Eternals Review: The MCU Movie No One Can Agree On
Disney’s Marvel’s take on Zack Snyder, and it’s pretty good not gonna lie.
To paraphrase other critics I’ve heard talk about this movie:
If Guardians of the Galaxy is Marvel’s answer to Star Wars, if Black Widow is Marvel’s answer to Mission: Impossible, and if the Falcon and the Winter Soldier is Marvel’s answer to Lethal Weapon, then Eternals is Marvel’s answer to Zack Snyder’s Justice League.
This section of the review I am writing before I actually see the movie. Just because I feel it’s important to address the discourse that this movie has brought. A lot of people who haven’t even seen the movie yet have been hotly debating each other online, and are just waiting to jump on the bandwagon. Whether that bandwagon is positive or negative.
I find it tiresome that there is no room in the discourse for just not liking a movie, and that being okay. Or just liking a movie and that being okay. Or just thinking a movie is okay and there isn’t hot debate about it, there isn’t anger, it’s just a movie. With everything going on in the outside world I just don’t see the point in getting mad at strangers about a movie.
After this section break, I will review the actual movie. I just felt it important to address this and to say I find most discourse like this ridiculous. There is no reason to get this loudly passionate about a corporate company’s product especially if it’s one you haven’t consumed yet.
I love Marvel, I love DC, I love comics in general. I love movies in general. I wanted to see this just because it’s a Marvel movie, and I like Marvel movies. It’s a Chloé Zhao movie and the cinematography looks beautiful, I really love the cast too, and I can’t wait to see what they bring to this type of story.
I also really like Jack Kirby. He has beautiful art with very interesting aesthetics that no one else can ever really replicate properly. And I always love seeing how movies and other visual mediums interpret his artwork. Whether it’s Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok’s pop color aesthetic or Into the Spider-Verse's use of lines and dots to denote movement, speed, and power. It’s all very interesting and I’m very excited to see what I could best describe as an Oscar-bait version of Jack Kirby's art.
So now that I’ve said my piece about basically how I just hate fandoms and annoying discourse, then let me be completely hypocritical and proceed to tell you guys about my discourse on this latest Disney’s Marvel’s multibillion-dollar project.
Now that I’ve actually watched the movie, I can only describe it as big.
I’ve heard a lot of people refer to it as being dense, but how I think of the definition of the word dense is it is something more akin to being very heady and complicated. This movie is pretty straightforward, I was never lost in the plot or what was happening, it’s just that there is a lot of plot and a lot to cover. So, I can see why that’s the reason why people are calling it dense.
The movie balances a large ensemble cast of mostly unknown characters that no one has ever been accustomed to before (unless you’re a nerd like me who read the Neil Gaiman run of Eternals comics, which the movie seems largely inspired by).
And yeah, even though there are so many new ideas happening at once, the movie does bring them out at a relatively satisfying pace. I was never confused about which character was which and what each person’s deal was. Most characters I was able to turn off my brain from going, “oh, it’s Salma Hayek” or “oh, it's Jon Snow”. I was able to sit there and only see them as their characters instead of the actors.
The movie opens with an action scene that very clearly establishes who each character is, what their powers are, and what their relationships with each other are like. It is never once overwhelming, it doesn’t feel like an exposition dump, and it’s just very nice and expertly crafted. Chloé Zhao can direct the heck out of some action scenes.
The movie has partly been sold on how diverse it is with its cast and crew. But the diversity of it goes beyond that observation.
To me “feeling like a Marvel movie” just means a pretty high stakes plot with characters that you really like and are very relatable whom people latch onto, with a big third act fight scene that’s filled with CGI and probably goes on a little too long.
Within that formula, Eternals has found a way to feel like a genuine standalone movie. If you took out one or two lines in this film, it wouldn’t need to be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It would work on its own. It feels much bigger than any other Marvel movie, it even feels bigger in scope than Avengers: Endgame. Which is saying quite a lot, especially since this movie didn’t have multiple years of build-up to it.
Tonally it reminds me of some sort of mix of Man of Steel mixed with Lord of the Rings. While Man of Steel isn’t exactly my favorite movie in the world, my comparison to it is only in relation to the positives of that movie. It deals with similar themes and visual styles.
I would even agree with the consensus that I mentioned at the beginning of this review, about this basically being Marvel’s take on Zack Snyder’s version of the Justice League. It does feel that unique compared to other movies in this cinematic universe.
One of the things that impressed me most about this diversity is that the actors are largely playing against type in this film. None of the actors in this movie are playing a role that they would typically be cast as in other films. And that shows in their performances. They all have an energy of excitement that they get to play something different.
Not to mention the score and the cinematography bringing this movie up to a higher level than the standard Marvel product. This movie looks like a genuine Oscar contender in the visual department. The cinematography and directing are amazing and the editing is phenomenal. It all comes together in this beautiful visual feast that goes at such a strong pace you won’t feel the length of this movie at all.
However, even though I never really felt the length of this film, that doesn’t mean there isn’t any fat from it that couldn’t be trimmed. For a movie that covers so much story, there are some scenes I think you could shrink or cut out and lose literally nothing.
But the film is so different from other Blockbusters, that similar to Dune, I honestly forgive a lot of its flaws because I’m so intrigued by what’s going on on the screen. The flaws become almost part of its charm. It’s just so engaging and beautiful, and I would highly recommend seeing this movie in IMAX to appreciate the bigness of this movie.
It is easily an experience that you wouldn’t want to miss watching on the biggest screen possible. It really takes advantage of the wider aspect ratio, better screen quality, and color definition in IMAX screens
So in summary, I really like this movie.
I think a lot of people that like Marvel movies are going to like this movie but also I can kind of see why a lot of people won’t. If you don’t like it that’s fine too, I just think the discourse around this movie is pretty annoying and I think we can all help improve that discourse by just being a little more honest about how we feel instead of instigating fights about it on social media. It’s just kind of a waste of time, this movie is better than that. This movie doesn’t deserve the type of reaction that would typically be reserved for something much worse and problematic. It’s just a fun adventure movie.
There are some other things I didn’t really like about the film. I think a few of the actors are kind of wasted in their roles and would have been better used in a bigger part somewhere else in this universe.
I’m also not a huge fan of the ending. I don’t mean that in the sense of like the third act is bad, I actually like the third act quite a bit. I think it’s one of the better Marvel third acts. I mean literally the last two or three scenes I wasn’t a fan of, and the post-credit scene really didn’t do anything for me.
This isn’t a spoiler, but one of the things I found interesting about the post-credit scene is how loud my audience in the theater reacted. This shocked me because the reveal is a pretty deep-cut comic book reference. Also within the context of that reference, it’s not exactly a plot line or character I personally enjoy so I didn’t really feel any excitement.
But I can still sort of understand why people were excited, it just didn’t do much for me. Except for the new side character that showed up, I love them. It’s just the main big reveal I didn’t like.
The villains also could have been a bit better. I think the Deviants are pretty weak, especially with the Deviant leader that you’ve seen in the trailer. Like, he just doesn’t have enough to do to the story, and the second he brings up an interesting point he kinda just walks out of the film. And the other villains I think are something I’ve seen a little too much before. I’ve seen the idea done better in other superhero media. I’m also a little exhausted by some of the tropes of recent superhero media that this movie uses, just cuz I’m tired of seeing it. It’s really hard to talk about this without spoilers I’m trying to be honest about how I’m feeling without giving anything away.
But as I said, I did like this movie I would probably give it something like a 7 out of 10. It was fun, I’ll probably watch it again on Disney+ one day.
In the context of the other media that Marvel has released this year, I probably rank this in the middle quality-wise. I really really liked Loki, Shang-Chi, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but I didn’t like What If and Black Widow so much. Those last two I thought were kind of boring and derivative. So this is ranked smack-dabbed in the middle with WandaVision.
So see the movie, make up your own mind, I think a lot of people are going to enjoy this. If not at least we all get Spider-Man coming out next month and that’s going to be awesome.
I’ll be real with ya’ll, I’m just a really big Spider-Man fan and I like any movie with Spider-Man in it. I even like the Spider-Man movies that I think are terrible just because I like the character so much.
I probably should have ended this review a little while ago.
if it’s not obvious I’m writing this in a talk to type program, the computer is just automatically typing the words I’m saying cuz I kind of wanted to try to give this review a more conversational vibe to it. I’m not sure if that comes off but I guess we’ll see and if you guys like reading this I suppose I will write my other views in the same style.
Yeah, that’s it, probably should have wrapped this up earlier, these last paragraphs are a bit excessive but I thought it might be fun to keep it in any way.
All hail Salma Hayek.
