The overkill indicates an awareness that none of these would-be messages ring true.

| Nov 6, 2018

Watching this eagle take to the sky still manages to be a cheery delight.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 15, 2016

Eddie the Eagle is one of those underdog sports stories we all love so much, with an excellent performance from the likeable, empathetic Hugh Jackman.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 2, 2016

Peary is a completely fictitious character, but Jackman plays him like a younger Clint Eastwood, full of rugged charm and common sense, even though he stresses over his own past failures.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 22, 2016

It is both folk and fairy tale, but sort of irresistible. Everyone loves a rags-to-riches story, even if Eddie never quite won the riches.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 21, 2016

It's a recipe that worked for Rudy and Cool Runnings, and it's effective here.

| Apr 19, 2016

It's not that making a period film in a throwback style is all that revolutionary. But it sticks out here because so many of these tropes are still in circulation.

| Apr 9, 2016

Worstward ho! Just leave your brains behind and it's perfectly enjoyable.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2016

Not so much a movie, more a morale-boosting initiative, but briskly jolly, and given a dash of class by Jim Broadbent, Christopher Walken and a wonderfully unctuous Tim McInnerny.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2016

How to make a hero out of a loser? This is the question that drives, inspires, defines and ultimately bedevils the rousing new biopic Eddie the Eagle.

| Mar 31, 2016

The film's heart is in the right place, but Jackman and Walken are all wrong.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 31, 2016

Dexter Fletcher's unflinching determination to shamelessly hit every cheap chord cannot be faulted.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 31, 2016

An oddly conventional biopic that uses a strained father-son relationship to frame its rabble-rousing, crowd-pleasing reflection on futility.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Mar 29, 2016

Fletcher has a brilliantly attuned sixth sense for what his audience wants to see at any given millisecond, and Eddie's final flight, from the 90-foot ramp at Calgary, is a mini-masterpiece of intuitive cutting.

| Mar 24, 2016

Eddie the Eagle, despite its shortcomings, will soar into moviegoers' hearts.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 3, 2016

Eddie the Eagle tries to have it both ways with its main subject, simultaneously ridiculing and ennobling him. And, amazingly, it mostly works.

| Feb 28, 2016

For every easy, eye-rolling bit, there's a moment of genuine emotion; the champion jumper's pre-climax speech on what matters in sport is downright joyful.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 26, 2016

Eddie the Eagle fits snugly into one of my favorite sports movie subgenres -- films about how sometimes losing is better, if it means that you stay true to your own moral code.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Feb 26, 2016

While it's often cookie-cutter sports movie conventional, you'd have to be stone-hearted to remain un-charmed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 26, 2016

It is a rare biopic of any kind, let alone a sports bio, that merely celebrates participation. It's that novelty that makes this simple comedy shine.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 26, 2016