'Eddie' likable but cliched sports underdog comedy
"You don't give up, do you?" says former ski jumper Bronson Peary to wannabe Olympic ski jumper Michael "Eddie" Edwards.
No, he doesn't.
Neither does Dexter Fletcher's overwritten, overscored, inspirational, fact-based formula sports underdog comedy "Eddie the Eagle," all about a quirky British ski jumper who became an unlikely celebrity mascot for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary.
This movie bombards us with shameless, syrupy, puppy-dog affectations. It batters us with moldy movie clichés recycled from earlier fact-based sports underdog films. (Yes, you can bet your mortgage it will end with a freeze-frame.)
Then, "Eddie" brings in Matthew Margeson's vintage 1980s music score constantly pushing us to feel jubilant, nudging us to feel sad, pummeling us to feel excited.
Eddie, as played by Taron Egerton, comes off as such an optimistic, sweetie-pie doofus that you want him to succeed. You want him to become an Olympic skier even though he lacks the physique, training and funding for the sport.
"Eddie the Eagle" tells a story "inspired by" (Hollywood code for "most of this didn't really happen") a sickly kid once forced to wear Forrest Gump-like leg braces. He tells his mum (Jo Hartley) that he's going to the Olympics. She gives him a box to put his future medals in.
His dream-dashing dad (Keith Allen) shouts, "You're not an athlete!" and pooh-poohs Eddie's near-suicidal attempts to become one.
"It's only a matter of time before he walks through that door in a wheelchair!" Dad screeches.
Eddie grows up to be Egerton, a frumpy young man with thick, uncool eyeglasses, an embarrassment of a mustache and slack-jawed facial expressions that go quickly from cute to calculated.
Through sheer will, he almost makes the British team at the 1984 Winter Olympics. Britain hasn't sponsored a ski jumper since 1929. He will be that ski jumper!
Landing in Germany before the 1988 games, bumbling Eddie runs into rejection from snobby athletes, and also meets his future coach, Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman), a former ski-jumping star now an alcoholic has-been driving a snowplow in Garmisch.
Eddie recognizes Peary. He wants him to be his mentor.
"Any tips?" Eddie asks.
"Don't die," Peary replies.
Peary has hit the hip flask after a falling out with his old coach and father figure (Christopher Walken on performance life support). Will Peary be able to redeem himself by helping Eddie? Can he possibly mend fences with his old coach before the end?
More to the point, was the real Eddie's life so bland that screenwriters had to create Jackman's handsome, devil-may-care coach with his own personal baggage subplot that never happened?
In Sean Macauley and Simon Kelton's screenplay, Eddie gives his own movie a thumbs-up at least 19 times while recycling the hackneyed phrase, "My dream has turned into a nightmare!"
Likable? Yes. But "Eddie" still made me feel as manipulated as a patient trapped in a psychotic chiropractor's office.
“Eddie the Eagle”
★ ★
Starring: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Jo HartleyDirected by: Dexter FletcherOther: A 20th Century Fox release. Rated PG-13 for suggestive material, partial nudity, smoking. 105 minutes