Now sixteen years old, Jesse (Jason James Richter) becomes a research assistant to his mentor Randolph (August Schellenberg) who continues working with the Orca Institute under the direction of Drew Halbert (Annie Corely). As the institute has noticed a 10% decline in the Orca population in the area, the team sets to work on board the Noah using a computerized version of Jesse's harmonica playing he produced to find Willy who has since taken a mate who is now pregnant with a calf. Meanwhile, young boy Max Wesley (Vincent Berry) is excited to join his father John (Patrick Kilpatrick) on his job on board the Botany Bay which operates as a whaling ship despite being registered for salmon fishing. As Max witnesses the true nature of the orcas, he finds himself torn between loyalty to his father and the moral quandary presented by whaling.
While Free Willy 2 did see a noticeable dip in box office gross in comparison to its predecessor, the film did do enough international business to break even and most likely earned a sizable profit on the home video market which was still in full swing with the hefty demand for family films. The fact that Free Willy 3 was a theatrical effort rather than a DTV one probably comes down to the push from executive producers Richard and Lauren Shuler Donner with Richard having been a mainstay of Warner Bros. For several years and with the two being staunch advocates for preservation of Whales the production of Free Willy 3 was most likely a case of "keeping the talent happy". Released in August of 1997 with significantly less of a promotional push than the prior entries and in less than half the theater count Free Willy 2 had at its widest distribution, Free Willy 3 opened far outside the top 10 in fifteenth place and on the same day as bigger budget and Richard Donner directed Conspiracy Theory which opened in first place. While budget numbers for the film are unavailable, the film only managed to accumulate $3.4 million from its box office run which was most likely just a formality in a way to give it more weight for its home video release. Critical reception tended to be mixed with audiences and critics having since gotten burnt out on the series, but it did receive praise from Siskel and Ebert who called it the best film in the series and honestly I'm inclined to agree with them.
This is probably Richter's best turn as Jesse over the course of the series, and it's really a credit to the writing which feels like it's added more emotional maturity to Jesse as a character and grown up alongside Richter and adjusted as need be. The rapport between Richeter and Schellenberg as Randolph is still very good and there's a strong sense of history between the two. But despite Jesse still being the headliner of the film, the emotional core this time around is in Max Wesley played by Vincent Berry and despite being quite young and usually a trap for the worst aspects of these kinds of films, the character is approached with more nuance and subtlety than I was expecting. The relationship between Max and his father John played by Patrick Kilpatrick is very good because John at his core is a good father in that he's attentive to his son and teaches him skills, but at the same time there's a conflict in the relationship with John engaging in illicit activity but it's not because he wants to but because of the economic pressures that make it too lucrative to pass on and the conflict between Max's love for his father and his discovery about the true nature of the orcas is what makes the conflict especially rich. This easily makes John the best human antagonist the series has had because the prior antagonists have all been two dimensional business archetypes who despite being played by good actors had the depth of mud puddles and were more satires of unrestricted failures of capitalist excess rather than fully defined characters. John feels like an elaboration where although he's still meant to embody indifference and apathy of environmental degradation, there is an earnest attempt at understanding the "why" even if the movie doesn't give closure as to what happens next for the character.
Free Willy 3 honestly surprised me with how much better it was than the prior entries and it's honestly kind of a shame it was allowed to "die" at the box office simply to usher it to home video. In terms of the core theme of this franchise, this entry feels like the one where they managed to tackle the core issue with the most maturity and nuance and it honestly did impress me.
While Free Willy 2 did see a noticeable dip in box office gross in comparison to its predecessor, the film did do enough international business to break even and most likely earned a sizable profit on the home video market which was still in full swing with the hefty demand for family films. The fact that Free Willy 3 was a theatrical effort rather than a DTV one probably comes down to the push from executive producers Richard and Lauren Shuler Donner with Richard having been a mainstay of Warner Bros. For several years and with the two being staunch advocates for preservation of Whales the production of Free Willy 3 was most likely a case of "keeping the talent happy". Released in August of 1997 with significantly less of a promotional push than the prior entries and in less than half the theater count Free Willy 2 had at its widest distribution, Free Willy 3 opened far outside the top 10 in fifteenth place and on the same day as bigger budget and Richard Donner directed Conspiracy Theory which opened in first place. While budget numbers for the film are unavailable, the film only managed to accumulate $3.4 million from its box office run which was most likely just a formality in a way to give it more weight for its home video release. Critical reception tended to be mixed with audiences and critics having since gotten burnt out on the series, but it did receive praise from Siskel and Ebert who called it the best film in the series and honestly I'm inclined to agree with them.
This is probably Richter's best turn as Jesse over the course of the series, and it's really a credit to the writing which feels like it's added more emotional maturity to Jesse as a character and grown up alongside Richter and adjusted as need be. The rapport between Richeter and Schellenberg as Randolph is still very good and there's a strong sense of history between the two. But despite Jesse still being the headliner of the film, the emotional core this time around is in Max Wesley played by Vincent Berry and despite being quite young and usually a trap for the worst aspects of these kinds of films, the character is approached with more nuance and subtlety than I was expecting. The relationship between Max and his father John played by Patrick Kilpatrick is very good because John at his core is a good father in that he's attentive to his son and teaches him skills, but at the same time there's a conflict in the relationship with John engaging in illicit activity but it's not because he wants to but because of the economic pressures that make it too lucrative to pass on and the conflict between Max's love for his father and his discovery about the true nature of the orcas is what makes the conflict especially rich. This easily makes John the best human antagonist the series has had because the prior antagonists have all been two dimensional business archetypes who despite being played by good actors had the depth of mud puddles and were more satires of unrestricted failures of capitalist excess rather than fully defined characters. John feels like an elaboration where although he's still meant to embody indifference and apathy of environmental degradation, there is an earnest attempt at understanding the "why" even if the movie doesn't give closure as to what happens next for the character.
Free Willy 3 honestly surprised me with how much better it was than the prior entries and it's honestly kind of a shame it was allowed to "die" at the box office simply to usher it to home video. In terms of the core theme of this franchise, this entry feels like the one where they managed to tackle the core issue with the most maturity and nuance and it honestly did impress me.