Watching a zamboni driver clean the ice for two hours would be preferable to sitting through nearly two hours of "Mystery, Alaska."
This misbegotten hockey drama would like to be "The Mighty Ducks Grow Up." But it's so dumb and so formulaic — and not in a good way — that it just makes the earlier movie series look better.
And what's particularly mystifying is how some of the talent came to be in what is, frankly, a boring and uninvolving movie. In addition to a talented cast (which includes Russell Crowe, Mary McCormack and Colm Meaney), it was co-written and produced by Emmy-winner David Kelley, who demonstrates here that his talent lies in television and not in film.
The movie's title pertains to a sleepy Alaskan village that's crazy for hockey. In Mystery, everyone either plays the sport — including Sheriff John Biebe (Crowe) — or is a booster for the local team, which has never lost a match.
However, that undefeated streak may be put to the test when prodigal son Charlie Danner (Hank Azaria), now a television producer, returns with a challenge: Word has gotten out about the world's best undiscovered team, so the National Hockey League has arranged for them to play against the New York Rangers.
Fortunately, the big game will be on Team Mystery's home ice. But the town has other worries, such as persuading Judge Walter Burns (Burt Reynolds) to coach the boys.
Admittedly, it doesn't sound like a terrible premise for a movie. And it might have worked as blandly inoffensive fare if not for such questionable scenes as the opening one, in which a four-year-old uses the so-called "R-rated" curse word.
It doesn't help that the film is so poorly paced, either. Director Jay Roach (the "Austin Powers" movies) keeps things moving so slowly that by the time the big game finally arrives you may not even care.
Or perhaps not. As scripted by Kelley and Sean O'Byrne, the Mystery team members are so cocky many audiences may find themselves rooting for the Rangers.
To their credit, the cast tries to make it work, especially Crowe, Azaria and McCormack, who plays John's faithful wife.
However, even odder performances come from Reynolds, who's simply awful in a supporting role, and Mike Myers and Michael McKean, whose cameos suggest they were brought in to pump up the film's comedic and profanity quotient, respectively.
"Mystery, Alaska" is rated R for considerable profanity, hockey-related violence and comical violence, simulated sex, crude sexual humor and use of some vulgar slang terms and brief male nudity.