Movie Review: Eternals - Marvel's Oscar Bait

 

For years, some people have been wondering what Marvel Studios' first major misfire would be. There were doubters on Guardians, Ant-Man, and to a more sexist degree, Captain Marvel, but each film found great success. With Eternals though, the honeymoon phase may finally be over given the overall critical reception. For me personally, the film is a bit of a mixed bag.

Eternals does have a lot of what people love about Marvel films. There's the trademark humor and some very entertaining action scenes. The visuals of the film are quite spectacular, which are well worth seeing on the big screen to properly absorb the scope the film is going for.
I enjoyed all the acting overall and while there are some moments where a performance felt a little off, it didn't really bother me because I attribute it to the characters being aliens living among humans; you could see it as some of the characters being able to acclimate better to Earth life than others. While I was initially worried having ten main protagonists would make me lose track of things, it was surprisingly easy to follow. The film does a good job of introducing each character and making them unique in personality, skill set, and assimilation with humanity. And like a few other superteams I've talked about before, I also enjoy the sense of family among them and the relationships they have with each other. If I had to pick my top three characters, it would be Angelina Jolie as Thena, Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo, and Brian Tyree Henry as Phastos.

So where does the film falter? Well for one, there are quite a few exposition dumps, which I did honestly half-expect. There are also some plot decisions that I thought were questionable and I think they kind of wasted a cool looking villain in Bill Skarsgard's Kro. But I think the main thing that's making me lean so negative is that by the time we reach the film's climax, I honestly didn't feel the same level of excitement as the other MCU films by that point; I think that might be due to a combination of not being totally invested in all the characters as I should have (despite my enjoyment of them) and a low level of tension with the threat being stopped because what would have happened if it weren't was obviously not going to.

I also felt the film may have been overhyped in some regard. While we learn some things about the greater cosmic side of the MCU, I wouldn't exactly consider them game changing. There's also the fact that despite the film being described as standalone, the way things end before the credits even start show the story clearly isn't over. And I'm not talking about just teasing things for a sequel, this film leaves us on an incomplete note with multiple hanging questions; the most I took away is that there may be a connection to Shang-Chi's mid-credits scene. Each MCU film (even Infinity War) can be watched on its own to a clear conclusion; we don't get that with Eternals.

Reviewing this reminds me a lot of when "Rise of Skywalker" came out a couple years ago. Sometimes it's hard to review things as both a critic and a fan, especially when I find myself more on the critics' side of things (despite not being a professional). I'm happy that there are fans getting something out of the film, and so did I to some degree, but I have to be honest in my opinion. That being said, Eternals is a different kind of Marvel film that still delivers some entertainment, but doesn't quite reach the ambitious levels they were aiming for.