Eternals: Marvel's New Wannabe-Avengers Franchise is Too Busy to Be Fun

By Karen Gordon

Rating: C

Eternals, which is, incredibly, the 26th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise - and in superhero tradition an origin story – introduces us to 10 superheroes at once. 

It has all the elements you’d expect in an MCU movie. It references events from other movies, which places it in the Avengers timeline. It pits the heroes against a formidable enemy or enemies. it offsets the gravitas with humour.  It has lots and lots of action, across many locations, both earthly and not.  It asks questions about humanity, sacrifice, loyalty and heroism.  

How many backstories is too many to care about? This many.

Ambitious, yes. You’d expect as much from Oscar-winning indie director Chloé Zhao, who’s taking her leap into the world of nine-figure budgeted blockbusters.

Unfortunately, the net result is underwhelming.  

Eternals, is a group of 10 beings with superpowers, sent to earth 7,000 years ago to save it from fire breathing lizard-like creatures from space called deviants. 

Their mission accomplished, the heroes were assigned to stay on earth, and keep an eye on civilization, just in case, without interfering. Although as we see, they have not been entirely successful with that particular directive.

The 10 are Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden) , Thena (Angelina Jolie), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sprite (Lia McHugh),  Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Druig (Barry Keoghan) and their leader—Ajak (Salma Hayek), who gets her directions from a Celestial, a universal being who looks like a giant robot of sorts, somewhere out in cosmos. 

As the film begins we see the dilemma of being an Eternal with super powers living amongst mortal beings.  Sersi teaches at a museum in London, and long-time boyfriend Dane Whitman, (Kit Harington) is ready to take the relationship to the next step and move in together and, is puzzled by Sersi’s reluctance. 

It’s his birthday, but the celebration is cut short when they are attacked by a deviant—-and then more. Luckily, Sprite is with Sersi as the fight begins, and they are suddenly joined by Ikaris. 

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

The three fend off the attack, but after thousands of years, why are the Deviants back? There are more popping up around the planet, faster than the Eternals can deal with them. Arak calls them together and updates them.   

This just in: they must defeat the deviants, who, by the way, have been upgraded from snarling fire breathing monsters to something much more self-aware. 

But getting unity from the Eternals is another issue altogether. They’re not united in terms of their feelings about why’re they’re on earth.  Some aren’t fans of humanity. Or fighting and killing. Some are at odds with their teammates. They went in different directions thousands of years ago and hoped to keep it that way. Plus, some are damaged: Centuries of war left Thena, with a kind of PTSD, that flares up at unpredictable times, flipping her into a fight mode where she cannot distinguish friend from foe.  Gilgamesh has taken her away to care for her in a low stress environment, out in the wilderness.  

The rest all have their stories and baggage, which eats up screen time. But, save the world they must. What’s ahead challenges not only their ability to fight as a team, but brings a series of shocking twists for the group.

It’s a lot. And on paper, anyway, there are many intriguing and fun ideas implicitly and explicitly here. For instance: Ikaris, Thena, Gilgamesh, the hint that some of the Eternals were mistaken for gods and demi-gods in human history, is a clever idea.  And Phastos’s desire to move humanity along for the better results in him inventing things that are both amazing and horrible. 

But the weight of all of this makes for a long, and sometimes overly detailed journey. The film has more locations than a Bond film. But then again, Bond is Earthbournd, and the action plays out in a single time-line, whereas Eternals jumps around, from ancient cultures like Mesopotamia, to present time (-ish) out in space. After a while, all of this slows the film down and becomes tedious.

It’s an incredibly diverse cast, ethnically and culturally, which is one of the most appealing things about the film.  It’s also thoughtful in its casting. Lauren Ridloff, is a deaf actor who plays the speedster Makkari, who is herself deaf and uses sign language.

But this particular cast has little chemistry. And that is especially evident between Gemma Chan and Richard Madden, Sersi and Ikaris, who are meant to have been in love for thousands of years.  And some characters feel wrong. For instance, and it pains me to say this, I normally like Kumail Nanjiani, but despite a newly-impressive physique, and his commitment to the character, he doesn’t quite fit.  

Oddly, the actors with the least amount of screen time, and the mortals in this story,  Kit Harrington and Harish Patel, end up being the most memorable.  

Eternals continues the MCU’s push to bring new and unexpected directors to the franchise. So far they’ve chosen largely from independent cinema, which has brought new points of view to action and superheroes.   

This film was co-written and directed by the Chloé Zhao, who was hired before she won her Oscar this past year for Nomadland.  It’s a smart move for Marvel, but an unexpected choice for her.  Zhao’s previous films are polar opposite to a big CGI multi-character action film.  

She’s an intelligent and confident filmmaker, but definitely an independent auteur, who has,  up until now, made very, small scale, character driven, movies, that are quiet, grounded, soulful, almost meditative and deeply affecting.  

 I’m a big fan of hers.  To switch suddenly to a film that’s all Sturm and Drang and special effects has to be like creative whiplash.

For a director normally rooted in reality, she does surprisingly well here handling the big action elements. But it’s only part of what’s needed here. The film loses momentum early on and starts to feel listless. 

Part of that is the ambition of the script. With superheroes whose lives go back to some fascinating points in human history, the temptation must have been to swing for the fences, and work in as much as possible.  

But the film doesn’t need it all. It’s added freight that slows the film down. In the end, all of those good intentions, don’t make for enough of a fun and exciting movie. 

Eternals. Directed by Chloé Zhao. Starring Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harrington, Kumail Nanjiani and Bryan Tyree Hendry. Eternals opens in theatres, November 5, 2021.