D3: The Mighty Ducks (1996)

This was an OK sequel to the Mighty Ducks trilogy, as the team gets sent to an exclusive prep school, loaded with scholarships, and winds up with a new coach as Bombay gets a "promotion" of sorts. The new one starts off like Bombay did, and it will remind you a bit of they way they did in the first movie, except this guy is tougher. I will admit that this movie is not quite as good as the other Mighty Ducks movies, but it does has its moments, like the restaurant scene, the pranks scenes, and the hockey scenes. It is passable and harmless entertainment. You might like it.** 1/2 out of ****

This third instalment of the Mighty Ducks hockey trilogy doesn't do the first two justice. Its a god awful movie with a thin plot line, with Emilio Estevez thrown in to attract watchers who expected him to play his previous roles of Mighty ducks coach. His participation in this movie was only a couple of scenes which had me scratching my head. He had the starring role in both previous movies. Sadly, the incorporation of new characters on this team cannot salvage this movie as the poor acting and the terrible skill level of the hockey team in general do not lend itself to any believability. There is absolutely no way a team of this calibre could ever play at the high school or prep school level as this movie depicted and built into a story-line. Disney should have hired actors or at least hockey players to fill in the Ducks team to at least make it somewhat realistic. The Alumni varsity team (the antagonists) were also terrible hockey players and again, it leads to an unrealistic experience for a sports movie. You want to root for the Ducks, but you just can't. They are so bad, they shouldn't even be on the ice. Many of the players, including main actor Joshua Jackson, can barely skate. (most likely they used doubles, it would seem?). As with all sports movies, there is a lesson to be learned here, and its about humility and doing the right thing, but in this case, Disney has done the wrong thing by trying to extend the success of the Duck's movies to this lousy representation of a movie worth watching. NOT RECOMMENDED.

***************** SPOILERS !!!!!!!!! *********************Where's the hockey ? The hardly is any, it's just a series of gags and pranks, Charlie sulking, dating a girl and getting a grip from Bombay, Orian on the hot seat and then one final game vs the seniors. Why ? What for ? They're part of the same school, why should this game be a big deal anyway ? Then the Warriors become the Ducks ? Usually those games are set in pre- season but the biggest disappointment is that there is no structured story. The fact that there is little to no hockey makes this very disappointing because at their age, the game is much more serious and yet they look like cartoons. You can't play that cartoon card every time and it shows and that's the biggest mistake.Plus, the hockey sequences are poorly filmed, you don't know what's going on on the ice, who's doing at what spot, it's a headache. Bombay shouldn't have been in the movie, Jackson's puberty voice makes him sound cheesy and he hardly puts much effort in his acting, Goldberg is the funniest of all, Averman who used to be the funny-haha character isn't much fun, and basically what bothers me in this movie is there is no more team fraternity. Where's the chemistry, the bonding ? The focus was the team and Bombay of course, but in Ducks 3, Charlie is the focus and it doesn't work. Any kid will hop on the bandwagon but looking back I'm sure they'll find D3 the least interesting of the bunch.

Unlike many other people I really enjoyed this movie. I thought the lesson that "there comes a time when you must let things go" was well conveyed. Charlie learns that, even though "the ducks" were the best thing that has ever happened in his life, great things can end and began again in a different way. D3 had quite a few coming of age lessons that is tried to teach from misjudging people to contemplating your future. (spoiler) When Hans died I cried and cried. Over all it was my favorite Mighty Ducks movie. Yea Emilio Esteves was not in most of it but that was just another part of a lesson they were trying to teach