Its most serious misstep is when Michael Jackson’s theme song stops the action to focus on inane images.Ī Warner Bros. Handsomely produced and politically correct, “Free Willy 2” avoids stumping for environmental concerns or family values. The mechanical whales rarely betray their wire-and-mesh origins and remain secondary to the film’s human elements.

Technical credits are clean and crisp without being cold. And when the high energy finale kicks in, emotions run high and culminate in a charged wrap-up. Schellenberg and Madsen are masters of underplaying their matter-of-fact attitude makes palatable and credible what would otherwise be improbable, melodramatic material. But he’s real and confident, and that adds up to an attractive combination. Richter is an unusual young lead in that he’s not unduly charismatic nor classically handsome. Certainly the ensemble cast contributes to steering the material away from the mire of sentimentality. It ought to be a breathless mess, and it’s difficult to say precisely why it isn’t. Family trauma is juxtaposed with physical peril, echoes of Jesse’s troubled youth reverberate in Elvis’ life and Native American folklore clashes with industrial expedience. The script, credited to Karen Janszen, Corey Blechman and John Mattson (Blechman co-wrote the original), is nothing if not ambitious. Director Dwight Little may be a tad awkward in his form, but he does manage to keep all the balls in the air. The movie is less a narrative arc than it is a juggling act. Add to all this personal angst an oil tanker gone aground and bleeding into the whale lanes off Washington state and you have “Free Willy 2” in a tightly packed nutshell.

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