Hitchcoc
I'm from Minnesota and I have a friend who had a small part in this film. He played the cop who pulls Gordon Bombay over when he gets the DUI. If you look at this as a relationship movie, with Bombay trying to get back his self respect, it is great fun. The kids are cute and funny. They have been losers their whole live and they now have the opportunity for success. The writers throw in some things that are a bit too much. Bombay ends up coaching against a guy who humiliated him as a child when he missed a penalty shot (by the way, why wasn't the score tied after he missed it since a goal would have won the game?). Hockey is a unique sport. Just the skating is a great challenge. Those kids could barely stand on skates, yet they becomes skilled skaters after a couple weeks. Those other teams were light year ahead. Also, those ridiculous plays that they run just won't happen. And the big guy with the slap shot. So we need to ignore that because this whole thing is fantasy. Even the top hockey newspaper writing feature articles on a peewee team is just not going to happen. Nevertheless, if I take it at face value, it's a hoot.
Lars Lendale
********************* SPOILERS !!!!!!!!!!!! **********************I don't understand why so many reviewers take this movie so personally. It's a Disney movie for kids, so it's of course very limited, and it is exaggerated because the point is to entertain and propel young hockey players to already role models. But Estevez plays pretty well and the characters around him are fine. First, it is a real hockey movie, for a short movie there's hockey action and you go to big production budget sports movies and there is hardly any sport action. So to be fair, at least it is seriously about hockey. Maybe this movie is a bit cheesy, copied off Bad News Bears, that may be - but the Ducks are a NHL hockey franchise, that's a a pretty big deal! You can turn a kids' movie into a pro team, that's a pretty big deal and the lines from this movie have left a bigger blueprint than Rocky's "ugh feel lightheaded" retarded dialogue. There's a weird romance between Charlie's mom and Bombay but thank goodness it doesn't go anywhere, because it shouldn't. How does Bombay who is a true great prospect quits without no real reason the game then is sent to community service to coach a district team when he's never coach then gets a tryout for the minors from a Northstar player who remembers him, is kind of lazy development. If you are a kid and you love to play hockey, that movie is for you. If you a parent of a kid who plays hockey, you'll hate this movie !
Python Hyena
The Mighty Ducks (1992): Dir: Stephen Herek / Cast: Emilio Estivez, Joss Ackland, Joshua Jackson, Lane Smith, Elden Henson: Another Bad News Bears knockoff with Emilio Estevez training a group of misfits to play hockey. Director Stephen Herek does a fine job with the lifeless material including the familiar production. He previously made the more inventive Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the dumbfounded Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. With this film his screenwriter fails to deliver an excellent adventure, but like the babysitter in the other film, this one is totally dead. The screenplay is filled with types. You have the ominous big kid who can hit well but amateur in other areas. You have the kid who needs encouragement and whose mother will end up romancing with the coach she first disliked. Sound familiar? Estivez basically goes through the same tired formula that many others have with results that will surprise no one. Joss Ackland, Joshua Jackson and Lane Smith appear in cardboard supporting roles and everyone of them are pretty much interchangeable. Message regards teamwork but isn't that what all of these films are about? The only evidence of teamwork here is the effort put into making this garbage one of the worst films of the year. One should encourage director Herek to skate on over the studio and demand a better project. Score: 1 / 10
Steve Pulaski
Never in my life, even in the R-rated movies of Kevin Smith and Tarantino, have I heard the expression "what the hell?" been used so often and for such little reasoning. From the children in the pee-wee hockey team, from its headlining stars, to just plain background characters, it seems everyone has that same question on their mind.Well, where the hell do I begin? The Mighty Ducks is an experiment done by Disney that was allegedly aimed to usher in a more tweenish fanbase than their animation studios, by providing a live action experience and a more mature feel. They succeeded in making a spontaneous, somewhat entertaining piece of nostalgia for the current generation of teens, but to be completely honest, this is one of the most vanilla sports movies I've sat through in my day, only elevated to being somewhat passable because of its efficient use of its star, Emilio Estevez (seeing this as a child, this was my introduction to the man who would later be one of my favorite male character actors) and its surprisingly successful array of motivational music, which make the cliché ending satisfying and memorable.The story is paper thin, but works as some minor league, or pee-wee, entertainment. Estevez plays Gordon Bombay, an immensely cocky, successful defense attorney who has never lost a case in his life, but is sentenced to coach a team of young, misfit hockey players after being caught drunk driving. Bombay has had contention with the sport of hockey after he blew a title win in a penalty shot as a child, greatly putting his coach (Lane Smith) to shame.Now, coaching the District Five team, Bombay is unmotivated and careless, until he sees these kids are genial and somewhat good-natured (and the fact that his old coach is still employed at their rival team), leading him to finally put effort into his work. He names the team the "Ducks," after the most noble creature in the wild, who travel in packs and stick by one another.Estevez gives about the most entertaining performance one could bring to the table for this kind of movie. His character is a smart-ass, cut-throat, boisterous know-it-all, who winds up having his heart warmed by a group of helpless kids who don't take that much pride playing for the hockey team until he gets involved.One of the downfalls of the children is that they are carbon-copies of the rambunctious tykes we see in so many movies, and any point at connecting or learning about one of them is especially moot. They are not interesting children, and even in a hundred and three minutes, we do not even get one as our surrogate to learn more about. Not to mention, the film is also about twenty minutes to long, thanks to a needless romantic subplot involving one of the children's mothers. The result is corny and usually unnecessary, but Estevez's chemistry with the mother, Heidi King, is just charming enough to make us somewhat care.As simple, pleasant entertainment, obviously the film's main goal, The Mighty Ducks works just fine as basic and has competence to carry a long runtime. The problem lies in its screenplay, which is flat and unambitious. Even though it's branded with the Disney name, just a few years later, we were welcomed with the brilliant breath of fresh air which was Remember the Titans, so Disney clearly wasn't incapable of delivering the goods in a sports film. The slapstick-reliant humor is goofy, yet it works, Estevez is fitting in his role, and the ending with music dominated by Queen brings a smile even to a hard-headed cynic's face. It's a Disney movie that gets half the job done.Starring: Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, Lane Smith, Heidi Kling, Josef Sommer, Joshua Jackson, Elden Henson, and Shaun Weiss. Directed by: Stephen Herek.
