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Eternals
(Marvel Studios)
By Lucas Allen
Earlier this year, writer and director Chloe Zhao took the top two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for her work on the amazing “Nomadland.” In a not-so-surprising move, Marvel Studios chose her to helm its third consecutive big screen film of the year introducing audiences to the cosmic team “Eternals.” The real test comes if this new group of heroes will live up to the likes of “The Avengers” and the “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
For more than 7,000 years, a group of powerful beings called the Eternals led by Ajak (Salma Hayek) has been living on Earth assigned by the almighty celestial Arishem to help humanity evolve. But following the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” mysterious creatures called deviants emerged from the planet. In London, Sersi (Gemma Chan) soon leaves behind her boyfriend Dane (Kit Harrington) to join ex-lover Ikaris (Richard Madden) and young Sprite (Lia McHugh) to try to reunite the team to fight the menacing creatures. They traverse the globe to locate some of the other teammates including Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Druig (Barry Keoghan), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), and Thena (Angelina Jolie), who’s struggling with haunted memories.
Unfortunately, interpersonal issues and past mistakes threaten to tear them apart. Not to mention, secrets and revelations about Arishem’s true intentions puts their entire mission and the world they called home in jeopardy.
Let’s get some of the positives out of the way in terms of filmmaking. The movie looks gorgeous with Zhao bringing her style from “Nomadland,” well-utilizing stunning locations with the right lighting to help enhance the look. The cinematographer is Ben Davis, whose previous work in “Thor: Ragnarok” and “Captain Marvel” are wildly different in terms of coloring choices, but works consistently with the director’s vision. In terms of effects, they’re not the best but work just fine. In fact, some stylistic choices were nicely inspired by Jack Kirby’s artistic style from the original Marvel comics.
Ultimately, the movie’s fatal flaw is in the writing. Besides the story’s non-linear narrative, the writers did try to set up these heroes’ many histories to make them as interesting as possible. Then they hit us with a middle act exposition dump that lasted too long and can be difficult to comprehend to any casual viewer. The dramatic scenes are also a slog to get through with the emotional parts that felt ripped out of any hour-long TV series rather than a comic book. Fortunately, there are some moments of humor and action to elevate it, but not high enough to go beyond being average.
This movie does have a very diverse and well-represented cast of actors working the heavy load while trying to make the characters believable and likable. However, the nature of the writing turns this “family” into a group of spiteful and overly sad heroes. What’s supposed to be genuine drama becomes an exercise for the actors in big screen soap opera theatrics. The only one to make the most humor is Nanjiani, who has the most interesting character set-up and real gravitas with Kingo as a Bollywood superstar. Come to think of it, a Bollywood-style Marvel movie starring Nanjiani would be more interesting than this.
Eternals will likely be divisive among MCU fans looking for any redeeming qualities. But compared to both “Black Widow” and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” this one remains the most disappointing entry in this otherwise amazing franchise that’s only a minor sore spot regardless. Don’t be surprised if Marvel decides to make a course-correction for these characters while concentrating their efforts on their returning profitable heroes.
THE MOVIE’S RATING: PG-13 (for fantasy violence and action, some language, and brief sexuality)
THE CRITIC’S RATING: 2.5 Stars (Out of Four)
