"Actor: Isaiah Malone"

• Free Willy | DVD | (27/09/1999) from £4.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (180.36%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Some of us will never understand why this boy-and-his-whale tale became the hit family film of 1993 and one of the bestselling videos of all time. But it is easy to see how clever marketing and a tear-jerking story could touch the hearts of kids and parents the world over, especially because the endangered Orca whale named Willy is such a majestic creature. The story of Free Willy couldn't be more conventional--it's like Old Yeller and The Black Stallion with a big sea mammal--but as the boy who comes to Willy's aid against the whale's exploitative owner, young Jason James Richter gives an appealing performance with which children can readily identify. After two sequels and an animated television series, this popular film also had a happy real-life ending: Keiko the whale (who plays Willy) recovered from failing health and was gradually trained to survive outside of captivity. --Jeff Shannon

• Free Willy | DVD | (16/05/2005) from £9.97   |  Saving you £7.02 (41.30%)   |  RRP £16.99

  A 12-year-old street kid and a 3-ton whale share a friendship you could never imagine in 'the most rousing family adventure since E.T.' (Newhouse News Service) Willy is a magnificent orca whale confined in a too-small tank at Pacific Northwest aquatic park. At night Willy cries out to his family that frolics in the nearby bay. No one understands his cries and moods - no one except a 12-year-old boy who knows what it's like to be without a family.