The Mighty Ducks Movie Review

The Mighty Ducks (1992)

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Written by: Steven Brill
Directed by: Stephen Herek
Starring: Emilio Estevez, Joss Ackland, Lane Smith, Joshua Jackson, Shaun Weiss, Elden Henson, M.C. Gainey
Rated: PG
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Plot
A self-centered Minnesota lawyer is sentenced to community service coaching a rag tag youth hockey team.

Verdict
This is the Bad News Bears on ice. It combines kids, sports, and an underdog story. I liked this movie as a kid, but watching now it's derivative and predictable. That's not necessarily bad. It combines these common tropes and does them very well.
It depends.

Review
I saw this long ago and the movie looks much different as an adult. All these years later it's easy to see why kids would love it and adults will be wearied.

A bunch of untrained kids...

It starts with a group of undisciplined, untrained kids playing a sport out of their depth. They face every hurdle imaginable, and on top of that they have a new coach forced into the position that hates the sport and kids. The story unfolds from that point. The kids get better, the coach begins to care, and then they must face the undefeated team in the final game.

...become stars with equipment and coaching.

It's fun to see the kids become better through unorthodox training. As a kid, I wanted to start playing hockey.
It's emotionally manipulative, but that's not a surprise. You know where this is going from the start. The physics is distorted for effect with kids and pucks flying in ways that defy everything.
This does contain a message for adults. With the correct equipment and a coach that cares these kids excel physically and emotionally.  That's a byproduct of what this movie is trying to do, but it is an important point that ties into the inevitable happy ending.

Emilio Estevez plays Gordon Bombay.

This is made for a specific demographic. Kids haven't seen Bad News Bears, Little Giants, The Replacements, Minor League, etc. This sub-genre has been done for kids and adults, but if you haven't seen this type of movie it doesn't seem tired. If you have seen this kind of movie The Mighty Ducks excels at what it's trying to do.