IN THE DARK REVIEWS

'Mighty Ducks' has heart, 'Space Jam' '90s nostalgics

Kirk Boxleitner | Aug 03, 20230

Courtesy photo count

A scene from 1992's "The Mighty Ducks."

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Bugs Bunny, Bill Murray, Michael Jordan and Lola Bunny star in the 1996 movie Space Jam.

Shelton's free-admission "Movies in the Park" are heading into back-to-back sports films, with 1992's "The Mighty Ducks" on Friday, and 1996's "Space Jam" on Aug. 11, both of which start between 8:30 to 8:45 p.m. in Kneeland Park.

It seems every generation needs its own "Bad News Bears," and for a lot of 1990s kids, Disney's pee-wee hockey-playing Ducks were that hard-luck team of underdog misfits, coached by an obligatory disillusioned adult authority figure who didn't want to be there.

If you've seen a kids' sports film, you'll spot most of the plot beats in "The Mighty Ducks" a mile in advance, but in this movie's defense, it's aware enough of its own lack of originality that it loads as many sports tropes into a single story as possible.

Our Ducks are as ill-equipped, poorly trained and initially unskilled as you'd imagine, with the exception of a handful of prodigies, including the boisterous tomboy, the crossover ballerina, the big guy who's more gentle than you'd guess from his bad rep and the initially standoffish privileged kid who ultimately bonds with his less-advantaged teammates.

Our coach is a disgruntled rich guy who overcomes his own traumatizing childhood experience with the game to learn sportsmanship from his young players, eventually becoming a father figure to one of the quieter boys, who of course has a cute single mom.

None of these plot points qualify as spoilers because they're all drawn from the same book of youth sports clichés, and yet, almost in spite of itself, I couldn't help but be won over by "The Mighty Ducks." Say what you will about Disney, the Mouse knows how to make clichés work.

The acting talent that Emilio Estevez demonstrates in any film varies, but his charisma rarely fails to deliver, so even when we're introduced to his adult self as a selfish, unethical lawyer, we know it's only a matter of time before he'll win us over by getting over himself.

Likewise, Lane Smith has capably played everyone from Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White in "Lois & Clark" to President Nixon in "The Final Days," so he can manage the nuance of playing the folksy and cold-hearted coach who once mentored Estevez's character, instilling a win-at-all-costs ethos in his pupil, before they became rivals as adults.

The real surprise is Joss Ackland, who's been a reliably sinister heavy in everything from "Lethal Weapon 2" to "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey," as the kindly sporting goods store owner who laments how Estevez's character has lost his love of the game.

With its emphasis on fair play, and enjoyment of sports for their own sake, "The Mighty Ducks" won't win any awards for screenwriting, but it's got heart.

As R. Lee Ermey said in "Full Metal Jacket," "Guts is enough."

Which brings us to "Space Jam," a film that might go over better with some of the younger parents in the audience than with their kids. As much as anything else, this movie is a paean to an era of professional basketball that's long left popular culture.

The hero worship accorded to Michael Jordan during the 1980s and '90s cannot be overstated, and to be fair, he redefined how the game was played. But in "Space Jam," none of that translated to acting ability.

From a technical standpoint, "Space Jam" took the signature achievement of 1988's "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," which combined live-action footage with line-drawn animation, then disregarded that even skilled actors can struggle when thrown against a green screen.

As someone whose high school years were spent in Massachusetts, I fondly remember the Boston Celtics' Larry Bird, but neither he nor NBA pros including Charles Barkley or Patrick Ewing are comic actors.

Because half the cast are wooden athletes, "Space Jam" recruits Danny DeVito to voice-act the head cartoon villain, while Wayne Knight of "Seinfeld" plays Jordan's pandering personal assistant, and Bill Murray cameos as himself, stealing every scene he's in.

The "Looney Tunes" characters share equal billing with Jordan and his NBA peers in "Space Jam," but the problem is that Jordan, Barkley, Ewing and Bird were all bigger names in the '90s than Bugs Bunny, even among the movie's target audience of preteens, so the richly animated cartoon characters were reduced to reacting in awe to the NBA stars' flat, tap water takes.

I grew up watching "Looney Tunes" cartoons, so seeing each of those characters run through their defining catchphrases and behaviors always makes me smile.

"Space Jam" might be best for viewers with a connection to this movie from their childhoods. Jordan is nowhere near as big a deal to kids today as he was when I was in high school, when I saved up my allowance to buy high-tops that weren't a 10th as cool as Nike's Air Jordans.

We all suffer generational chauvinism on behalf of the mass media we grew up with, so I pass no judgment on adult fans of this film who wish to relive their childhoods.

Speaking of which, in two weeks, you'll get to see my own generational chauvinism in full flower as I devote the column for that week to reviewing 1985's "Back to the Future," which will complete "Movies in the Park" on Aug. 18.