With live action family films essentially dying out as a genre – unless you count Marvel movies or straight-to-DVD Sandlot sequels – it is sort of refreshing when a movie comes out that is so clearly earmarked for pretty much everyone. And, barring one head-scratchingly out of place sex talk, Dexter Fletcher’s Eddie the Eagle is a terrific family film.
However, with his mother’s encouragement and his father’s disapproval, he gets on a bus headed for Germany with the expectation of becoming Britain’s first and only ski jumper in six decades. At the training center, Eddie meets former American Olympic ski jumper Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), who begrudgingly agrees to help Eddie qualify for the games and represent England.
I could honestly have disclosed the entire story here and it wouldn’t have mattered at all. In fact I’m quite certain that, after reading that short synopsis, you already know exactly how the film unfolds (trust me, you do). Still, however clichéd it may be, Eddie the Eagle hits all of the familiar notes just right and ends up being quite the inspiring feel-good story, undoubtedly heightened by the two lead performances.
Egerton’s outstanding performance as Eddie, with his authentic facial expressions and under bite, just oozes likeability. He is the type of character that moviegoers are programmed to root for and I haven’t rooted for a character the way I did Eddie in quite some time. Couple that with Jackman’s subtly dark and somewhat goofy Peary and the two make a great team.
Oddly enough, the most similar movie, out of dozens of this type, is Cool Runnings, another true story that happened to take place at the very same Calgary Winter Olympics in 1988. Fans of that movie or others of that type (Rudy, The Rookie, etc.) will have a great time with Eddie the Eagle, while anyone looking for a unique or groundbreaking take on the sports biography will leave the theater at least slightly disappointed. Fortunately for me, I loved Cool Runnings.
Rocco Tenaglia