In 1994, the Wu-Tang Clan penned the instant classic C.R.E.A.M., an acronym for “cash rules everything around me.” The track was about how cash did that thing they were talking about. The very same year, Disney decided to echo that sentiment with D2: The Mighty Ducks. No piece of art released since has captured Wu's profound statement so thoroughly and poignantly.

Sure, on the surface, D2 appears to be a kid's movie: a down-on-his-luck peewee hockey coach rises from the depths to coach a ragtag team of youngsters to victory against overwhelming odds. En route to stardom, the children realize the value of a strong work ethic and become extremely close, despite having their differences in the beginning.

Bullshit, I say. I identify this movie more as a symbolic offering from Disney before they became fully assimilated by the greedy soul of Walt himself. Disney, in 1994, released this masterpiece – an anti-capitalist picture; a corporation's moral eliciting one last cry for help. “Take heed! Money ruins everything, including us,” bellowed the money-grubbing juggernaut.

The movie follows poor, uninspired Gordon Bombay (Emilio “Play-doh hair” Estevez) as he injures his way right out of the hockey's minor league and into a sporting goods shop where he toils as a skate sharpener. Suddenly, a real anus of a man with an even more anus-y name (Mr. Tibbles) shows up and tempts Bombay with some serious cream to coach hockey again, this time for Team USA in the Junior Goodwill Games. Bombay, now with dollaz in his eyes, signs on with Tibbles and his company, Hendrix Hockey. Now a rich, successful man, the schism between Bombay and the team grows wider and wider until Bombay snaps out of it and symbolically burns a cardboard cutout of himself in a fire barrel. The kids and Emilio's agent rejoice.

Truthfully, any shred of dignity the film may have had is superseded by the overwhelming undercurrent of corniness. Sound effects that would make Hanna Barbera wince are used throughout the film. I'm sure that most of the film's intended demographic would notice the poor choice of sound effects (think Heathcliff running in place on ice, or Inspector Gadget slipping and falling…Yeah, they're that bad).

As a man in his late twenties watching this movie, I was shocked (okay, not THAT shocked) that the film wears on its sleeve the fact that it was made by a bunch of sixty year olds in pinstripe suits. Not many films made recently exhibit this sentiment so proudly.

For example, when Tibbles introduces the “ringers” who have been gathered from around the country, the older testosterone-ravaged boy is singing and playing guitar furiously to some manner of hard rock song. However, us music-savvy types know that the lyrics he's singing are actually that of “I Got You” by Split Enz, a new wave band from the early 80s. Later on, when he and his “metal brethren” put on some “tunes to sleep to” (that eventually devolves into air guitar and bed jumping), they select “You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet” by REO Speedwagon.

That said, the nostalgia factor of D2 is for shit unless you're in your late twenties. There are plenty of cheap laughs to be had, however; so it's totally worth the couple bucks it costs to rent. Realistically, buying the movie on DVD should cost the same as renting it, given the film quality and present careers of the actors.