Marvel's Eternals has just been released in theatres across the globe and it's a film that
has many positives and negatives. I really do appreciate the ambition of the director and the
approach she has brought to a film like this, but at the same time, I can't help but feel
dissatisfied by the so-called formula elements that drag the really interesting aspects down.
I do think it's a film that has slightly more to chew on than other recent entries in the MCU and
this is something I was hoping for in a film like this, but again, I think these could have
been stronger if the vision was fully in line with what Zhao was trying to accomplish. But before I
get into my review, if you want to keep up to date on any of my future content surrounding Marvel's
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the description below. But without further ado, let's dive into my review of Marvel's Eternals.
So to begin with I know that Superhero movies cannot be all things to all viewers. Some go in
for the spectacle and the universe connecting aspects, others go in for a well-told story
in the confines of unique genres and others go in for maybe a bit of both. But while Marvel
likes to pride itself on how its films can jump between genres so that something like
a Captain America: The Winter Soldier can be a political thriller and Guardians of the Galaxy
can be a nostalgic sci-fi flick, they’re still operating under the dictates of the
superhero genre and the formula they have kept in place for over a decade now. This
means there are clear heroes and villains, superpowers to dominate an external threat,
and a need to save at least a planet and if not the entire universe. But a Marvel movie can
only go so far before it's restrained by these dictates, which makes Chloé Zhao’s Eternals a
slightly frustrating movie. In each of the characters, you can feel a far more interesting
narrative straining to get out, but at the end of the day, the genre mandates the use
of superpowers to defeat a threat to humanity. This movie could have focused more on what it
would mean to witness thousands of years of civilization and your contributions to it,
but instead becomes more aligned with fitting within the typical superhero narrative
where superpowered beings have to defeat some world-ending threat.
In the beginning, there were the Celestials, who sent out warriors known as Eternals
to clear away monsters known as Deviants. The Celestial Arishem sent a group of Eternals from
the planet Olympia to Earth. Arriving on Earth in the year 5,000 BC, the Eternals,
comprised of leader Ajak alongside Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Kingo, Phastos, Sprite, Druig,
Makkari, and Gilgamesh, displays each members power which allows them to protect humanity
and defeat the Deviants. Instructed to never interfere with human affairs so that humanity
has a chance to evolve on its own, the Eternals eventually separate until the Deviants returns
in the present day, forcing the group to come back together to defeat an old foe.
For the most part, Eternals feels like Marvel’s most ambitious project which is stuffed
into the span of a 2 and a half hour movie. I personally love long movies and Eternals needed
plenty of time to explore its relationships and ideas, but many of them on display could
have been dealt with better. For example, Ikaris and Sersi were in love with each other
and married, but they broke up about a hundred years before, and now Sersi is seeing a human
known as Dane Whitman. Sersi and Ikaris’ feelings for each other are largely shortened,
letting us know that there are some lingering emotions, but any texture of their relationship
or really showing us a love story that has spanned thousands of years doesn’t have time to breathe
in the time we get of them. While I love the approaches to the characters and the greater
human touch that recent Marvel projects have missed, this contraction applies to
many of the characters and left me wishing that we could spend more time with them rather than
getting a brief summary of their inner turmoil. Each character really only gives you a glimpse of
what could have been explored. We see this within the range of cast and characters on display.
Sprite, who’s doomed to look like a child, wants the benefit of living among humans to the full
extent of adult relationships. Phastos, who has the ability to invent anything,
has seen how human technological progression has brought massive destruction,
and wonders if we’re even worth saving if our creations only bring about mass death.
Druig, one of my favourite characters, has the power to control minds and he toys with the idea
of creating a zombie utopia where humans lack free will but also don’t slaughter each other.
And as for Thena, she’s the greatest warrior in history, but one who is now suffering
from a degenerative mental illness called that makes her unable to distinguish between friend
and foe. Essentially the interesting question of Eternals is that what if you could live forever,
but were plagued by disease? How would you continue to live your life?
These are all fascinating questions, and Eternals simply does not dwell on them as much as I wanted
it to. They linger in the background, inviting us to think more about them,
but then the plot moves this to the side, and we are back to fighting Deviants. In my opinion,
if you strip away the superhero stuff, you have a fascinating look at narratives, one that
aims in on the humanity and yet bigger implications of myths. But this is a Marvel movie,
and Marvel movies are straightforward superhero stories. I do like Marvel movies and they’re
indisputably one of the most successful studios of all time, but they only make one thing.
They may dress that product up in different colours, but at its core, it must be a
superhero movie. For all of its narrative twists and turns, and there are some really good ones in
Eternals, the film still has to build up to good guys using their extraordinary abilities to save
humanity. In that limiting framework, you can see Eternals struggle valiantly to be more than
just another MCU entry, and while it certainly feels different from your typical MCU movie,
it also feels limited by its own genre and framework. The best parts of Eternals are
the intriguing character complications within discussions of being gods created by gods.
The formulaic infuse of comedy and traditional beats of an MCU movie are integrated to create
a muddled tone and approach that just quite honestly left me wanting
less of that. It felt like a Chloe Zhao movie with those elements, but the studio elements
pull these ones down. It would have been great to see more focus on immortal beings
wrestling with their relationship to humanity on the brink of a world-ending calamity, but Marvel
can’t and won’t make that because Eternals needs to continue. The world can never end, and Marvel
characters are designed to make sure the world is saved. Sure, the film adds in a few neat choices
here and there, but the bigger questions at the heart of these characters are eventually
pushed to the wayside because the plot has to keep moving forward to its climactic battle.
And in terms of pacing and action, Eternals is a real letdown.
I love myself some integral exposition, especially in that of the sci-fi genre but at times,
the plot stutters forward as it unloads heaps of it while jumping between the present and the past,
continually reintroducing characters when it would be so much better to simply settle down
and really get to know them as individuals. Whenever it’s time for an action scene,
almost all of the air goes out of the picture because even though the Eternals have cool
abilities and the movie tries to create a Main Deviant with some sort of belief, it’s still
superheroes using CGI to fight CGI monsters. Perhaps if these set pieces were more exciting,
that would be one thing, but they’re largely forgettable. But I will say that it's nice to see
a director using real locations in the MCU, rather than shooting on stages and behind a plethora of
green screens. It shows that there was some serious effort that went into the filming. But
despite the other glaring flaws that I mentioned before, Eternals is definitely not forgettable.
The film is willing to tackle such notions of faith, predestination, and fidelity than to say
it’s just another superhero movie would be wrong. My problem with Eternals is that the film is a
far more interesting one trapped within the constraints of a superhero movie, and those
limitations go against what could have been a more heady and thrilling experience. The film is
trying to do both as a genre film and as part of the MCU. That means it drags, has unsatisfyingly
jolting action scenes, and has no time to explore the more interesting factors of its narrative.
You can assemble an amazing cast and hire one of the best directors working today, but if you
do that, expect that creative voice to have a vision of what she wants to achieve. And her
creative voice, one which I really do applaud just doesn't fit the confines of what Marvel do
with their movies. I really do appreciate the ambition from Zhao here to do something quite
interesting, but the cracks of a traditional Marvel movie show within that approach.
With this particular film, you either do one or the other or find a way to balance it correctly.
But that was my review of Chloe Zhao's Eternals. Again, I really was pleasantly surprised by some
of the aspects of it and understand that Marvel fans want the more traditional
entries that they've been accustomed to seeing, but from a filmmaking standpoint, this is a
film that tries to juggle too much of it. Too many of the bigger questionS are made to feel
weightless once the conventional elements of a Marvel superhero movie come into play.
While it's not forgettable, the scenes between characters that do invest me in the narrative
ultimately hold less power and leave me wondering what a full-on Chloe Zhao Eternals film would
look like. I would rather they go full-on with that approach rather than feel like
they need to throw in elements that people love from the other films. At the end of the day,
you tackle one movie at a time and try to make the best movie you can. Films are an
art form, that individually can be focussed on at the times they need to, even if you have a
big cinematic universe with conventional approaches scattered across every film.
Eternals is a film that would have worked so much better if they did take it on without the need to
implement too many of those elements. But overall, it's a film that proves they can mix it up
and create a film less like the formula at times and to me that does get me hopeful for future
projects. But then I look to a film like No way Home, which although excites me through nostalgia,
that's really all it has going for it. I hope I'm wrong and I hope it does have a worthwhile story,
because Eternals is a film that did have one, one which was buried within the structure
that they can't seem to get away from. I'm giving Eternals a score of 7.5 out of 10.
Let me know down below in the comments section what you thought of Marvel's latest film alongside
whether you agree or disagree with the points I have raised in this video. It will be interesting
to see the long term audience consensus towards this film as I feel that based
on the content of it, it will be much more mixed in comparison to other MCU entries.
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