Review: Marvel's Eternals
Eternals, directed by Chloé Zhao, tells the tale of the Eternals, a group of superpowered beings sent by the Celestial Arishem to protect humanity from demonic monsters known as the Deviants and help them advance as a species. For five thousand years, the Eternals live in secret among humanity watching their progress and vowing not to interfere with their conflict. But when Deviants start to show up once again, one Eternal named Sersi (Gemma Chan) decides to bring the whole gang back together and stop the Deviant threat once and for all.
As I mentioned in my review for Shang-Chi, I’m kind of tired of coming out to every single Marvel film hoping to see something new only to be sorely disappointed by just how basic and bare minimum these films end up being. I was originally planning on skipping this one because I expected the very same result I had with previous Marvel films as of late, but I ultimately caved as I heard this film is being unusually divisive among Marvel fans for being a little too “different” from the Marvel formula. So maybe, just maybe, this new Marvel film from recent Academy Award winning director Chloé Zhao, who is now only the second woman director to ever win a Best Director Oscar for last year’s Nomadland, can finally bring something new and memorable to the table after a long creative drought in the MCU.
Did she succeed? Kind of, but not really. Eternals really, REALLY tries to be a special movie in the MCU, but it’s still frustratingly a MCU movie.
Marvel fans can bicker and argue over one another for whether this movie being “different” from all the other Marvel films is a good thing or bad all they want. Me personally I don’t see that much of a difference; this film essentially takes the cosmic storyline and characters from the Guardians of the Galaxy films, suck out most of the charm and humor from those films, and replace it with Marvel’s initial attempts to be “serious” from the first two Thor films. You still have the Marvel comedy throughout the film like in other Marvel movies (only this time it feels forced for the most part), you still have the same generic plot involving the destruction of Earth or something by a big generic baddie, you still have the big freaking CGI fight sequences as the climax, it’s still a freaking Marvel film.
The only real difference I see with this Marvel film compared to others is the fact that I can tell there’s actually a creative mind behind the camera. Zhao’s direction is prominently on display; not only is this film visually unique, I also appreciated how the film’s more quieter moments were handled. The performances were overall okay; the only real standouts for me were Barry Keoghan, Brian Tyree Henry, Lia McHugh, and to my surprise Angelina Jolie who all give probably some of my favorite performances in a MCU movie so far, while everyone else does a decent job.
Overall this film frustrates the hell out of me; it tries really hard to be a unique Marvel film, but at the end of the day, it’s still a Marvel film. I would be more comfortable at least saying it’s worth checking out if it wasn’t for its slow and monstrous TWO HOUR AND FORTY MINUTE runtime. If you like the MCU will probably like this movie, but then again even hardcore MCU fans are split with this movie so what do I know? If this sounds like something you might enjoy then by all means go check it out, otherwise wait until the MCU makes this a required viewing for Phase Four.
Final Verdict: 5/10