Marvel Studios’ latest movie, “Eternals,” hit theaters on Friday, Nov. 5.
The story follows a group called Eternals, a group of aliens who’ve lived among humanity for thousands of years, fighting creatures known as Deviants.
The movie has gotten very mixed reviews, with some loving it while others calling it the worst MCU film. The film sits at a low 47 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.
So how does the movie fare after all the discussion? If you’ve read the headline, very badly.
The movie introduces a team of 10 heroes, but doesn’t give much depth to any of them in the movie. The most it gives is to the protagonist Cersei, her former lover Ikaris and the former leader Ajak. The rest of them just fall into the background and don’t really contribute much else to the story.
For a team that has known each other for thousands of years and always refer to each other as “family,” there really isn’t much chemistry between them. Cersei and Ikaris were married for centuries, but they don’t really act like it.
It’s revealed in the plot midway that Arishem, the Celestial that sent them to Earth, actually created them and is using them to help build the Earth’s population in order to grow the seed planted in the core that’ll create a new Celestial.
This will help make more planets but will ultimately destroy Earth in the process.
One might expect for a very urgent and focused response from the team but they don’t really do much up until the very end.
Phastos, who has a husband and a child, says that he would rather take care of his family than save the planet, as if his family doesn’t live on Earth. And Kingo, who’s lived his life as a Bollywood actor, leaves right before the final act, and doesn’t show up until the end of the movie.
The two people, who have the most to lose as they’ve integrated with humanity and have given themselves a purpose to preserve the planet, are hesitant in cooperating for no reason.
There really isn’t a clear antagonist either. Ikaris betrays the group at the last minute, as he’s known the entire time and wants to complete the mission. Another member, Sprite, follows him because it’s revealed she has a crush on him.
I like some concepts the film introduces. This includes Celestials, the impact the Eternals had on the Earth and what the Eternals will do after they’ve split up but none of them are really fleshed out in any meaningful way.
The film occasionally remembers that it’s a superhero movie and decides to throw in some action. The vast majority of the fights are just them fighting the same CGI Deviant creatures. Some of them have powers from the Eternals they’ve killed, but that’s all there is to them.
It’s very generic and forgettable, even for Marvel films. Even the final fight was uninteresting.
The movie is so desperately trying to do two things at once: be a character drama and a comic book movie. Sadly, it just doesn’t succeed in being either of those.
The performances couldn’t really save any of the characters. Despite some big names like Angelina Jolie, Selma Hayek, Richard Madden and Kit Harrington filling roles, they don’t really do a whole lot with the characters.
Ultimately, Eternals is something that should’ve been a mini-series on Disney Plus. It manages to be a boring, uninteresting experience that you’ll probably forget on the ride home.
Rating: 3/10
