The Mighty Ducks

Like many other Disney-produced movies, this one requires you to give yourself up to the fantastic elements of the story in order to enjoy it fully. If you dwell on the improbabilities, you'll miss the good parts. [09 Oct 1992, p.22]

The Mighty Ducks is not going to be remembered as a cinematic treasure, but for a movie that's built on a fairly shaky framework, it delivers a good feeling you can take home. [02 Oct 1992, p.C5]

Helmer Stephen Herek endows a familiar story with a crisp look and swift tempo, seldom allowing sanctimonious tale to linger too long or gags to get too tiresome.

An okay kids' picture about a bunch of misfit hockey players who are brought together to play in the Big Game by a cynical, Yuppie coach (Emilio Estevez) doing community service. [02 Oct 1992, p.C]

The Mighty Ducks is an upbeat, quick-paced family movie. [06 Oct 1992, p.C5]

The Mighty Ducks hasn't got a single fresh idea in its 100 fluffily formulaic minutes, so it's surprising that the film is quite easy to enjoy. [02 Oct 1992, p.27]

As directed by Stephen Herek, The Mighty Ducks moves energetically but lacks the enjoyable quirkiness of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, which Mr. Herek also directed. Read full review

It must be said that this movie is sweet and innocent, and that at a certain level it might appeal to younger kids. I doubt if its ambitions reach much beyond that. Read full review

Steven Brill, who has a small role in the film, constructed the screenplay much as one would put together some of those particleboard bookcases from Ikea. Read full review

THE MIGHTY DUCKS is harmless enough, but its schematic retread of a screenplay and its lethargic acting detracts from the unassuming, passable entertainment it might have been. Read full review

Herek's brisk pacing and skillful way with the hockey sequences gives The Mighty Ducks an urgency its manipulative copycat soul doesn't really earn. The Mighty Ducks - with its team calculatedly organized along gender as well as multi-cultural lines - is the kind of film kids like, then outgrow. [02 Oct 1992, p.49]

Perhaps there's a legion of 10 and unders who don't know The Bad News Bears from the Care Bears. If so, they're the likeliest candidates to sit through this junior-high Slap Shot, a peewee- hockey riff on the sports-underdogs-make-good scenario. [02 Oct 1992, p.4D]

The film spends most of its time tracing Bombay’s predictable transformation from supercompetitive to supercompassionate coach, a metamorphosis that will most likely bore young audiences who don’t yet know what a mid-life crisis is, let alone identify with one. Read full review

Director Stephen Herek (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and screenwriter Steve Brill dreamed up these fantasies for their so-called comedy about youth hockey. They could have devoted more attention to writing decent jokes. This childish mix of slap shots and slapstick lumbers along as awkwardly as a skater on a melting ice rink. [02 Oct 1992, p.12]

As a light family sports feel-good this works but don't look for anything more. Read full review

Most of the movie is like the ice on which Bombay's limousine rests: cold and shaky. The only time it really comes alive is in the obvious scene, the fast, furious championship, with every Duck having his day. Read full review

The Mighty Ducks may satisfy the Pee Wee hockey players in your household but the rest of you may be turned off by the simplified penance and redemption formula. Read full review

Very lame ice-hockey flick. Estevez is arrogant hot-shot lawyer Gordon Bombay, condemned to community service for drink-driving. He reckons he can go one-on-one with his troubled past and get back at his boss by coaching a team of little league no-hopers (cast from a cupboard marked 'brats, assorted'). Read full review