Review of Eddie the Eagle (2016) by Jesse O — 08 Jul 2016

If you've seen any underdog sports film, then you know exactly what to expect when you watch Eddie The Eagle. With that said, of course, I still found this movie to be quite enjoyable indeed. The film is steeped in sports cliches of course.

It wouldn't be a movie about an underdog if there weren't several people telling Eddie that he would never be an athlete, much less an Olympian. I don't know how close to the real story this film's events are.

Well, Bronson Peary, Jackman's character and Eddie's coach, isn't actually a real person, so I'm assuming that the film isn't nowhere near as close to the real life Eddie Edwards, but that doesn't make Eddie's story not worth telling.

The fact is that, pretty much from the moment Eddie qualifies for the Winter Olympics, you know he has no shot at actually winning a medal. No shot whatsoever, I don't think anyone who watched this movie, at least the smarter viewers, deluded themselves into thinking that Eddie actually had a shot at winning a medal when he's only being ski jumping for, oh, maybe a little over a year.

But that was never actually the point of the entire movie. The entire point of the film is about going after what you want regardless of what people say you can or cannot do. Hell, I don't even think Eddie himself, at least in this film, no idea about the real life Eddie Edwards, believed he had a shot at winning the medal, all he wanted to do was prove everyone wrong and show that, at the very least, he had what it takes to make it to an Olympic level.

And that, to me, is a story that is very much worth telling, even if the end result, of the competition, isn't exactly the best possible result. So I though that was cool about the movie. It's not like you haven't seen it before, but it's still a relatively novel approach to this type of inspirational sports story.

Because, at the very least, in most of these movies, the people, or team if it's a team sport, have a legit shot at doing something great. Either that or they take everyone that counted them out and surprise and end up winning the big one at the end or just coming a bit short.

This isn't like that. Again, I know it's probably been done this way before, but I can't come up with it right at this moment. But, yes, the film is still pretty much steeped in sports movie formula and I think that's part of what really holds it back.

I can't imagine the real life story being as 'inspiring' as this, so that's another bit of the creative liberties that they took with the story. This was meant to be a crowd-pleaser and nothing more.

There's no real depth to the story, of course, and I'm not saying that that's even a bad thing. But the characters are pretty well-defined very early on and they don't really grow or develop in any way.

The only reason Bronson coached Eddie was because he saw Eddie as his redemption project. His chance to make up for his failures as a ski jumper. So it is what it is, but the film is solidly written. It's entertaining and it doesn't at any point overstay its welcome.

Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman are both really good in their roles, so no complaints on that front either. All in all, in spite of its complete adherence to all the formulaic elements about sports films, this is still quite an enjoyable movie.

I liked its tone, its unpretentious and sweet tone and its cast. So, yea, if you're in need of something that's gonna make you feel good, and goodness knows that this week, in the U.S at least, you're gonna need that, then this is what the doctor ordered.

Good movie right here.