Eternals (2021) Movie Review
Eternals (2021) is the 26th entry in the MCU, a part of Phase 4 of the franchise and it is about a group of Alien beings who have been on Earth for thousands of years protecting mankind from another alien race called Deviants and they now have to reunite and face the ancient threat which has resurfaced. Similar to Guardians of the Galaxy, this is one of those Marvel properties that I had no prior knowledge of and the movie was my first foray into their story. Unlike Guardians of the Galaxy, though, it was not good.
The movie has a lot of problems and it falls under the umbrella of those flicks where the more you think about it, the worse it gets, and if you don’t think about it, it’s middling at best, as elements and players introduced by the story and trying to squeeze them in an already expansive Universe lacks well thought out writing for proper cohesion and thus it comes off as lazy and stupid. Case in point: The Celestials, the true Godly Beings that have been shown a few times before in the MCU but this is the movie where you get a proper explanation about their existence and when the plot reveals details about the Prime Celestial Arishem’s design, it’s just dumb and saps whatever interest one might have had in that part of the story and worldbulding.
Since I have grown a bit apathetic towards this cinematic universe due to worldbuilding shenanigans that Phase 4 has shown so far, poor writing in that area alone wouldn’t have been a big issue (would still be an issue) had the characters been interesting but that turned out to be the biggest problem of this movie which stems from its own nature of being i.e there are ten Eternals, ten main new characters that are introduced in a single movie, and none of them is properly developed. As I write this review, I don’t even remember the names of many of them. On top of that, director Chloe Zao decided to have the cast give uninterested/boring and bland performances for so much of the runtime instead of being energetic and charismatic utilizing every bit of screen time they have to imbue personality to their roles. There was also lost potential of a plot point regarding Deviants, the movie just ends it in an anti-climatic fashion and throws it away.
With all that being said, I did enjoy certain things. There were some beautiful visuals, particularly with the Celestials and their gargantuan scale, especially if you don’t think about the physics of it all. Some of the fights were entertaining even with the iffy CGI, the speedster Eternal especially was portrayed how I’d wish other movies to showcase their speed type characters and you get a fun meta pseudo Superman vs Flash throwdown. Despite having thin characterization, some Eternals I did end up liking such as Druig, Gilgamesh or even Icarus, and hell I even got interested in that one Deviant since that seemed important relative to most characters in the movie. I also do applaud the director for not filling the movie to the brim with the typical Marvel brand of humour which has been getting too annoying recently and I wish strong writing was present to complement the more serious tone. Plus, the movie had both Jon Snow and Robb Stark fall in love with Sersi which I found amusing.
Overall, this is in the bottom tier of MCU movies for me. I wouldn’t say it’s the worst one, that title belongs to Black Widow for now. I don’t know how the events in Eternals will play out going forward in the MCU or whether it’ll have any impact or would be forgotten. This probably would have fared far better if it was a Disney+ series instead as that would have given it time to develop its characters at the very least even if at the loss of spectacle. Wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re an MCU fan and completionist. Anyway, if I were to rate it, I’d give it a 5/10.
