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The Mighty Ducks (aka as the Champions), is one of the great Disney movies I have seen. Not your typical fairytale, but a rugged kids adventure, which also goes into that winning is not everything, but that being in a team and playing as a team is the most important part of any sport and is good measure for a person's life.

Aggressive trial lawyer Gordon Bombay has never lost a case. But when he's sentenced to a community service assignment, he must coach a ragtag team of peewee hockey players who can't skate, can't score and can't win. First he teaches the hapless team everything about winning and they teach him that winning is not everything. Watch the pucks fly as they battle their way to the most important game of their lives!

This film is a great story for young up and coming sports ‘people' to watch and learn that winning is not the be all and end all of sport. Sure there are some people such as Coach Reilly, because they are not true sports lovers. Instead they treat sport as a serious event, not something that as Gordon Bombay says should be ‘fun'. In Australia, and my part of this country, we have Aussie Rules football, which again is a very team orientated sport. Although it can have some extraordinary individuals that play, the theme is still the same, that a team has to stick together and try as hard as it can.

This movie has a very young and funny cast, with some old heads thrown in for good team balance. The obvious star is Emilio Estevez, who stars as Gordon Bombay. While he is a very aggressive character in the beginning, Gordon brings his knowledge and experience to a group of young kids that would make any sports coach proud. Estevez has had a good movie career, with some of his more well known movies being The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, and an unaccredited role in Mission Impossible . The other main star is a very young Joshua Jackson who portrayed Charlie Conway, a good ice-hockey player, who reminds his coach a lot of himself as a young peewee hockey player. Jackson has made a name for himself in Hollywood starring in films such as Cruel Intentions, the disappointing Skulls and the popular TV drama, `Dawson's Creek'.

Other cast members also include the rival coach of the Hawks Ice-Hockey team, Coach Reilly played by veteran actor Lane Smith. He also starred in another great film I saw recently, which happened to be on another popular sport, that of golf, the film being `The Legend of Bagger Vance'. All the characters that are on the Mighty ducks team are likeable people. The team consists of a fat kid, a silent kid, a nice kid, a wiseacre kid, a figure-skating princess, and a tough kid. The whole formula works for me anyway.

I thought that this film had some impressive Ice-Hockey scenes that looked real, though I will never know if they are real or not. Ice-Hockey is a demanding sport and this movie shows that this is the case, with heavy bumps and unrelenting pressure on players. It was good to see that this sport has both males and females playing together, again the movie shows how well the two can gel.

So, if you think that sport is not your thing, but want to give it a go, perhaps this film is what you need to watch. Although this isn't the most talented group of athletes to take the ice, and in the beginning the Ducks do really ‘suck', they prove that with some good coaching guidance and team camaraderie, anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

QUACK QUACK QUACK – Go the Ducks!

Rating: 8/10 or 4 Stars

The writers must have had a copy of "The Bad News Bears" running constantly, because this movie is a direct ripoff of that classic. Unfortunately what you are left with is uninspiring, one from column A, two from column B nonsense. I realize its for kids and it is not meant to have deeper meanings, but it is still too predictable and cutesy.

Directed by Stephen Herek [BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE], THE MIGHTY DUCKS was a surprise box office hit in 1992 and was followed by two better sequels and a decent animated series. Although not the best in the trilogy, THE MIGHTY DUCKS is still one of the all-time classics of 1992. Emilio Estevez, in what is his best role to date, plays Gordon Bombay, the coach of The Ducks in this family sports comedy. Estevez, arguably one of the coolest actors of the 1980s and 1990s, is the glue that holds the movie together. Without him, it would be little more than any other cliched sports flick. Thanks to Estevez, the movie is better than expected and worth watching. **1/2

Directed by Stephen Herek and written by Steven Brill, The Mighty Ducks is the film that was the inspiration for Disney's NHL team and remarkably started a full-fledged movie and streaming series.

The story centers around a good but unconventional lawyer named Gordon Bombay. After being arrested for drinking while driving, he is placed on community service and is forced to coach one of the city's (Minneapolis) pee-wee hockey teams, which is also the worst team in the league. Pee-wee hockey hits a nerve with Bombay as he was once a remarkable player himself but both losing his father and upsetting his rather abusive coach over a missed shot in a short time span in his childhood caused emotional damage to where he quit the sport.

After a tough start between him and the team, an emotional and motivational encounter with an old family friend (Hans) reignites his love for the sport and he soon begins treating the kids much better, and teaches them how to play properly. This improves the team's fortunes (now going by the Duck's name), as they make the finals, going up against Bombay's old team and coach.

It's pretty easy to see where this movie got its inspiration. However, it still does try to differentiate itself from Bad News Bears, while also trying to pay homage to it, which does keep it from being just a carbon copy.

The big differences here is this being a Disney film and a 16 year age gap between the films, both of which play into this films key differences. The tone, humor and design are vastly different. This being a 90s movie might help this appeal a little more to kids now than Bad News Bears as some 70s films did have a look and style that make them hard to take seriously, in retrospect.

I do like the way the kids are written in this than Bad News Bears. For whatever reason, kids just weren't written the best in a lot of 70s films. Too much adult humor that let you know what age group wrote the story. Steven Brill actually writes the kids well, and Stephen Herek allows a lot of improvisation with the young cast, which helps make them more relatable and realistic.

Where the realism drops off is ironically the adults, which is the polar opposite of Bad News Bears. The story of Bombay's insecurities over Coach Riley and the missed penalty shot takes some suspension of disbelief and the overall dialogue isn't very adult-like, which is most likely due to the Disney influence than anything else.

The Hockey is a huge highlight, Herek does a great job making these pee-wee hockey games really entertaining and the editing is great. The kids body check more than any game I've seen in the NHL but it works.

The acting is actually pretty good. They do manage cast kids that can act, and Emilio Estevez is obviously a great actor and does very well, despite the material at times. I also really like Joss Ackland as Hans.

So overall, anyone who grew up in the 70s might consider this the light version of Bad News Bears but I would argue that time has treated The Mighty Ducks a lot better. What it lacks in originality, it definitely makes up for in entertainment.

I don't think The Mighty Ducks is a masterpiece in any shape or form, but it is an enjoyable film. I do agree that it is predictable, the plot is nothing particularly special and the ending especially doesn't really hold any surprises. But it is nicely filmed, with evergreen cinematography and pretty scenery and the music is pleasant. The script is good on the most part, there are some humorous parts but it is also somewhat touching, and the director Stephen Herek pitches the humour and melodrama at the right level. And the acting is spirited, with Emilio Estevez charming, dignified and fun as the disgraced lawyer who has to coach the worst ice hockey team and Joss Ackland solid as Hans. Also the ice-hockey scenes are done with just the right amount of flair. Overall, a sweet and fun movie, even with the predictable plot it is worth seeing. 8/10 Bethany Cox