ETERNALS is an Avengers-level threat smushed into one movie
This review contains spoilers for ETERNALS (2021).
From the film’s announcement in July 2019, ETERNALS felt like something different than the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)’s slate of heavily branded and monolithic storytelling. “Felt” is an interesting word here—ETERNALS “felt” that way because Marvel Studios, from day one, carefully advertised the Chloé Zhao project as something MCU fans hadn’t experienced before.
This was helmed by an indie filmmaker and soon-to-be Academy Award winner whose style fit far less into the MCU formula than that of, say, Taika Waititi. It was very clear that Zhao, along with the star-studded ensemble cast including Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden, bent Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige and the MCU into a new direction. Remember how impressed Feige was that Zhao wanted to film so much of ETERNALS with practical effects and real-life settings rather than greenscreen surroundings? What about his joke that he’d offer some quotes for VARIETY to use when the film eventually won the Oscar for Best Picture?
The problem is that even with this narrative, and an auteur filmmaker at its helm, ETERNALS can’t break free from the MCU mold. In fact, the film embraces much of what makes Marvel’s movies stale.
Its scale, on the same life-or-death level of AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019), is too big to digest in one film. Following 10 galactic superbeings known as Eternals who traveled to Earth in 5000 B.C. to protect humans from the Deviants (a CGI race of monsters), ETERNALS breezes through history, framing its characters as catalysts for important historical events and myths. Athena, the Olympic goddess, is actually Thena (Angelina Jolie). Ikaris (Richard Madden) probably inspired Superman. Oh, and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), the first gay superhero in an MCU film? His technological developments led to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This is all to say that ETERNALS has a lot of background information to give us, including why the characters never stopped human atrocities or, more relevant to the MCU, Thanos. The answer: their god/creator/master/giant robot in space/Celestial Arishem the Judge (David Kaye) forbid the group from interfering in any conflict that doesn’t involve Deviants. Since Deviants have long been extinct, the Eternals have had no purpose. They hide in the shadows, some living normal lives.
The most interesting aspect of ETERNALS is how its characters wrestle with their purpose—Druig (Barry Keoghan), an Eternal who can control minds, desperately wants to use his powers to keep humans from fighting. Phastos abandons humanity, save for his husband and their child. Sprite (Lia McHugh) questions why she is cursed to appear as a 12-year-old child for all eternity, unable to fall in love and have a family.
Much of this relates back to the Arishem. Only Ajak—and later Sersi (Gemma Chan), who Ajak picks for her replacement—can communicate with Arishem, which sparks frustration and confusion amongst the Eternals. How can they execute God’s plan with so little guidance? What is their purpose beyond stopping the Deviants, which they accomplished so long ago? What is God’s plan anyway?
In probably the most overwhelming scene of any MCU film, Sersi learns that Arishem’s plan isn’t really to have the Eternals defeat the Deviants. Rather, the group’s purpose is as follows: to go to Earth, kill the Deviants, ensure Earth develops life, allow the population of humans to grow, and eventually watch as a Celestial is born from Earth in an event called the Emergence. Earth and its inhabitants are destroyed in the process and the Eternals have their memories wiped and move onto another planet, but it’s all to help develop the next THE IRON GIANT lookalike. The circle of galactic life!
If it reads as confusing, it’s because it is. And it’s told to us in a two-minute monologue that hits like a sledgehammer before the Eternals (well, most of them) decide they must defy their god and stop the Emergence. The information stretches the MCU too much too quick, raising hundreds of questions about all of the entities the films and Disney+ shows have shown us. Did anyone in LOKI (2021-ongoing) know about this? Doctor Strange? Where’s Captain Marvel when you need her?
And those are just dumb plot holes, but they also point to the biggest problem about ETERNALS. Forget its useless story with return of the Deviants. Try to ignore its “first MCU gay superhero and first MCU deaf superhero!” narrative, along with a sex scene that had so much buzz about it, but ended up flashing by before I could enjoy Richard Madden being partially naked. Those are messaging issues that make ETERNALS feel like it checks off boxes to satisfy its audience rather than actually providing representation for all audiences.
No, what really sinks ETERNALS is that it can’t help but make its plot a cataclysmic event, even after we just had a life-or-death climax in SHANG-CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS (2021), met a Kang the Conqueror variant so powerful he ended a multiversal war in LOKI, and dealt with Thanos’ plot to kill half the population of the universe. With the latter, we had 22 films to build towards a final confrontation. To contrast, ETERNALS rushes to its finale, crunching what should’ve been multiple movies into an exhausting single two-and-a-half-hours experience.
The heavy emphasis on completing its Avengers-level threat leaves many of ETERNALS’ characters as poor caricatures with underdeveloped relationships and little to identify them beyond their individual powers. Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) is the aforementioned first MCU deaf superhero, but we know little about her beyond her super-speed and flirtations with Druid. Thena struggles with her memories, not having been properly wiped clean before the Eternals traveled to Earth, but rarely pushes past appearing broken and having a hallow kinship with Gilgamesh (Don Lee).
All of these actors are underused, and their characters are given just a fraction of the time they deserve to develop and grow. Instead, they rush towards a bombastic finale that comes and goes with little impact because we aren’t invested enough to care. And when the famous MCU credit scenes come, we might as well have had our minds wiped like the Eternals, barely impacted by the movie we just saw and ready for another Marvel escapade.