Eddie the Eagle (2016)
Film based on the true-life story of Eddie Edwards, the British fellow who wanted to be an athlete all his life, with his main goal being to make it to the Olympics. He became quite adept at skiing and changed his sports several times over the years, much to the consternation of his working-class dad, who was driven to to distraction by Eddie, and Eddie's mom, who faithfully supported his dreams. He turns to ski-jumping. He has to qualify to make it to the 1988 Calgary Olympics and he was fairly good on his own but meets a former, disgraced ski-jumper who is on the sauce, played by Hugh Jackman. Since Jackman is the big star here, you know they'll get together as coach and student and therefore Eddie improves. Mind you, Eddie
WARNING: spoilers below
is not enthused so much by medals as he is by just meeting his own standards of excellence, and if he brings glory to the U.K.
is not enthused so much by medals as he is by just meeting his own standards of excellence, and if he brings glory to the U.K.
He is met with resistance all along the way by those who think he's a joke.
Taron Egerton, who was excellent in
Kingsman: The Secret Service is almost unrecognizable as Eddie and does a fine job in the role. Hugh Jackman is also great as Bronson Peary, his reluctant coach. Christopher Walken has a
very small role as Peary's former coach. Keith Allen and Jo Hartley are super as his distracted parents, one distracted in a positive way and the other not-so-positive. They bring quite a few laughs. All said, a fun, pull-for-the-underdog feel-good type of movie. Recommended.
Allegiant (2016)
The third in the series of adaptations of Veronica Roth's post-apocalyptic young adult books is almost all action and I didn't mind that. Not that the previous two didn't have their fair share but this one has less exposition and more straight ahead movement. So even at a two-hour running time, it feels shorter. All about the different factions in futuristic Chicago from the previous movies now broken apart, with the baddie from the first two films gone. Stepping up is Naomi Watts as Evelyn, who tries to rule the the city but is failing to keep order under control and clashing with a former faction leader, played by Octavia Spencer. But the real stars are of course Shailene Woodley as Tris, the "perfect" person once coveted by the former leader of Chicago, and Theo James as Four (I forget why he's named that), the star-crossed lovers who escape the new fighting in the city and traverse across the wall (that keeps everyone in Chicago) where a hopeful utopia awaits them. Of course not everything goes their way or this would be a pretty short movie. Jeff Daniels plays the leader of the mysterious "utopia" they eventually find. Anyway, if you liked the first two, which I did, you'll like this one. A fourth and final film is supposedly on hold, because apparently this one didn't make a lot at the box office. Which is weird because with its USA total and its worldwide gross, it made twice the budget back. Right now, it's being slotted as a "TV-Movie," which would be weird for some who saw the first three at the cinema but not for me since I've seen them only on cable. And HBO holds the TV/Cable rights to the sequel so since I've got HBO, no worries here. They just have to make it. Anyway, not a bad time waster at all and Shailene gets better-looking all the time and Naomi is still fine. Reasons enough to watch the movie.
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I just picked up Eddie the Eagle today at the library. It was a random find, by my wife actually. I had no idea if it was good or not, so now I'm even more excited to see it.