Review: ‘Eddie the Eagle’ is a feel-good story about one athlete’s Olympic dreams

Posted on March 4, 2016

By MARK VIOLA

I enjoy watching the Olympics when they come around every two years. Sure I like some events more than others, but for the most part, just seeing people compete on a world stage in the field of their choosing is more than enough. At least until I realize I haven’t done anything remotely as consequential and I turn the channel to watch cartoons.

We’re still quite early in 2016, but we’ve already had two Olympics themed movies, the first being “Race,” which centered on Jesse Owens and his record-breaking efforts at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Now we have “Eddie the Eagle,” centered on a very different athlete who competed at the 1988 Winter Games held in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. British ski jumper Eddie Edwards was not one of the medal winners–in fact he finished last in his events–but he came to symbolize the meaning of the Olympic games about putting forth your best in the pursuit of true sportsmanship and how the goal is to compete, not necessarily win. Interestingly enough, the 1988 games also saw the debut of the Jamaican bobsled team, whose story was immortalized in the 1993 film “Cool Runnings.”

Like that film, “Eddie the Eagle” is a mostly fictionalized account of Edwards’ efforts to qualify for and ultimately compete at the Olympics as a ski jumper. The fact that most of the events, and even some of the main characters, in the film didn’t actually happen, or at least not in the way they are portrayed, does hurt the overall impact of the story, especially when the script almost clinically at times hits all of the marks we’ve come to expect from a “feel good” sports movie.

The film’s saving grace, however, is the fact that it does make us feel good although we know we’re being manipulated into doing so, because Eddie Edwards did manage to accomplish something in 1988, even if it was finishing last. The fact that “Eddie the Eagle” can pull this off is almost entirely due to the earnest performance of Taron Egerton (“Kingsman: The Secret Service”), who is almost unrecognizable in this movie by taking on the look and mannerisms of the real Eddie.

“Eddie the Eagle” isn’t a great movie, but it is a decent one with a intriguing story to tell, even if it’s only very, very loosely based on actual events.

The film is rated PG-13 for some suggestive material, partial nudity and smoking.

(This is a abbreviated version of the full review available in our printed or e-edition papers.)

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