This is one of three sports movies that I can easily enjoy, the other two being Happy Gilmore and Moneyball. The main reason it is enjoyable is because it is more of a comedy than anything else. Most sports movies attempt to be inspirational by having an underdog team win the championship against insurmountable odds, usually with some kind of emotional conflict in it (e.g. Remember the Titans, Miracle, Rudy, The Perfect Game, The Express, Brian's Song). While Cool Runnings does feature an underdog team and has some amount of emotion in it, there is a much different feel to it than the aforementioned films. This is likely because it is not base on a true story, or at least very loosely, has no overriding emotional subplot, and has lots of humor mixed in with it. It also helps that the team is good evidently pretty good, but metaphorically crashes and burns due to unfortunate circumstances at the end. However, there is still an air of inspiration to the end sequence as the world recognizes their feats. The main characters are each easy to root for and likable in their own way. Their personalities are well developed and plausible as well as their relationships with each other. Derice and Sanka are friends already, so they obviously have pretty good character chemistry right from the start, though Derice has relatively little personality. Junior gets along well enough with the other four guys by being moderately outgoing. Yul is obviously averse to his teammates, but gradually pushes his emotions and pride aside to relate and collaborate with his teammates while retaining his cold personality. Irv is the only character that I have seen portrayed by John Candy who is not cheerful. However, Candy pulls off being a secluded and sorrowed guy. He does not contribute very much humor to the plot, but is nonetheless a good character. We can clearly see that the team sort of gives him hope, even if he tries to hide it.The sports element of the movie doesn't really kick in until after about forty-five minutes when the team gets to Calgary for the Olympics. Here, the emotional conflict is kicked up a notch in terms of Irv's dispute with the board and Junior standing up to his dad. There are only a few bobsled runs that are shown, and some of them are done for comical purposes. The front-runner Swiss team are kind of put in the villain position here, and we have a couple of encounters between the Jamaican and the Swiss athletes. Apart from that, we see some training scenes throughout.Finally we have the comedy element. The humorous moments come at a pretty constant rate with the same feel to the gags and lines. Some of the humor comes simply because of the absurd idea of a Jamaican bobsled team. Sanka contributes the most laughs out of anyone from his antics on the ice, to his three pump-up songs that he composes throughout, and other various jokes. The one scene that is devoted purely to comedy is the scene where the team tries to raise enough money to get them to Calgary. The technical execution is nothing special, but the acting and scripting is fine for the most part. One could maybe argue that it discriminates against Jamaicans, but I don't know enough about Jamaica to discuss this. The story is not award-winning by any means, but in a movie that is just sort of suppose to be fun, a strong story is not entirely necessary. I would recommend it to anyone seeking a good kid friendly comedy that isn't geared too strongly towards kids. I will caution prospective viewers not to be misguided into thinking this is a stereotypical inspirational sports film, because it isn't. It's not something I would recommend you rush out to buy, but if you happen to come across it, it's worth a try. Overall Rating: 8/10

Based on the true story of the first Jamaican bobsled team trying to make it to the winter Olympics.As far as "based on a true story" goes, this is true to a point. Yes, there was a Jamaican bobsled team in 1988 and yes, they did crash. But the rest is a bit of stretch. Their coach was not involved in any scandal for cheating or otherwise. And they were not despised by the other teams, even if the people who made this film wanted to create a "white and black" bigotry where there was none.Oddly, although anti-racist on the face of it, the film itself may be subtly racist itself. The portrayal of Jamaicans as simple, somewhat backwater people is unfair, and that none of the main actors were actually Jamaican seems unfortunate. We are instead stuck with New Yorkers and exaggerated Jamaican accents.Those criticisms aside, this is still a fun movie and enjoyable for what it is. How can you not help but like a group of misfits who have to face unlikely odds to succeed? This is a tradition in sports movies, and this one has more comedy than the average sports film, making it much more fun for the average viewer.

It had been about 6/7 years since I had watched Coolrunnings I remember I was rather fond of this film and thought I would try relive it. It was recently put on Netflix and the opportunity arose. Coolrunnings is about a Jamaican bobsled team. The film has likable characters and John Candy as usual plays a brilliant role as the stubborn old coach. Sanka seems to be the most funny I found the one I got the most laughs out of this film is good for two reasons, one - it's based on true events so really it is teaching you the past in a way. Secondly it's just a pleasant film just an OK watch I think once you've seen it a couple of times it does get abit boring but the first few times are well worth the watch. The ending is rather moral and nice

We loved the film. Favourite phrase : "You dead, man?".We liked the sport, the courage and pride of the bobsledders.The film is very funny, Sanka is funny with his egg.Favourite character : Sanka. The film is very funny, Sanka is funny with his egg.Favourite phrase : "You dead, man?".We loved the music. We loved the film. We liked Jamaica and Canada.The team spirit is very important. Favourite character : Sanka.We liked Jamaica and Canada. We liked the sport, the courage and pride of the bobsledders.The 5A class in Fréjus