Christmas time has come around once again. And just like last year, I’ll be taking a look at a hockey film that happens to be part of the Mighty Ducks trilogy – the very thing that this writer’s favourite NHL team was named after. Thing is, this film doesn’t even have anything to do with Christmas, but it’s probably guaranteed to be shown on TV yet again.

D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994 – Walt Disney Pictures)

This film follows a very similar template to the first (OK, that’s an understatement. It’s nearly identical) with the team competing in a tournament, the ‘bad guys’ team overwhelming them in a very one-sided game, the coach getting angry, the kids getting unhappy at the coach, the coach apologising for his ways later, and the team eventually winning the tournament thanks to the magical powers of inspirational speeches and believing in yourself… or something like that. That’s basically the plot of this thing in a nutshell, but now I’ll go into more detail on this horrible film, and why I dislike it so much.

We start off with the District 5 Ducks coach Gordon Bombay (Emilio Estevez) now playing in a minor league hockey game. He seems to be doing well until a rival player misses a hit, said other player gets needlessly angry, and when Bombay’s trapped by another player gives him a slam into the boards, causing him to fall to the ice and injure his knee, despite nothing actually happening to the knee… yeah. Kinda lame. So after this, he goes to the hockey shop from the first film to stay with the mentor guy’s brother, because for some reason the guy from the first film isn’t in this one, but at least they made a half-arsed effort to explain it away (apparently visiting their mother, who’s apparently still around even though he’s already old enough to be a grandfather himself). Note that this new character just appears right out of nowhere: he wasn’t in the first, and he’s not even mentioned in the third because the other guy came back.

After reminiscing about the previous tournament the D-5 Ducks won, a man named Mr. Tibbles, head of “Hendrix Hockey” offers Bombay the chance to coach Team USA at the “Junior Goodwill Games” in Los Angeles, through a sponsorship deal. Bombay then gives the apparent captain of the Ducks, Charlie Conway (Joshua Jackson) the task of rounding up the rest of the team from the first film. However, he comes back with just six others, as the other half of the team seems to have suffered from what TV Tropes refers to as Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, never being mentioned at all. The main reason these aforementioned characters no longer exist is because a bunch of new kids, gathered from across the States join the team, so that Team USA isn’t entirely made up of players from Minnesota. The team are then shown their USA jerseys, which have their sponsor name Hendrix going down the left arm (in a similar style to the Atlanta Thrashers current home jersey). Conway doesn’t approve too much of this, wonders why the team can’t be called “USA Ducks” (even more of his whining will be seen in the third film), but is then told that the huge sponsor logo is for business… I see I fairly generic subplot about Coach Bombay being consumed by greed and a luxurious lifestyle and then realising the wrongs of his ways later on (oh gee, turns out I was right! I totally didn’t see that coming).

So after that they fly to LA, and almost immediately start playing against their first opponent, Team Trinidad – no, seriously, I’m not kidding – who are in possession of the most hideously fluorescent jerseys I’ve ever seen. This team gets thwomped, and then Team USA meets the “bad guys” team, Iceland (another Hockey hotbed, according to Disney) during an interrupted conference. We then get treated to more filler, some more Hockey and some celebrity cameos, and even more filler before the big first game against Iceland in which the USA gets beaten 12-1, then we get the coach getting angry bit, players getting angry at the coach… oh, heck. You know the drill.

We then get a scene with the team warming up outside, and then being interrupted by Kenan Thompson (Of Kenan & Kel fame), playing the role of Russ Tylor, who invites them to play street hockey with his friends who “teach” them to play like the “Real” Team USA (he joins the team later on). Then Bombay gets a visit from the old guy from the beginning of the film, who gives him an inspirational speech… OK, you know what, I’m just gonna go ahead and jump to the finale, since most of it from here on out is pretty much copied, pasted and edited from the first film in some ways. Oh, and we get to see a Wayne Gretzky cameo.

So the final game of the tournament, between Team USA and the eeeevil Team Iceland takes place at the then-named Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim… an obvious (or not, to some) tie in with a certain NHL team. I really don’t like where this is going. Initially, Team USA seems to be losing because of generally goofy play, for example at one point the Ducks’ Texan player actually ropes one of the Iceland players to stop him from slamming into one of the two girls on the team. And yes, more general confusion for me is carrying over from the first film. Two girls playing in an otherwise all-boys tournament. Makes no sense whatsoever, but then again neither does the apparent fact that Trinidad has a hockey team, but there we go.

After 2 periods, Team USA are down 4-1, so then head back to the locker room for another generic inspirational speech. And then the old guy gives the team a new uniform, in order to unite the old Ducks and the new Ducks under a new banner… which just so happens to be the white jersey of the NHL’s then-named Anaheim Mighty Ducks. As if they didn’t have a bad enough reputation for being named after the first film, they at least had a great, unique identity in the form of their logo and jerseys (in my personal opinion anyway) for about a year until Disney decided to further tie the two together, thus ruining any kind of reputation the Anaheim Mighty Ducks had internationally forever – you can’t walk around anywhere in an old Ducks jersey without some idiot recognising the logo only from the films. For this very reason, I hold a personal vendetta against this film trilogy, especially the latter two films, so just for hurting their own (at the time) NHL team’s reputation even further, Disney’s sequel is being marked down by default, despite already being a poor film in general.

Oh, and we can’t forget the ending, which goes into… OH-EM-GEE! A shootout after a tied third period. When it comes to Iceland’s final shot, the Ducks’ goalie girl finally makes her on-ice debut, and catches the puck in her glove, leaving the crowd in suspense for a moment before dropping it onto the ice to show that she caught it… and then the crowd goes wild. In a real life game, the crowd would be screaming and cheering the very moment the puck is caught. There’s no need for the suspense, it’s pointless. Much like this film.

The only reason this movie exists is for the last ten or so minutes, where Disney decided to tie the NHL team and the movie series even further. Other than that, it’s almost completely identical to the first: same-ish story, mostly the same characters aside from those from the first who were ‘Brother Chucked’, same clichés, same ending, and the same old Disney moral messages. Also, the subplot involving the coach’s luxurious lifestyle and his neglecting the team, along with the moral message is completely hypocritical: look at how Disney treated the NHL Mighty Ducks during their 12-year ownership of the team. The film is also predictable all the way through, so you may as well be watching a TV recording of your favourite team’s best ever game instead. Buy if for some reason you actually like this film, maybe because you grew up with it or you’re obsessed with this movie trilogy. Otherwise, just don’t bother.

Rating: 2/10 “Lame”