Eternals Review

The third film in Marvel’s continuously growing phase four The Eternals had its debut at the beginning of this holiday season on November fourth and is a massive bag of mixed opinions. The film built a reputation for itself even before release for its massive cast of completely new unknown characters and its supposed ¨mold breaking¨ story compared to the Marvel movie formula fans have become accustomed to within the last decade. The film was directed by Oscar award winner Chloe Zhao and starrs several well known Hollywood actors and actresses like Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington and Richard madden.

The story follows a group of nine main characters called the Eternals, that have been alive for hundreds of thousands of years. They have been alive for all earth’s major events and hardships but have sworn not to intervene in any conflicts unless their enemies the “Deviants” are involved. Hence why these ¨all powerful¨ beings did not intervene or help during times like Thanos and his mission to erase half the universe.

The Deviants or otherwise known as the “changing people ” are an alien race with the ability to shapeshift. They are the evil, more “imperfect” versions of the Eternals but equally as powerful. They are most often in some kind of  humanoid form but have the ability to transform into monstrous beasts unlike the Eternals’ human bodies. The Eternals and Deviants were both created by all powerful God like entities called Celestials but only the audience are told this as it’s kept a secret from the characters for most of the movie.

This film has a large amount of information and concepts to both explain and introduce, but that does not take away from the fact that it is very poorly written. The film crams all this information into your head within the first half of the movie, and leaves the rest of the film for the actual story they are trying to tell; it doesn’t work very well. Not only that but the film has very little time to develop and make each character likable or even interesting. There is no reason for the audience to root for the Eternals anymore than the “bad guys’ ‘ because the audience aren’t shown anything, they are simply told by the film that one is good, one is bad. When a film does this it makes it extremely difficult for anyone to attach to any of the characters or care about what happens to them. The information that is received will leave your mind as fast as it entered making the characters and story feel soulless.

Shortly after this massive introduction, we find out that the Deviants who were thought to have been destroyed thousands of years ago are actually still alive and growing. After the main protagonist ¨Sersi¨ gets attacked by one of the Deviants, she ventures off with her past lover and other Eternal ¨Ikaris¨ to find the rest of the Eternals in an attempt to bring them back together and destroy the Deviants once and for all. This portion of the film works very well because not only is it interesting and more entertaining than the lackluster introduction, but instead we get to spend a lot more time with the highlight characters of the film, Sersi and Ikaris. Their characters not only are the most developed but they also have the best performances and relationship in the film.

Sersi and Ikaris are now traveling the globe in an attempt to bring the team back together and introducing the rest of the characters including Thena, Druig, Kingo, Phastos, Ajak, Sprite and Gilgamesh. During the introduction to all these characters, we get glimpses into some of their personalities. While some shine through more than others, any glimpse of an interesting character is abruptly cut off due to there being so many members and not enough time for each of them.

After all the members are back together, they come up with a plan to kill the Deviants and stop the destruction of Earth. However, they are quickly halted after finding out that ¨Ikaris¨ is working against them and is actually helping the deviants become more powerful. The reason he is doing this is because the celestial Arishem that created the Eternals is also responsible for creating the deviants. Ikaris is simply being loyal to his ¨creator¨. This twist somewhat works because Ikaris is already the most likable character, but in the end this just works against the film as it plays with the audience’s feelings, making the audience want the ¨bad guy¨ to win.

The Eternals find out that Ikaris has been working behind the scenes and that Arishems real plan is to destroy Earth by allowing another Celestial to be born within the planet, killing everyone in the process. They attempt to overthrow Ikaris by combining their powers together to stop the birth of the celestial and stopping Ikaris in the end halting earth’s destruction and in the end saving the day.

This film has a lot of highs and lows, but is outweighed by the lows. The film is stunning visually and has some great action sequences as well as characters, and unfortunately falls flat with an overall flavorless story and convoluted plot. The movie doesn’t bring enough life or soul in its story or cast to make anyone really fall in love with the characters or want more from their story in general. Unless you watch every new Marvel film or simply can’t fight that Marvel urge, the film definitely is not a must watch in the theater. Overall, the film falls into the 6/10 range; definitely wouldn’t hurt waiting until a Disney plus release.