented family movie quietly turns out successful franchises at an incredible rate. Just look at the 'Beethoven' or 'Home Alone' films to see this trend in action. One slow but steadily building franchises concerns a lovable black and white killer whale named Willy in the 'Free Willy' series. The first film hit the theaters back in 1993 followed by a short lived TV series the following year. 'Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home' came along in 1995 hitting the trilogy mark with 'Free Willy 3: The Rescue' in 1997. The franchise went into hibernation until this year with the direct to DVD release of the forth installment 'Free Willy: Escape from Pirate's Cove'. Over the years I've caught the other flicks in the franchise and although I'm not a fan of the series this one surprised me as much better than I expected. Typically even the best franchises have a tendency to slip in quality with each succeeding movie. In this particular case there appears to be a blip in the upward direction. The star of the movie is the child of a celebrity so one misgiving I had was that could have degenerated into a vanity piece. I was pleasantly surprised that what I found was a coherent script as a foundation for some very enjoyable acting. One possible reason may be this is a story connected to the previous three flicks only by the species of the titular character. As far as family films go this one is able to engage the children while also generating sufficient appeal to keep the grown-ups from wanting to flee the living room.

The original story is credited to first timer Cindy McCreery transported to a script and then directed by Will Geiger. He only has a couple of prior projects but this may actually have been beneficial here providing a fresh, unbiased look at the material. The title is just a bit misleading. The pirate cove mentioned has nothing to do with the usual movie pirates. The cove here is a rundown low rent amusement park. That said the movie still provides enough fun adventure to hold up. Kirra Cooper (Bindi Irwin) has always had a natural chemistry with animals which comes in handy when she helps her father Sam (Kevin Otto) with his veterinarian practice in Australia. Kirra is especially good with sick and injured animals readily gaining their trust. Her father breaks his arm and leg and has to stay at the hospital so Kirra is sent to Cape Town, South Africa to stay with her grandfather Gus (Beau Bridges). When she gets off the plane Kirra is met by her grandfather's friend and taken to Gus' house which has been modeled after a pirate's ship. Adjacent to the bizarre home is a broken down tourist trap, Pirate's Lair that Gus runs. Actually it isn't much of a success and is not able to make any profit. Kirra is not exactly happy to be there tossing the usual tween angst around refusing to leave her room. She does venture out to grab a meal left by Gus but mostly Kirra prefers to sulk in her room. One morning Gus gives Kirra a tour of the park which consists mostly of a few attractions such as a miniature golf course and a water slide. A couple of things happen that will help Kirra stay out of her room occur. First she meets a boy, Silfiso and the two hit it off immediately in a harmless tween romance sort of fashion. The second life changing event is when a young orca is separated from his pod during a large storm. Kirra nicknames the whale 'Willy' trying to care for him in the little cove near Gus' park. When Gus' park. When he finds out about Willy he sees this as a chance to drastically improve business. Making this all the more urgent is Gus' rival who owns a more successful park. The main conflict comes up between Gus and Kirra when he is reluctant to call animal rescue to have Willy reunited with his pod. The clock is ticking for the wayward mammal when he stops eating. He was separated from his pod before his sense of echo location could fully develop so unless he his reunited soon it might be too late.

Bindi is already well known as 'the Jungle Girl' taking up the mantle of her late father's ecological causes. Of course he was Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter and Bindi was a regular appearing with him since she was two. Of course having a famous father hanging out in water is nothing new for Beau Bridges. His father Lloyd rose to fame as the SCUBA diving adventurer Mike Nelson on the old TV classic 'Sea Hunt'. She has some innate acting ability but this movie offers little to expand her range restricted as it was mostly to histrionics and sulking. It is reassuring that she is continuing on with her father's eco-crusade. This movie does carry such a message but thankfully never bests the audience over the head with it.

Posted 03/20/2010