Marvel Studios
Marvel’s Eternals has been a long time coming, just another of the many films that were delayed by the pandemic. The question now is … was it worth the wait?
Eternals is the story of, basically, the world’s first superheroes, a race of beings from somewhere beyond the planet who were plopped down here 7,000 years ago to save early mankind from some galactic monsters called Deviants. And once they had rid the planet of the Deviants, they were to move on to their next mission. But that call never came so the Eternals helped humanity through the centuries, giving them new technology — from a plow to nuclear capability — to advance their development, being careful to not advance too far ahead (for example, a steam engine was too far advanced for the humans at the point where they could just use a plow). Over the years, the group split and went their separate ways but always waiting for the call. In the present, Sersi (Gemma Chan) is a teacher in a relationship with a human, Dane Whitman (Kit Harington). Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) has been a popular Bollywood actor/director for 75 years (as his great-gandfather, grandfather, father and son through the years). Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) lives the family life with his partner and their son (making him the first out MCU superhero). Gilgamesh (Don Lee) cares for Thena (Angelina Jolie), who has a condition that causes her to forget who she is and violently turn on her friends. Ikaris (Richard Madden) is off doing his thing but shows up in London just as a new breed of Deviants shows up, now coming for the Eternals instead of the humans, somehow mutated to absorb the powers of the Eternal they attack. Sadly, leader Ajak (Salma Hayek) is the first to fall, so the Eternals assemble again to try to figure out what these new Deviants are and where they came from … and in the process learn the shocking truth about their real mission and discover a ‘traitor’ among them.
We have to give Marvel credit for giving us a new movie with a new group of superheroes we’ve not yet seen on screen. But were the Eternals the right group to start with? I’m no hardcore comics fan but I do enjoy the movies. And like me, even the most casual comic and movie fan has some familiarity with the characters Marvel has turned into movie icons. They took a chance with Shang-Chi and it paid off, even though that character was not in the mainstream consciousness. Eternals, I believe, also falls into that category because I knew nothing about the characters prior to seeing the movie, and I suspect most movie-goers won’t know them either. Which is why Eternals falls into that ‘origin story’ trap where it has to spend a lot of time telling us who the Eternals are (through time jumping flashbacks to various eras) while not really fleshing out the Deviants or the later in the film reveal of the Celestials. So as is typical with an ‘origin story’ movie with unfamiliar characters, Eternals just doesn’t quite hit the mark.
And that is not the fault of the cast. If Marvel does anything right, it’s always in the casting, putting the right people in the right roles, but some of them have to struggle with the sometimes bland material they’ve been given. I love Gemma Chan, but I just didn’t connect to her character Sersi, who becomes the de facto leader after Ajak’s death (a position that everyone expected would go to Richard Madden’s Ikaris, which causes a bit of character conflict). Madden is a great choice for a superhero, but Ikaris is a bit of a stiff so he never really gets to cut loose. Faring much better and giving the film some much needed moments of humor is Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo, cracking jokes and always winking at the camera, literally since he’s also making a documentary about the Eternals while they are on their mission, something that none of them want to participate in (his long-time assistant Karun also adds to the humor). Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos is also engaging, more down to earth than any of them, someone who feels like a real person, a man who only wants to protect his family. Druig (Barry Keoghan) is a bit of a prick, we don’t really get to know Makkari that well, Thena often fades into the background until she has a moment and tries to kill everyone, and Don Lee brings some heart to the film through Gilgamesh. He really makes you believe he cares for Thena. Kit Harington isn’t in the movie a whole lot, but if you are familiar with the Marvel comics universe in depth, you’ll know that his character of Dane Whitman is more than he seems on the surface (he even gets the film’s second and final post credits scene to reveal his identity … and even with that I still had to Google who he was).
The film’s real failures lie at the feet of Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, someone not known for directing huge action films (hopefully her upcoming Dracula film will be more in her wheelhouse). Zhao spends a lot of time on the talky parts, giving us lots of exposition but little emotion, and the action scenes just feel a bit haphazard. I never felt emotionally engaged with anything happening on screen, and the eleventh hour plot twist just felt like something else that was shoe-horned into the story. Maybe with four people credited with the screenplay (and who knows who else outside of that group had input), it was just too many hands in the pot. Another problem I had was the cinematography, which just looked flat and gave the whole thing the look and feel of a TV movie. I will have to reserve some judgment on that though because the fault there may have been the presentation we were afforded at the press screening in which the theater did not seem to be able to frame the film on screen properly and had the volume so low that at times I had to strain to hear the dialogue (and none of the action scenes made our seats rumble). I probably could have had a better experience watching it at home.
I really wanted to like Eternals. With this large cast, it’s basically a new Avengers (and at one point Sersi is asked why they didn’t intervene when the Avengers were being killed by Thanos), but with a group so unfamiliar and a lackluster script and some flat direction, it’s going to be a hard sell to general audiences (and if this one doesn’t set the box office on fire, no one can blame Disney Plus this time). Hopefully, now that we’ve gotten the ‘origin story’ out of the way, Marvel will come up with a more engaging story for the next film (which is promised in the credits just like at the end of the Bond films) which will include the arrival of a new Eternal played by a certain former boy band member whose name rhymes with Barry Smiles, and the full reveal of Harington’s sword-wielding alter ego. And let’s see if they can get a director on board who can handle both character and action.
Want to see Marvel’s Eternals and judge for yourself? Click below to see the movie, and be sure to come back and tell us what you thought!
Marvel’s Eternals has a run time of 2 hours 37 minutes and is rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality.
Marvel Studios
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