Eddie isn’t groundbreaking by any means, but effortlessly fun, packed with irony, and ready to woo even the most unathletic children through countless TV reruns.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
As cinema, it’s an avalanche of feel-good clichés, but as an audience-pleasing machine, it relentlessly pursues its goal and will probably win over viewers who surrender to it.
The pic gets quite a lot of mileage out of several note-perfect musical choices...and Fletcher includes just enough odd angles and quirky compositions to suggest a slightly stranger, loopier vision for this film lurking somewhere beneath.
The Hollywood Reporter by John DeFore
The essence of what made the man inspiring to so many — it's not the winning, but the effort that's important — comes through with gonglike clarity in Dexter Fletcher's film, a straight-down-the-ramp sports tale that plays to the average man's dreams of momentary greatness.
Slant Magazine by Kenji Fujishima
It remains more committed to printing the uplifting legend of its title character than in actually examining the human beings underneath.
Eddie The Eagle turns a long-running joke of British sport into a crowd-pleasing story of inspiration. It’s a solid gold winner.
As “Forrest Gump” proved, never bet against a supportive mom. There’s a need and a market for lump-in-the-throat, feel-good treacle.
This gentle comedy is more interested in doing justice to the spirit of his achievement and the style of late-'80s comedy than the details of his life, but the resulting confection is sweet and simple.
Screen International by Tim Grierson
As sunny as Eddie The Eagle is, its greatest liability is that it never pushes itself, content to let an amiable true-life tale be turned into a generic genre exercise.
Eddie the Eagle may suffice for a brainless Friday night, but an honest account would have been a lot more memorable.