Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (which I will be referring to as Eurovision Movie from now on) is a Musical Comedy about an unknown Icelandic Band (the titular Fire Saga), their dream to win the Eurovision Song Contest, and the problems (both on and off-stage) they face along the way. The story follows the two-person band from their humble beginnings in a small town in Iceland to… well, telling you that would be a spoiler!
The plot follows a fairly predictable outline, but the ways it hits these predictable milestones is usually quite unpredictable. What the film lacks in overall substance it more than makes up for in the scene-to-scene interactions. The overarching plot is more of a formality needed to tie the film together, and the way the movie moves between these plot points is the real selling point of the film.
The film markets itself as a Musical Comedy, and whilst it is a Musical – and inevitably has a lot of songs in it since it’s about a Song Contest – the comedy is what drew me to Eurovision Movie. And on the whole, the comedy delivers. There are definitely moments which could come across as forced or contrived, but the way the film sets up the characters makes these moments believable. The film doesn’t take the shotgun approach (throw every joke at the wall and hope some of them stick) of some of Will Ferrell’s earlier works, but instead takes a more precision approach to place the (sometimes juvenile) humour Ferrell is known for in just the right places.
The acting in the film is pretty on point. Most of the characters aren’t too complicated, but have the right amount of depth for the role they play. Will Ferrell still mostly plays Will Ferrell, but ties his style into his character and (apart from showing his age) doesn’t feel out of place. Rachel McAdams (the other member of Fire Saga) really sells her part, and (as a casual critic) I could not fault her. The rest of the supporting cast do an excellent job selling the world without overshadowing anyone. The camera maybe lingers on Pierce Brosnan a little too long sometimes, but his stoic (almost lack of) acting keeps these moments grounded. The accents sometimes take a bit of a wander, but as I’m not an expert on the Icelandic accent, they were good enough for me.
The cinematography is pretty good – though (as usual) not something I thought about much while watching. The choreography of the musical pieces was dynamic and exciting, making most of the songs feel like they were building to a real Eurovision (though I must admit I’ve never paid much attention to the real Eurovision). This was aided by the choice to use real Eurovision artists for the competition establishing scenes, and is quite amusing once you pick up on it.
There were a few times you could tell the camera was framed such that actors could record their lines separately, or so scenes could be stitched together from multiple takes, but it was never immersion breaking. The musical queues were also pretty good, there was only one song I would call “unnecessary” in the traditional Musical style; but being the only one I assume it was mostly a riff on traditional Musicals. While I don’t remember the musical queues, the story flowed into the musical scenes well. Overall, the cinematography is fairly generic for the “normal” scenes, but puts in the work during the musical scenes.
There are quite a few chronological inconsistencies with the film, but these are usually in aid of jokes and not critical to the plot. Though apparently the Contest being held in Edinburgh completely messes with the timeline of the film, but the setting is not plot critical and is a mistake I will readily forgive of Comedy movies.
Eurovision Movie is a really good Comedy film, and not a bad Musical film either. My Dad dislikes Will Ferrell and even that couldn’t stop him from laughing out loud at much of this film. Heck, my Dad and I both dislike Musicals, but the Musical pieces worked really well. There’s even a song we’re still humming the words to (though admittedly for its Comedic value). I would definitely recommend Eurovision Movie to anyone looking for a fun film that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
- Cinematography – 6/10
- Plot – 6/10
- Acting – 8/10
- Script – 9/10
- Enjoyment* – 9/10
OVERALL – 7.6/10
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