Eddie the Eagle

SPOILER-FREE MOVIE REVIEW

Eddie the Eagle is a new biographical sports drama-comedy about the true story of Great Britain's first ever competitive Olympic ski jumper Eddie Edwards, played by Kingsman: The Secret Service's Taron Egerton.

We follow Eddie from his childhood to his late teens as he dreams about what kind of Olympic athlete he aspires to be when he grows up.

From the get-go, I was already having a really good time.

The movie starts off with a very warm and comedic tone, even though much of the comic relief comes from witnessing Eddie's attempts at training himself for the big time failing.

Fast forward past his adolescent years and we meet young adult Eddie, who is rejected by the British Olympic council despite being successful at skiing.

Distraught, he returns home with a heavy heart, almost giving up entirely until he is inspired to take up ski jumping as Britain didn't have a team in the event for over six decades - hence giving him a good chance to qualify.

Eddie travels to Germany to try and train for the sport.

Along the way, he meets former Olympic ski jumper turned drunk snow groomer Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), who initially dismisses Eddie as crazy - but begins to form a bond with him after Eddie persists in his quest to making it big.

It's pretty much your typical underdog movie, with a very similar basic skeleton as famous underdog movies like the original Rocky.

That, however, isn't entirely a bad thing.

I mean, why fix something that isn't broken right?

By using that underdog dynamic, it's pretty much a home run with the bet on whether the audience would root for our main protagonist or not.

I really liked the premise of the movie, which was both interesting and compelling.

That was helped by a very intriguing character in Eddie, who is socially awkward and has trouble fitting in, but doesn't let those factors affect him in his quest to prove the doubters wrong.

Given that this is a depiction of a true story, gotta give massive plaudits to this man's heart and determination, man, cos he really does get hit by wave after wave of difficulties and setbacks.

Taron Egerton delivers these crucial qualities of Eddie's character wonderfully, with a queer and peculiar overall performance helping to further increase the appeal of the movie's underdog.

Quite funny seeing Egerton in such a role too, given that the last movie I saw him in was his breakthrough role as Eggsy in 2014's kick-ass spy thriller Kingsman: The Secret Service.

Nice to see the director of that movie Kingsman (Matthew Vaughn) as producer for Eddie the Eagle too.

I also really liked Hugh Jackman as Eddie's coach and friend in Bronson Peary, who has fallen from grace but sees Eddie as a means of redemption to prove to himself that he too isn't a failure.

Jackman played Peary with a lot of heart, and when you see him sip on his hip flask every few seconds, you can truly feel for the character and how he really is at a low in his life.

Hence, when he does finally get back on his feet, you really root for him along with Eddie.

This whole dynamic reminded me of an Olympic-based movie I saw last month called Race, which had a similar motivation between athlete and coach.

Is it the new in-thing now? Olympic sports dramedies? If so, I'm totally up for it cos it's a breath of fresh air from the load of awful teenage/young adult book-to-movie adaptations which normally get released around this time of the year.

As for the supporting cast, I really liked the actors who played Eddie's parents. They brought much warmth to the picture, especially Eddie's mom who never gave up in supporting her son.

Story-wise, Eddie the Eagle was pretty solid.

I mean, come on. It's very hard for stories to go wrong with movies based on real-life events.

The music by Matthew Margeson was also necessarily patriotic and Olympic-ey, with some themes sounding very similar to the classic Chariots of Fire theme.

I liked some of the shots utilised in the movie too - in particular, the scenic shots of the snowy mountains and the moving shots along the ski jump as athletes get ready to jump.

Sadly, there were bits that let me down.

I felt some of the editing was a little choppy towards the end of the movie, with pacing suddenly going from steady and comfortable to fast-paced as we enter into the competitive events.

The CGI was also quite poor.

No, poor is an understatement. It was really quite bad.

When Eddie or whoever was jumping, the model that is formed with computer-generated imagery in mid-air just looks so cartoonish and fake that it took me out of the movie for a while.

Kind of like the climax of Johnny English Reborn back in 2011, where the CGI was so bad that it partially ruins the overall quality of the picture.

However, I can't fault the movie too much for that because of the meagre $23 million budget they had - which in Hollywood terms, can't even afford one real-life explosion on set.

Apart from that, I can't say much else negative about Eddie the Eagle. It was just a simple 105 minutes of fun.

As the end credits rolled, I couldn't help but smile at what a lovely feel-good movie I had just watched.

That's what it is - a solid feel-good movie which ticked all the boxes it should have.

All in all, Eddie the Eagle achieved what it had set out to achieve - which was to be a nice, feel-good sports dramedy with enough heart to bring tears to some eyes and enough laughs to laugh out loud at times.

The film doesn't try to be overly-ambitious in any way, which helps to keep things simple and easy-to-follow.

It's a movie that makes you smile that same goofy smile Eddie Edwards makes throughout the movie.

A thumbs-up from me.

7.5/10.