A Review of “Eternals (2021)”

 

Eternals is the first MCU movie that I did not watch in cinemas. I usually do but the trailers just didn’t sell me and the characters themselves I have no knowledge about it to care. Then the reviews came out and it was very negative. This was the final nail in the coffin for me. The premise is “The Eternals, a race of immortal beings with superhuman powers who have secretly lived on Earth for thousands of years, reunite to battle the evil Deviants”. So are the reviews correct or is this movie actually better than the reception it was given?

The most obvious praise is the visuals. MCU movies tend to be pretty dull looking for the most part. There are a few such as the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor Ragnarok where the visuals do have more impact. In Eternals, the visuals are gorgeous! A lot of the shots are incredibly vibrant and stunning. Even when it is just a shot of them standing around, it looks more picturesque than anything Marvel has done before. The CGI was also astonishingly good. The CGI of the Eternals power was great, the enemy Deviant design and CGI was great, plus the Celestials were amazing in scale and scope. Eternals also explores some interesting themes about humanity that I do like.

There are also some really great action sequences in the film. The forest action sequence is memorable as it has a cool Superman-like fight scene. The final fight is also quite great too with how the abilities of the Eternals are utilised. Special praise to how they handle the Eternals, Markari, super speed power as they for once don’t use slow-mo which makes it look more unique. I also think the actors do a great job. Kumail Nanjiani and Brian Tyree Henry are both a joy to watch when on-screen while getting some genuine laughs from me. Richard Madden is cool yet menacing. Lauren Ridloff despite being deaf, easily convey the right emotion for the scene. Barry Keoghan is creepy yet charming and Don Lee gives a real lovable performance.

However, there was just something off about the main lead Gemma Chan who has the most screen time. Her performance was just very wooden and dull most of the time. She has been in the MCU before in Captain Marvel (2019) and I remember her standing out a lot. So it was just kind of odd how boring her performance was in here. Although, the major reason for this could be how her character, Sersi, is written. Every other Eternal has a clear personality, views, motives and problems. Sersi just seems to love humans and has some love problems that feel very inconsequential for the most part. She is a very boring main character with the other Eternals being way more interesting than her.

On that note, this movie has too much going on. Each of the Eternals has its own problems that get brought up but immediately brushed over in a matter of seconds. For example, Phastos abandons humanity after seeing what they did with the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, but the scene after he is completely over that! Every Eternal has an issue that could have been a whole plotline in itself that would’ve been more interesting than the actual plot. There is also a main deviant that starts to grow stronger, knowledgeable and more intelligent, which was a very intriguing idea. Unfortunately, the deviant is completely wasted and ends up having little to no impact on the main story whatsoever. Just there so the Eternals could have someone to punch. They could’ve removed this intelligent deviant and the story would still be the exact same. What a waste…

Additionally, the pacing is quite bad. There is a lot of moments throughout where the movie just slows down considerably to the point that it can feel dull. This isn’t helped by the fact that this movie feels like an eternity. It is 2 hours 30 minutes but it could be cut down by 15-20 minutes and still convey the same plot. There is also an incredible amount of exposition and it can almost feel like you are getting bombarded with way too much information. Character development is also rushed. Characters will go from feeling one way about something and completely do a 180 on it in a couple of minutes. It doesn’t feel natural or believable. Furthermore, there are too many characters introduced and they don’t get explored or enough screen time to really resonate with any of them.

Overall, the reviews make Eternals out to be the worst MCU movie. I disagree with that as there are definitely way worst MCU movies than this. Nevertheless, it does feel like the movie crammed way too many ideas into it and did not utilize the ideas properly. Eternals (2021) could have been something amazing and unique in the MCU. Sadly the final product just ends up feeling like a complete waste of its potential. There is some genuinely great stuff in it but I do feel like the Eternals might be better suited to a Disney+ series than a movie.