Director Dexter Fletcher
Staring Taron Egerton & Hugh Jackman
Rated PG
Score 5/6

The story of Eddie Edwards, the notoriously tenacious British underdog ski jumper who charmed the world at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

The rule of thumb that we are going to have to use for these sort of bio-pics is that if the words inspired by are used anywhere in the opening titles or on the poster then we can assume that certain liberties where taken with the story. Though I’m sure it doesn’t matter too much even if it would have been nice to see a movie that was as close to Eddie’s story as possible.
This is the kind of movie that everybody can get behind (and I am kind of interested to see what is going to be offered on the DVD release for Eddie the Eagle) and only the deeply cynical will leave this without a warm and fuzzy feeling. Both Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman gave great performances and I loved the scene with Jackman’s character Bronson Peary’s first jump of the movie while Egerton’s portrayal was brilliant and several steps away from the last movie I saw him in Kingsman: The Secret Service.
After watching this I can’t help but make at least a few comparisons to the iconic 1993 movie Cool Runnings. Is that a fair thing to do? I’m not entirely sure. Will Eddie the Eagle be held in the same regard as Cool Runnings? I hope so because on some level both films seem to capture a level of hope, passion and drive that seems to be missing. But what I will say is that considering how fucked up the world seems at times I can’t help but think that we need more people like Eddie the Eagle, Eric ‘the eel’ Moussambani, members of the Jamaican Bobsled team, Steven Bradbury and even people like fictional characters such Jefferson Smith.