The Mighty Ducks (1992)

Tagline: He’s never coached. They’ve never won. Together they’ll learn everything about winning!

Curiosity: For a certain generation, this is the most important sports movie of all time (followed by Air Bud, Angels in the Outfield, Rookie of the Year, and Space Jam. In that order. Happy Gilmore would be in there too if your mom wasn’t such a wet blanket about the language).

Plot: As a child, Gordon Bombay (Emilioooooooooooooooo Estevez) is super good at hockey, but he totally blows the state championship and grows up to be an alcoholic lawyer douche bag. When a cop pulls him over for dranking and driving, the entire city rallies to have him banned from practicing law. His boss, Mr. Ducksworth (Josef Sommer), talks him into community service. Now he’s got to coach a rag-tag team of misfits (Including Joshua Jackson, Wet Hot American Summmer’s Marguerite Moreau, The Adventures of Pete & Pete’s Danny Tamberelli, and mo-fuckin’ Aaron Schwartz from Heavyweights) to victory. But they’re so bumbling and angry! How can he reach these inner city youth?

SPOILER ALERT: He buys them nice things and tries to stop acting like such a dick all the time.

Thoughts: Fuck yes Mighty Ducks is still good. I had reservations going into the film – Estevez is such a wiener for the first half hour or so. It’s like Bad News Bears without the humor. But then the team starts to coalesce once Bombay realizes that sometimes the real winners are the ones who try to have fun and play fair. Moral lessons for everybody!

Some of the humor falls flat – Goldberg (Shaun Weiss) and Guy-Who-Isn’t-Screech (Guy-Who-Isn’t-Screech) are meant to provide wisecracks for the kiddies, but mostly they’re just two lame-ass kids who won’t shut the fuck up. The best kid is obviously Jackson, because he’s so sad and sensitive and he tries so dang hard to be good at hockey. Also he super wants Gordon to bone his mom (Heidi Kling). So there’s that.

The Mighty Ducks moves awfully quickly. I was surprised at some of the scenes’ brevity, which some cynics might dismiss as Ducks being a sports movie by the numbers. Those people suck pickled ass. My only real complaint is that the movie is set in Minnesota, yet nobody has a Midwestern accent. Also they should have used Prince and/or Husker Du more often in the soundtrack. Otherwise, it’s a great movie about flying straight. And not crippling your friends. And avoiding drugs. And getting your mom laid by Emilio Estevez.

Reflection #1: This movie is the reason I never trusted Lane Smith (the villainous Hawks coach Jack Reilly), even when he played Perry on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Reflection #2: Holy shit, that’s Danny Tamberelli!

Reflection #3: Holy shit, that’s Marguerite Moreau!

Reflection #4: Holy shit, Aaron Schwartz got wicked hot!

Reflection #5: I would like to submit that Johnny Tsunami is also one of the most important sports movies of all time.