Eternals – An Overambitious Blockbuster Character Study

The MCU is an indisputable well-oiled machine, cranking out 25 feature films and 3 television series thus far. Their latest entry, Eternals, hasn’t necessarily been off to the best of starts in comparison to past entries with the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any MCU film thus far. Dividing critics and some audiences, many have put the film at or near the bottom of their respective MCU lists. Though the film may not be a perfect one by any means, it does take a few big swings in order to move the MCU as a whole forward and those swings may not have necessarily connected with a large portion of audiences. That being said, it should be commended for trying to do something different and who better to imbue some new vision than Chloé Zhao? While that vision is definitely there, the way the film goes about it in a not so concise way as it takes the long approach to establish its titular characters and their backstories while tying all to a bigger message about the meaning of life and what it means to be human. Bringing much of the same thrills and spectacle while attempting that same heavy lifting makes for a long experience that may not all work and also one that’s far too long, clocking in at over 2.5 hours.

There’s a lot of story here, however, for those who are still unaware, Eternals tells the story of the Eternals, a group of ancient aliens sent to Earth 7,000 years ago to watch over the progress of the human race without interfering and protect them from a mysterious race of creatures known as Deviants. Believing they had rid the planet of Deviants, they went on with their lives but little did they know, the Deviants were the least of their problems. Having a front row seat to human history afforded them a unique perspective that wasn’t always easy for them, having to balance their mission and doing what is right in the face of war and genocide. Though that perspective may create a disconnect with some audiences at times based on the appropriateness of wisecracking in the midst of some of the darker moments in human history, there was also plenty of light to be found. Having to essentially introduce 10 characters as well as their backstories is quite the undertaking for any film and this one did it in a decent way (favoring some characters over others) although it perhaps spent too much time in the past to do so which became redundant rather quickly.

That aforementioned character development paid dividends later on but it still made for a lot of moving parts while trying to tie all that character development of immortal God-like characters developing their own humanity to a deeper message fueling their motivation didn’t quite connect as it got lost under the weight of the film’s ambitiousness (assuming audiences can keep up and/or haven’t tuned anything out). The way Eternals approaches its characters may not have all worked but its attempt to create deeper and more well-rounded characters with more adult themes was a refreshing change. With all that world building and character establishing, this was still an MCU film so all of it had to lead to something, Along those lines, the film didn’t have much of a villain as the characters battled in more of an ideological war that put the fate of Earth and the entire human race in jeopardy (all that character development gave some context to that war). Nevertheless, watching the characters come together once again was still glorious to watch and surprisingly emotional but this latter character development ringed redundant after the work done in the past though the point was to highlight the contrast between the past and the present which was at least somewhat interesting (a consolidation of both timelines would have made for a more streamlined watch).

In the end, the spectacle we have become accustomed to as MCU audiences was still very much here this time around. Despite playing mostly like an intimate character study, Eternals still possessed the same size and scope. The special effects were solid while the action scenes were well shot and the set pieces themselves were exciting to watch. The biggest takeaway, however, are the beautiful cinematography, going for a more realistic and grounded look using less greenscreen and more real locations, and the epic score. However, the film would not have worked nearly as well if not for the performances to help bring the film’s vision to life. Chan, Madden, Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, and Don Lee as Cersi, Ikaris, Thena, Ajak, Kingo, Sprite, Phastos, Makkari, Druig, and Gilgamesh respectively each gave their characters personality and were fun to watch as they played off of each other, showing off their great chemistry.

While Eternals definitely delivered a satisfying ending, this was not the end of their story as the film offers 2 pretty big post-credits scenes for audiences who hang around until after the credits roll.

still courtesy of Disney

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.