Eternals || Spoiler-Free Review

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Genre: Superhero, Epic Directed by: Chloé Zhao Written by: Screenplay by Chloé Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo Story by Ryan Firpo and Kaz Firpo Starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie Score by: Steven Price || Cinematography by: Ben Davis Critical Reception: RottenTomatoes - 47% from Critics, 80% from Audiences || IMDB Average 6.9 out of 10 || Letterboxd Average 3.4 out of 5

The Movie Summed Up in a Tweet

"Eternals is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous film, which unfortunately stumbles in its attempts to introduce a dozen new characters while delivering an epic, time-spanning story filled with meaningful twists and turns. Though it's not a bad movie, it's not a particularly good one either."

Thoughts on the Movie?

Marvel Studios pushes the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) forward, exploring new concepts with its 26th theatrical release - Eternals. Starring a wildly talented ensemble cast, Eternals tells the untold story of a family of immortal alien gods (for lack of a better word), who are tasked with saving mankind from their ancient, spaghetti-monster counterparts - the Deviants. Over the span of five hundred years, friction amidst the group ultimately split them apart. In the current MCU timeline (following the events of Avengers: Endgame), the arrival of a powerful new Deviant will force the splintered Eternals to join up to protect humanity once more.

If it sounds like Eternals is introducing a lot of concepts, characters, and world building - that's because it is. Even with nearly three hours (two hours, forty minutes exactly) to tell its story, Eternals ends up buckling under the weight of its own ambition. Eternals is the first time since Phase 2 that a Marvel Studios movie has felt so messy in its delivery - we're talking Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron levels of underdeveloped characters and uninspired story structure. I was taken aback and truly baffled by some of the storytelling and creative decisions, in addition to some problematic implications introduced by the now-cannon lore that I knew I had to see Eternals a second time in order to give it its fair shake. There is always the possibility that I missed something the first time around, or was expecting an entirely different movie than what we got with Eternals. Maybe now I could see Eternals for the boundary-pushing Marvel masterpiece that I wasn't expecting.

That, sadly, wasn't the case. I disappointingly found Eternals to be as equally flawed during my second viewing.

One of the most glaring issues with Eternals is its focus on Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden). Even though the two share the MCU's first on-screen sex-scene (and mind you it's PG-13 so it's pretty tepid at most and nowhere near as noteworthy as some are making it out to be), they share absolutely no chemistry with one another. Both Chan and Madden are charismatic and likeable actors, but due to wooden dialogue and emotionless performances (particularly Madden whose main direction seems to be "do what Henry Cavill did in Man of Steel but have even less fun"), there's no real reason to like these two characters, much less root for them.



Not helping Sersi or Ikaris, or really any of the characters, is the awkward, start-stop (lack of) flow to the storytelling. The story (from Ryan and Kaz Firpo) uses a clunky framing device that jumps back-and-forth in its timeline with the intention to heighten dramatic reveals and shocking turns. I say with the intention, because these time-jumps often come at oddly chosen moments, leading to any narrative momentum being lost. Forget about maintaining any emotional connection to a character or a dramatic moment in two Eternals' relationship, as those are often jarringly brought to an abrupt halt as we switch gears, hopping to a different time period to watch a handful of Eternals finish fighting a Deviant before getting into the relevant thematic discussions. This narrative construct ends up making many of the character motivations feel rushed or completely unearned, in favor of a quickly paced story that does a decent job at never feeling particularly drawn out or boring for being near three hours long.

Eternals isn't able to pull off any one character arc particularly well because of its strained attention span, being asked to service ten Eternals, plus the Deviant leader Kro, the Celestials, and Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) - a role that could be summed up as "non-offensive male placeholder for more of a character to come later, maybe".

Indulge me for a moment as I belabor a point (but mind you, it's an important point): The first Avengers movie had Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, and arguably Phil Coulson and Nick Fury. Let's say that's eight total protagonists, all of which had been introduced in previous movies where their characters and motivations were all relatively well defined.

I bring up Avengers, because Eternals is attempting to tell a team story in a similar manner, albeit with a significantly larger roster, composed of unknown and unfamiliar characters, with much less time to focus on each character. It's an impossible task and the screenwriters and storytellers just weren't able to rise to that challenge. Druig (Barry Keoghan), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), and Ajak (Salma Hayek) feel particularly rushed over in terms of characterizations, with some altogether ignored within the narrative for long periods of time.

The story attempts to tell an epic in the every sense of the word - there are back-stabbings, betrayals, big moments that reveal just how deep of a connection two Eternals have, or how little of a connection two Eternals might have - none of it feels earned or meaningful. There is a perfect example showing just how little weight is given to the dramatic moments in Eternals that involves a literal backstabbing. Without any dialogue between this character and the other characters, the very next scene finds the back-stabber rewarded for no reason. In the scene immediately following their reward, the back-stabber is seen cracking jokes and acting as if they didn't just totally try to murder their friend.



Even though there are a lot of issues stemming from Eternals attempting to do too much within a theatrical runtime (why wasn't this a Disney+ series?), the storytelling isn't a complete wash and there were characters that I thought worked well. Hell, even the characters that didn't work or the ones who were rushed over in order to cram in more mindless spaghetti-monster fights - I am absolutely interested in seeing the bulk of these characters return in future MCU projects. Whether that be Eternals 2 or something else altogether, I'd love to see a lot of these characters' ideologies explored further and some of these themes more fully developed in the future.

If we're talking about the characters that worked though, the clear standout is Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani). While Kingo isn't a deep character, in fact he's an extremely underwritten character in terms of his position with the group and the narrative completely writes him out of the third acts for, again, no good reason. No, Kingo is just a lot of fun - feeling like a natural fit within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Both Kingo and Karun (Harish Patel) add some much needed levity to Eternals- as the rest of the movie favors leaning more into the self-serious territory. And as a quick note, any of the humor in Eternals that isn't surrounding Kingo or Karun did not work for me, often feeling out of place and inappropriate for some of the characters.

And while Kingo brings the humor, I felt the gravitas best portrayed by two characters - Sprite and Phastos. While I don't think either characters are perfect, with both being inconsistently handled servicing the narrative over character, and both being given only a handful of moments on screen to convey big, complex emotions - I do think that what is hinted at with both characters is deeply tragic and moving. Eternals wisely gives each of its protagonists a unique viewpoint on humanity and their ultimate goal...sadly, it just doesn't have any time to devote to developing those ideas further than lightly touching upon them, before being rushed to the next scene.

I've gone this far without saying anything about Chloé Zhao and her direction of Eternals - this was intentional. I wanted to save my most positive comments for last. Zhao who previously directed very small, independent films such as Nomandland and The Rider, brings her naturalistic eye to Eternals, creating what is quite possibly the best looking Marvel Studios movie to date. The realistic, natural lighting - the long, deliberately held shots that allow you to take in the gorgeous scenery and the brilliantly detailed costuming and production design - everything is just so beautifully shot and realized. Eternals features one of the most striking aesthetics for a Marvel Studios film since Taika Waititi's singular take on Thor in Thor: Ragnarok, and I would recommended it for its "identity" if nothing else.

Eternals is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous film, which often stumbles in its attempts to introduce a dozen new characters while delivering an epic, time-spanning story filled with twists and turns. While Eternals deserves some credit for its lofty goals and huge undertaken in bringing more complex characters and concepts into the MCU, it does so in a jarringly clunky way that has understandably left audiences split in their opinion. Overall, my opinion is decidedly mixed on Eternals - I would argue it's not a bad movie, but I wouldn't argue that it's a particularly good movie either.



Standout Scene

Without spoiling anything, the visual depiction of the "Emergence" in the final act was everything I could hope for from an Eternals movie in terms of epic scope and imagination. I just wish the climax and drama surrounding the "Emergence" was earned. It's also another example of the superhero third act where the stakes are so impossibly high that they actually become non-existent. Not once do you ever think there's a chance that the Eternals are NOT going to be victorious due to how insanely high the consequence of failure is in that scenario.

Standout Performance

Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo is the only Eternal I would be legitimately upset not to see again. And of course Harish Patel as Karun would need to return alongside him!

Pairs Well With...

Film-FTW Rating  ||  5 Stars - “Mediocre / Mixed Feelings”


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