‘I’ve watched humans destroy each other when I could stop it all in a heartbeat…’
Love them or hate them, the reason the Avengers films have been so successful is that people care about those characters. Kevin Feige and the MCU have gone to great lengths across multiple platforms to ensure that the audience is invested. Eternals asks us to care about another group of Marvel superheroes, but this time from a standing start. For obvious reasons, this is not possible…
A group of celestial beings including Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Thena (Angelina Jolie) and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) must band together to fight the deviants – a group of similarly celestial beings that recall the huge insect aliens from Starship Troopers (a movie that is a lot more fun than this one is).
A great cast then, and a cast that, on the whole, do a solid job. Chan, Nanjiani and Madden make for a likeable and charismatic team, more than capable of carrying a superhero film between them, just not this superhero film. Oscar winning director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) always felt like an uncomfortable fit for a special effects laden blockbuster, and so it proves. Zhao gets bogged down in exposition and back story, but fails to render the characters in flesh and bone. As a result, when various characters are killed off it doesn’t hit like it should.
Elsewhere, Barry Keoghan steals every scene he’s in and Salma Hayek has fun, but the strong supporting cast are not enough to save this movie. In fact, the amount of characters the audience is expected to keep track of is part of the problem here. The plot isn’t complicated as such, but it is convoluted. There is simply too much going on for any of it to have the profound impact the film is reaching for.
Eternals isn’t a bad film, and it has a few great moments, but it does feel like an unnecessary film. While the previous incarnations of the MCU could be derivative and cynical, but they were also building to something cohesive. So far, phase four appears to be a little more aimless. Must try harder.