The Eternals

Why Does Everyone Hate You?

3/5

Spoilers

Any MCU released has long been a cause of excitement for many cinema goers. As long as you aren't the sort of person who buys into Scorsese's hypocritical ramblings, the latest Marvel flick can bring you a sense of anticipation and enjoyment. Even the slightly duffer entries can cause some buzz. Yet the latest offering from President-for-Life Feige has seen a different response reverberating across the silver screened cosmos - something between indifference and outright contempt. I had my suspicions about the root causes when I went to see the picture but did find myself falling into the 'disappointed' camp. Many reviewers are seeing this is as a chance to tear into Marvel, so I am going to present today's review in three stages: the good, the bad, and the baffling.

The Good

You may have been led to believe that The Eternals is devoid of life. If this is the case, you have been misled. There are many things that work well in the film. The most obvious example is the cinematography and visual direction. With the Oscar winning Nomadland, Chloé Zhao's brought us beautiful vistas from across America. The contrast of the harshness of a nomadic existence with the sheer wonder of the landscape was creatively handled. Here, we have the same sort of shots being used, albeit to slightly less purpose. As the Eternals grapple with their role in the universe, and the potential destruction of Earth, the sublime imagery shows us what might be lost if they decide against humanity.

This leads me nicely to the strongest aspect of the film. The core plot presents an interesting dilemma, couple with religious overtones. The Eternals believe they have been sent to Earth to protect humans from the destructive Deviants, creatures from the black of space, on the orders of the godlike celestial Arishem. It turns out that they were doing so to allow another celestial to one day harvest people of Earth as it is born from the ruin of the planet. This new celestial would then go on to create new galaxy's and thus new life. It is apparently the natural order of the Marvel universe. The Eternals are forced to decide whether they should kill the new celestial and thus save Earth, or allow nature to proceed and for this celestial to create billions of new life forms.

The moral quandary is important. How do you decide between the greater good, saving Earth, or the real greater good by allowing all of humanity to perish? When they obviously decide to save the planet the question remains, have they made the right choice? As an audience member, you are naturally drawn to agree with their choice, but it might not be the right one. In many ways, as we are facing Climate Change, we can see this debate occurring in many developing countries around the world - promote industrialisation and improve the living standards of your citizens, or help to stop climate change for the good of the whole planet and future generations. You may see what the right answer is, but there is definitely more nuance to the question than is always perceived.

The Bad

The element that struggles most is the script, in all capacitates that 'the script' has. The dialogue is at times rather simplistic (a scene where Angelina Jolie's Thena delivers a speech to Gemma Chan's Sersi before telling her bluntly to "Get up." springs to mind). The tone of the film wanders - a serious feel familiar from Nomadland is interrupted with more typical MCU banter. Although I greatly enjoyed Harish Patel's Karun, the valet to Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, Kingo's own comedic scenes felt out of place.

The characters are fairly flat. An issue with using characters who are around 7000 years old, on the face of it, is that they must stay fairly rigid across scenes, or so Zhao seems to have decided. They are also quite lightly written, meaning you never fully engage with any of them. One of the most interesting and engaging characters, Don Lee's Gilgamesh, is unceremoniously killed off before he has opportunity to give the film a real lift.

A more fascinating area of the film is the use of historic settings for flashbacks. We see the Eternal's influence in Babylon, are told about their work in Athens, are shown Excalibur, and see their Beatles-esque break, to quote Bruce Banner, in the burning ruins of Tenochtitlan. But these are fragments barely touched upon, fragments I found much more interesting that the apocalypse these rather bland characters were trying to prevent. A first film would have worked better in establishing characters through a plot set across history, such as stopping the Deviants, before a second film focusing on the revelation of their true purpose and the oncoming destruction of Earth. This would have left greater space for character growth and then development and have ultimately been more impactful.

The Baffling

What has perplexed me most, though, is the general critical response to the film. It's definitely not Marvel's best. Against the standard the MCU has reached in the last five or six years this feels like a lesser tier endeavour. But it most certainly is not their worst. I think it had (just about) more going for it than the summer's Black Widow, and it is nowhere near as genuinely bad as either Iron Man 2 or The Incredible Hulk. In many ways, I would like all of the reviewers who have suggested it to be a bad Marvel film to take a moment to reflect on that and then think about The Incredible Hulk. Seriously consider it against The Incredible Hulk. Seriously.

There are two possibilities for the response. The first option is a sense of genuine disappointment. When The Eternals was first announced, I was rather nonplussed. In all my long years of reading Marvel comics, I think I had rarely come across the characters, and the whole concept sounded rather dull. Although a similar feeling ran through me with Guardians of the Galaxy, I did think this was more likely to crash and burn like Marvel TV's short-lived Inhumans - a boring product based on a boring comic.

Then Chloé Zhao won Best Director at the Oscars and we suddenly knew the film was being helmed by someone independently minded with a distinctive talent. The prospects were looking up. I imagine many saw this as the potential for a new type of Marvel film, something more considered and introspective. What we got did not live up to that promise, that ember of excitement. When you have set yourself up for the possibility of perfection, the crushing realisation of disappointment can distort the perception of reality. It was not a bad film, but maybe it was punished for not being a great film.

The other option is more infuriating - the critics were waiting for a chance to lay into the MCU and they found their chance. They were presented with a massive film, with a top quality director, that was seen as a bit of a gamble - perfect prey for those keen to take Disney down a peg or five. I have great concerns with people who insist on taking undeserved shots at either the parent or junior company. For now, I'll just focus on Marvel critics.

The MCU is a great piece of cinematic work. The Infinity Saga presented the first real attempt to create a cinematic world, a series of interconnected stories leading to a greater whole. It was visionary, creative, experimental, and ultimately breathtaking. Although there is a house style, as such a work would need to have, each film brought something new to the table - not one is a superhero film, each in fact brings superheroes to a new genre (war film, sci-fi, industrial espionage, comedy, etc...). The truly exciting part, though, is what is happening now. We have moved from one unifying plot to a world just existing. As a comic book fan one of best aspects of comics is the idea that stories continue and grow and develop. The apocalypse comes and goes, but the characters have got to just move on and keep living. Cinema has never allowed that scope before, the chance to see what happens to a character once the credits have rolled. Sequels occasionally touch on this, but only for another roll of the dice. Phase Four onwards promises characters moving beyond their original situations, overlaps, and developments going where no film has gone before. People who wish this continuingly enjoyable experiment would end are really missing the point. Simply put, though, if you don't like them and don't get them, don't watch them - some of us though wish to keep following the journey as it grows. Although The Eternals is not the greatest entry in the MCU canon, it was an enjoyable watch and a worthwhile thread in the tapestry.

The Eternals, 2021

Director: Chloé Zhao

Writers: Chloé Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, & Kaz Firpo based on The Eternals by Jack Kirby

Composer: Ramin Djawadi

Starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, & Angelina Jolie

Currently showing in major U.K. cinemas