Face it: You’re not fast enough to be Jesse Owens, and you don’t have the willpower to train yourself to be. But if a 24-year-old British nerd who’s never ski jumped before can ski jump in the Olympics, then (theoretically) anyone can!
That’s the story of Eddie the Eagle, an exuberant crowd-pleaser about Michael “Eddie” Edwards, who had his 15 minutes of fame at the 1988 Calgary Olympics (the same year that saw the Jamaican bobsled team, which means this film shares a cinematic universe with Cool Runnings). As played by the unrealistically adorable Taron Egerton (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Eddie is a socially awkward working-class lad who’s had Olympic dreams his whole life despite having very little athletic prowess and no idea which particular event he should focus on.