‘Ducks fly together…’
The year? 1992. The Coach? Gordon Bombay. The team? The Mighty Ducks. And thus, cinematic history is born…
The Mighty Ducks (1992)
The original and best entry in The Mighty Ducks franchise, Stephen Herek’s film combines Rocky and The Karate Kid and throws in some hockey to make it a team enterprise. Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) is forced to coach a peewee hockey team because he got caught drink driving (just go with it), and he overcomes his own hockey-based trauma to turn a bunch of losers into a bunch of losers that all have a great time. An early role for Joshua Jackson is a highlight, but honestly, all of the young cast do a great job in making us root for the Ducks, and Estevez plays his role with just the right amount of sincerity. Elsewhere, Lane Smith makes for a worthy adversary as the coach of the rival team the Hawks, and Steven Brill’s economical script plays all the hits you would expect of a sports movie of this kind.
It is a testament to The Mighty Ducks that it still holds up all these years later. A lovely piece of filmmaking.
D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994)
If the premise of the first movie required a certain suspension of disbelief, Sam Weisman’s sequel throws logic out of the window as the Ducks go from being a decent peewee hockey side to representing America on the world stage. It’s best not to think about it too hard. The main thing is that everyone returns for the sequel. Estevez is back and as committed as ever, Jackson, Elden Henson and the rest of the Ducks return also. In addition to this, Michael Tucker appears as an unscrupulous businessman, Kathryn Erbe plays kindly team teacher Michele and Carsten Norgaard camps it up as rival coach Wolf. Yes, the main antagonist of the movie is an Icelandic hockey coach named Wolf. Welcome to the ’90s.
D2 never threatens to recapture the magic of the source material but it’s still impossible not to get carried away by the film’s bombastic conclusion even if the flag-waving is a little much.
D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996)
By the time the third and final Mighty Ducks movie dropped, the franchise was running on empty. Estevez and Jackson return but the former only appears at the beginning and the end of the movie and the latter has grown so much since the last entry that he looks like he should be coaching the team. Many of the jokes and tropes are recycled from the previous movies but damn it if I wasn’t fully invested again by the end. Director Robert Lieberman lacks the visual flair of Sam Weisman or Stephen Herek but writer and creator Steven Brill ensures that the script never veers too far from its underdog roots.
D3 is the weakest film in the franchise but Jeffrey Nordling makes for a welcome addition as the severe new coach Orion and the affability of the cast carry the rest of the film over the finishing line.