“Eddie the Eagle” is much like its titular character. It’s scrappy, the little guy, a film that aims low and hits its mark. It’s completely content taking last place, and that’s exactly where it lands.
“Eddie the Eagle” is a biographical drama about the real life of Michael “Eddie” Edwards, an amateur British skier with dreams of becoming an Olympian. But when he is barred from the British skiing team, he decides to spontaneously take up ski jumping — a sport notorious for its difficult barrier for entry — and fight his way to the olympics.
As a mindless, easy-going underdog sports tale, it works. It’s fairly inspirational, has its comedic moments, and is buoyed by decent performances from both Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman, as Eddie and Eddie’s coach, respectively. But as a serious biopic, the film is laughable. It’s unrealistically cheesy, completely predictable, and the characters are little more than flat archetypes. It feels fake despite its “inspired by a true story” tag, and it often has the impression of being decades old in its style. Needless to say, it’s much more “Hollywood” than “documentary.” It’s a formula film.
But it really doesn’t aim for more than that. It’s difficult to fault a film with such low aspirations, because it never tries anything questionable or new. It’s safe from start to finish. There are no experiments or fresh ideas in “Eddie the Eagle,” and besides some pretty bad CGI, it’s alright to look at. It does what you expect it to do, and nothing more. And a part of me finds that commendable.
Unfortunately, the other part of me will never care enough to watch “Eddie the Eagle” again. There’s just nothing noteworthy about this particular tale. It’s a simple story told with simple filmmaking, a piece of sugar not meant to critique or question anything. Instead, it only seeks to warm the hearts of anyone within arm’s reach, and that’s not an interesting enough goal to warrant visiting twice.
I will say that the selection of 80’s music is nice, and the film garners an inch of suspense for the actual ski jumping scenes. But beyond that, “Eddie the Eagle” is a middle-of-the-road film. If you’re a sucker for heartwarming and cutesy movies, you may get more mileage out of “Eddie the Eagle” than I did. But if you’re suspecting a true-to-life tale of adversity and perseverance, you’ll walk away empty handed.
