I’ll admit I watched this, as opposed to say, “Shang Chi”, precisely because of the critical drubbing it received (47% on Rotten Tomatoes, 52 on Metacritic). Just naturally contrarian that way I suppose.
It’s
definitely the least Marvel-y Marvel movie, though I’m not sure that makes it
actually good. The differences are kind of refreshing. The heroes do not
spend the whole movie trading quips back and forth to ironically comment on the
action. The final battle is not fought against a faceless army of CGI monsters.
More to the point, the movie is easily at its weakest when it tries to do all
the typical Marvel things—the action sequences are kind of rote and uninspiring
CGI fests shot in near-darkness, the humor mostly falls flat, and attempts to
tie it into the greater MCU feel incredibly forced.
Whatever
the talents of Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao (haven’t seen her other
movies, to be honest), a Marvel movie was not the best fit. There’s some
genuinely intriguing and original dynamics going on between the characters and
some beautiful cinematography, but it all feels squeezed into the straitjacket
of the superhero action genre.
It
is overstuffed, even at two and a half hours long. We’re introduced to a team
of 10 superheroes called the “Eternals”, or rather, we’re introduced to three
superheroes, and then another one, and then another two, and then another and
then and so on and so on.
About
three-quarters of the movie is spent on scenes of people standing in a rough V
formation somewhere with austere natural beauty, and then explaining the rest
of the movie to whichever character they’ve just met. This doesn’t leave much
room for the villains, of which there are two, just to further compound the
problem.
The
premise is that these Eternals have been sent to the Earth by a “Celestial”
super-being called Arishem, supposedly to protect humanity from alien predators
called the Deviants. In flashback we see the Eternals killed the last Deviant
sometime around the year 1500 and then they… just kind of hang out for a bit. Jump
to the present day, when Deviants start to reappear and the Eternals have to
get the crew back together again. One. Person. At. A. Time. By standing in a rough
V somewhere with austere natural beauty.
It
turns out though that the whole mission is a cover story, and their real job
has been to ensure Earth reaches a big enough population for a new Celestial to
be born out of the planet’s core, a process which is going destroy the Earth
and kill everyone living on it. Celestials, in turn, are responsible for
birthing new stars, which leads to the creation of new planets and new life. The circle of life etc. thank you Lion King. In
theory the dilemma facing the Eternals is whether it is better to sacrifice
humanity so that other worlds and other species may get a chance at life, or to
save the Earth at the cost of the unborn godling.
The
trouble with this, as in all of Marvel’s high stakes “save the universe”
stories, is that as part of a franchise the result is a foregone conclusion, so
the dilemma never feels like much of one. Oh, two or three characters voice
reservations, but human-genocide is too extreme to make us feel it’s a
real option and the majority of the team is just instantly and immediately on
board the “save the humans” train without a second thought, so we never really
explore the question in any detail.
It’s
just one way the movie raises interesting questions or ideas, then immediately
discards them.
The
concept of a superhero movie where the superheroes discover they are not, in
fact, heroic at all is an intriguing one, but like I say the instant they
discover the truth (after Arishem just blurts it out) they immediately start
behaving heroically. In some ways it does feel like a rehash of the concept
from Captain Marvel, but there at least her immediate switch to hero mode made
sense, whereas with the Eternals it’s just baffling—if they were
created-slash-programmed by the Celestials, why lie to them about their
mission? Why not program obedience into them?
Another casualty of the obfuscation of the plot is the Deviants themselves, which are revealed to be another
creation of the Celestials, originally designed as a kind of
predator-extermination device to ensure humanity has enough ecological space to
evolve, but which escaped the Celestial’s control and ran amok. The parallels
between Eternals and Deviants are kind of toyed with, but ultimately the only narrative purpose of this thread is to act as a red herring to distract you from the big twist/reveal.
Along
the way the movie also raises and then skips over things like the dementia of
Thena (Angelina Jolie), the loss and (almost immediate) recovery of faith by
the group’s tech whiz Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), and the philosophy of telepath/mind
control guy Druig (Barry Keoghan) who thinks humanity would be better off if he
was allowed to force us all to be nice.
One
or two characters say the word “family” a couple of times as if that was the
movie’s theme, though I think it works better as a tale about duty versus
emotion or empathy.
Cut
the number of characters in half and focus more on the dynamic between the
putative leader, Sersi (Gemma Chan) and not-Superman-but-c’mon Ikaris (Richard
Madden) and I think you would’ve had a decent flick. Madden in particular is
the best thing here, with a juicy role and a character torn between duty and
affection (the romance with Chan lacks on-screen chemistry though, especially
compared with the instant and easy affection of Keoghan and Lauren Ridloff, who
plays yet another hero I haven’t had time to introduce yet).
The
conclusion, mid- and post-credit stingers are all typical Marvel fare, setups
for future sequels and introductions of some character you’re supposed to know
from the comics. Two people who were quite happy to see humanity exterminated
are suddenly friends with the family again. Someone hugs another character who
quite literally stabbed them in the literal back with a literal dagger literally
two scenes ago. Ha ha, no hard feelings. Some dude shows up and after a
dramatic pause says, “Hi, I’m Gleepwurp.”
For
all that, I do feel a lot of affection for this movie. A lot of it is just
seeing guys like Richard Madden and Kit Harington again. I kind of feel bad for
them the way Game of Thrones ended, so seeing them in other roles is like
seeing an old high school friend doing okay. Like, I was delighted to see
Madden in his little part in ‘1917”. Good for you Rich, don’t let that show get
you down, keep on doing your thing. Same for you Kit. I have this irrational
urge to give them a hug and tell them it will all be okay. Dad’s here, buddy,
dad’s here. I got you.
Hm. Guess it did turn out to be about family after all.
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