Review of Eddie the Eagle (2016) by Matt C — 27 Mar 2016

Eddie the Eagle is obviously not a movie that's meant for someone like me, but if they had tried harder, it really could have captured my interest and attention. I had three main reasons for seeing this: I had a free ticket; I wanted to see a movie; and I'm happy for Taron Egerton , who was one of the biggest breakout stars of 2015 with Kingsman: The Secret Service.

I pretty much got what I expected with Eddie the Eagle, which is the charisma of its two leads along with a completely onslaught of cliches. It has a few moments, but let me just put it this way: if you poured a shot every time there was a sports drama cliche, you'd have enough alcohol to make everyone in the audience black out.

If you've seen the trailer for this movie--or even just the poster--you know what this movie is about. Based on the true story (~wow!~) of Michael Edwards, or Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, as he tries to overcome a barrage of low expectations and doubt to become an ski jumper at the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

He has a hardass of a dad, a loving mother, a seemingly infinite amount of people telling him that he won't amount to anything, and an amount of perseverance that, if we weren't so amiable, would make him seem like an obsessive psycho.

If it sounds like you've seen this movie before, it's because you have. You know the beats, you know the characters, you know the story progression, and you know that there will be a series of screens of text that inform what happened to the protagonist's real-life counterpart after the movie ends.

He soon gets finds a mentor that's constantly smoking or drinking, and then... yeah, you know what happens. But the movie does get a few things right. Most of the scenes involving ski jumping are well done, complete with a strong use of slow motion, point-of-view shots, and moments of stylization.

Taron Egerton is easily the best part about Eddie the Eagle, and just like in Kingsman, he's effortlessly likable and does what he can with the material, especially when his character's naivete is too much (which is often).

Hugh Jackman is also fun to watch, and the movie has glimmers of good comedic timing. The movie's sense of time and place is effective as well, but it soon becomes too much. If this movie didn't have the actors that it has, it would have been a made-for-TV movie in the late '90s or early 2000s.

Everything about it screams cliched and corny. Based on the synopsis, most of its story issues speak for itself, but it's also how the movie is executed. Its '80s synth-pop score is overbearing and makes it feel cheap, the amount of training montages is insane, and the music is so on-the-nose that it feels like a parody of itself.

Also, if I had a dollar for every time a character meaningfully stared at a ski jump or recalled doubtful things that people had said to them in the movie, I'd be a pretty rich 19-year-old. There are also a lot of moments that are so unrealistically done for the movie's sake such as a series of cups of coffee's rings on a table making the shape of the Olympics logo.

Also, guess what? They have a training montage to "You Make My Dreams" by Daryl Hall and John Oates, and the climax of the movie features "Jump" by Van Halen, and the final shot is a freeze frame of people throwing their fists in the air because of their triumphs.

I'm not even making this up. After the movie ended, I felt like I should have just watched the "Asspen" episode of South Park, which is a total parody of stuff like this. They had similar effects, but one was intentional, and the movie's lack of freshness makes it feel long for only 105 minutes.

The story on which this is based was less cliched (e.g.: the Hugh Jackman character didn't exist), so it's evident that they streamlined it for mainstream accessibility. Egerton and Jackman aren't enough to entirely lift the movie from how cookie-cutter it is, and despite their work, Eddie the Eagle is nothing new.

4.5/10, lame, two thumbs down, below average, etc.