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This family-friend sports comedy film by director Stephen Herek was released in October of 1922,
and became a big hit, earning five-times its $10-million dollar budget, spawning two sequels,
a cartoon show, and even a professional hockey team sharing its namesake. Emilio Estevez
stars in perhaps his most iconic role, as a showboating defense attorney forced to coach
a rag-tag group of inner city kids at pee-wee hockey. The story is quickly established via
simplified dialogue and an overtly formulaic flashback prologue: all of it sharing parallels
to other sports films, especially its football counterpart, "The Little Giants". The eclectic
gang of Minnesota children featuring several familiar child-actors, including Danny Tamberelli
from "Pete and Pete" fame, and Joshua Jackson - future "Dawson's Creek" and "Fringe" star
in a more prominent role. Jackson plays match-maker to his mom, and Estevez, in an extremely hurried
romantic sub-plot. Their chemistry is playful and authentic: making it easy to root for
them to succeed, especially when we're introduced to the unrealistically evil and exaggerated
opposing head coach (played by Lane Smith), who tells his team, "It's not worth winning
if you can't win big." Normally, announcers wouldn't exist at the pee-wee level, but their
curious inclusion allows them to serve up plenty of exposition, making the consequences
of the games even easier to follow. At 100 minutes, it's a well-paced and light-hearted
film that never gets boring or uninteresting. The score by David Newman is low-key and innocuous,
eventually making way for a musical montage to Marky Mark's "Good Vibrations" 80's classic,
as the team causes havoc by roller blading through a shopping mall. Emilio's deadpan
persona is a humorous counter to the kids' slapstick tom foolery, making for an amusing
film, but rarely a truly laugh-out-loud one. The
PG-rate sports adventure contains no surprises, and is predictable to a fault: but its harmless
entertainment for all families and hockey fans can enjoy again and again. "The Mighty
Ducks", "Simplistic hockey fun for kids."
Here's the rate-o-matic with my rating... a SEVEN. This is your quintessential Disney
sports movie... the quirky good guys against the underdeveloped bad guys in the most basic
and thrilling of sports scenarios, nothing outright exciting or original here, but there
aren't many missteps either. I thought it was GOOD.