Still an enjoyable film 25 years later

Last night I was looking around on Netflix for something to watch and ran across Free Willy. I saw the movie once, way back when it first came out, but remembered almost nothing about it except for the basic concept and the shot where Willy jumps over the rocks.

So I was like, fuck it, let me watch Free Willy. It should be interesting to revisit it after all these years.

I have to say, I did kind of enjoy it. I was thinking that as I watched it my memory of the film might come back, but no, not really, it was pretty much like watching it for the first time. I'd say it's a fairly enjoyable and heartwarming family film that doubles as a "save the whales" public service announcement. In fact, there's even a phone number at the end of the movie that you can call to donate to the actual Save The Whales campaign and, according to the IMDB trivia, so many people called that the film resulted in $20 million in donations.

I also learned that--holy fucking shit!--there are THREE sequels to this thing! I had no idea. The most recent one even stars Bindi Irwin.

Who here remembers Free Willy? Thoughts on it? Any fond childhood memories of watching this film?