It’s an inspirational comedy about one rather offbeat real-life Olympic competitor. Eddie Edwards (Taron Egerton) is an ordinary British guy who decides to compete for a medal in ski-jumping. So he heads off to Germany to learn how to ski-jump and from there, hopefully, to sail into the 1988 Calgary Games. As luck would have it, a former ski-jump champion and current drunk (Hugh Jackman) is hanging around the facility, and grudgingly agrees to train Eddie. You can bang out the rest of the story yourself.
Dexter Fletcher’s film is an odd egg: It’s got a low-budget feel and an A-list star; it’s poorly written and paced, but amusing enough; there’s a crappy 1980s-style synth-heavy score; Christopher Walken stops by for the most lifeless cameo of his five-decade career; and it’s a good bet you have neither heard of Eddie the Eagle nor care about ski-jumping. But some folks love those plucky underdog stories; see it only if you’re one of them.
Starts Fri., Feb. 26.
