Free Willy 3: The Rescue

Jesse and Willy are reunited yet again in this clunker of a series that should have been retired after the shiny, happy original. But since there are still fast-food product tie-ins to be found, not to mention young devotees clamoring for another installment about tenderhearted orcas and the adolescent males who love them, we have Free Willy 3: The Rescue.

This time Jesse (Jason James Richter) is part of a seagoing research team trying to find out why the killer-whale population has been mysteriously dwindling in the Pacific Northwest. While tracking Willy's whereabouts, Jesse discovers that the mechanized mammal has befriended Max (Vincent Berry), a 10-year-old Danny Bonaduce look-alike whose father happens to make a living supplying pricy orca sushi to the black market.

Waxing poetic about making "your first kill" and why animals were put on this earth so we can hunt them, Max's dad isn't exactly a role model for ecological correctness. However, after Willy saves his life, he has a miraculous change of heart and realizes that killer whales, though extremely profitable, have feelings too.

Between the lame dialogue ("Even though you do something bad, you're still my dad") and the by-the-numbers plot, Free Willy 3 drowns in its own sea of didactic sentimentality. And the inclusion of Max is a shameless ploy to spawn the next round of sequels. Clearly it's too much to hope that the producers will have mercy and leave the poor whales alone already. At the Copley Place, the Fresh Pond, and the Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.

-- Clarissa Cruz