This review includes full spoilers. Proceed accordingly. For other movie reviews from me, click HERE:
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Rating: PG
Director: Stephen Herek
Writers: Stephen Brill
Stars: Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, Lane Smith, Heidi Kling
Release Date: October 2, 1992 (United States)
Run time: 1 hour, 44 minutes
THE PLOT:
(via wiki)
Gordon Bombay is a successful but arrogant Minneapolis defense attorney. After winning his 30th case, he celebrates by drinking, is arrested for drunk driving, and sentenced to 500 hours of community service coaching the local “District 5” Pee-Wee hockey team. Bombay has a troubled hockey past: as a youth player in 1973, he missed a decisive penalty shot for the Hawks, leading to an overtime loss and the disappointment of his stern coach, Jack Reilly.
Bombay meets his new team, finding they lack equipment, skill, and even a practice rink. Their first game is a humiliating 17-0 defeat against the Hawks, still coached by Reilly. Frustrated, Bombay berates the players, then teaches them to fake injuries to draw penalties, which backfires and causes more tension. Charlie Conway, one of the players, stands up to Bombay’s tactics.
Visiting his mentor Hans, who owns a sporting goods store, Bombay reflects on quitting hockey after his father’s death and Reilly’s criticism. Encouraged by Hans, Bombay reconnects with his love of the sport, skating on a frozen pond as he did as a child. He apologizes to Charlie and his mother, starting to earn the team’s trust.
Bombay persuades his boss, Gerald Ducksworth, to sponsor the team, providing new gear and practice time. Renamed “the Ducks” after Ducksworth, the team learns fundamentals and earns a tie in their next game. They recruit three new players: siblings Tommy and Tammy Duncan, who are skilled figure skaters, and Fulton Reed, a powerful shooter. Recognizing Charlie’s potential, Bombay begins mentoring him.
Bombay discovers that due to redistricting, Hawks star Adam Banks should be playing for the Ducks, and he forces Reilly to transfer Banks. However, after overhearing a misinterpreted remark from Bombay, most of the team quits, forfeiting their next game. Ducksworth tries to broker a deal with Reilly to keep Banks on the Hawks, but Bombay refuses on principle, losing his job rather than betray the team.
Bombay regains the trust of the team, and with Banks joining them, they qualify for the playoffs by defeating the Huskies. The Ducks advance to face the Hawks in the championship. During the game, Reilly orders his players to injure Banks, knocking him out. The Ducks rally, tying the score late in the final period. With time expiring, Charlie is tripped, earning a penalty shot—the same situation Bombay faced as a youth. Unlike Reilly, Bombay encourages Charlie to simply do his best. Charlie executes the “triple-deke” move Bombay taught him and scores, winning the title for the Ducks.
After the victory, Bombay boards a bus to attend a minor-league tryout arranged by Basil McRae of the Minnesota North Stars, who once played Pee-Wee hockey with him. Nervous about competing with younger players, Bombay is encouraged by the Ducks, who remind him of his own advice: believe in yourself and keep trying. He promises to return next season to help them defend their championship.
My Review
The Mighty Ducks hatched an entire franchise of follow-up media, including two more films and two different TV series – one animated and one live-action. The story is so beloved that there was recently quite a bit of excitement about Emilio Estevez writing a script for a Part 4. The NHL’s Anaheim franchise took their team name from their Hollywood pee wee hockey predecessors. There was a video game. There was an amusement park ride. You’d be hard-pressed to find a sports movie that has had a bigger impact on the culture than this one. So it was a surprise to me that I didn’t enjoy this movie more than I did.
The Mighty Ducks is a pretty paint-by-numbers Hollywood sports movie. It gives us a coach who while over-coming some personal demons from his past, learns from his kids how to heal and how to be a great coach. We get a hilariously over-the-top evil opposing coach. We get a group of rag tag misfits who learn that they have it within themselves to be a real team and to be champions. We even get a love story between the coach and the single mother of his star player. The pacing of the story is rushed. The game-play isn’t great. The newspaper headlines in their playoff run montage are silly and unrealistic. The movie is well-acted but there aren’t really any stand-out performances. Why then is this movie a three decade plus cultural phenomenon?
It’s always important to ask yourself the following question, as an adult watching a kid’s movie: “Is this movie made for me?” The answer here is no. Most of the things that bothered me about the movie are not things about which a kid will notice or care. What they will pick up on, from The Mighty Ducks, are the elements of the time-tested sports movie formula. You can chase your dreams if you’re in a supportive community of friends, if you’re receiving instruction from a caring and knowledgeable adult. If you have that, you’ll recognize it and appreciate it on the screen. If you don’t, then you can hope it shows up one day – just like Gordon Bombay shows up unexpectedly at the kids’ practice. Is the sports movie formula telling someone what they want to hear? Yeah. Does it resonate because it’s a pretty good formula for dealing with life? Yeah. Is it a bad thing to entertain someone by telling them a story they want to hear? No. (It’s arguably the point at least some of the time.)
One part of the movie that might seem silly and unrealistic to anyone who has never been involved in youth sports is how crazy the adults in the orbit behave. Can I buy the idea that high level community leaders are having heated fights over pee wee hockey? Yes. Absolutely. Can I buy the idea that a youth hockey coach would instruct a player to violently take out a kid on the other team? Yes. I was once a player in a youth basketball game wherein my former Major League Baseball coach (his son was my hoops teammate) got so angry at the officials in our rec league game that he was escorted out of the entire building by security. I’ve seen fights in the stands and youth softball games. Honestly, the crazy old men being so invested in pee week hockey as the most realistic part of the story.
There were a few things I enjoyed in particular with this movie. First and foremost, it was entertaining to see a young Joshua Jackson in such a wholesome kid role. A few years later, on Dawson’s Creek, his character was having an affair with his High School teacher. I also really enjoyed the intro and outro music in this movie.
Honestly, that outro song got me so hyped that I almost forgot my criticisms of the movie (which is why I take notes while I watch movies I intend to review.)
If you’re interested in showing this to your kid, I will caution you that the movie has a lot of relatively mild swearing by both the adults and the kids. It also features a scene early in the movie wherein Bombay drinks and drives – a crime that leads to his hockey coach community service. There’s also a scene in the movie where the kids find a box of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues and look through them, a scene in their science class where the teacher innocently uses the term “blue balls,” causing the kids to laugh, and when Coach Bombay brags about “scoring” with a court reporter early on in the film. On the whole, I think the movie is probably safe for tweens and up, but you’ll want to watch and decide if the above information gives you some pause.
Overall, this is just an okay, formula-driven movie, but it aged relatively well in the sense that it doesn’t *look* old. It executes the standard sports movie formula at a level that younger audiences are likely to enjoy.
Have you seen The Mighty Ducks? If so, what did you think?
