Stumbled upon the film 'Free Willy' this evening when I got in. A tale of a friendship between a lonely whale and a lonely kid. This is a film I remember watching as a child and it was strange to watch it again as an adult.
It is obviously a ridiculous film, and strewn with dodgy facts about whales, but I actually found it quite endearing, and actually quite touching in parts. What really got me though - apart from never quite trusting Michael Madsen to be the good guy for a change - was that when the boy was talking to the whale it kept nodding and shaking its head to the bits the boy said that it agreed with or not! I almost certainly wouldn't have noticed this as a child, but it really grated on me all the way through today.
I know that whales are very smart, but they surely wouldn't have a decent enough grasp of the English language to engage in conversion with a rambling american adolescent. The least they would know would be the basics you learn with any foreign language, like the words for 'hello' and 'thank you'.
Having said that, I'm glad they saved the whale and it did the ridiculous big jumping over the wall finale thing, and the villains of the piece got their just desserts. And they all lived happily ever after. I kind of want to see 'Free Willy 2' now!
No comments:
Post a Comment