Eternals review

 

The latest escapade in Marvel’s ever expanding cinematic Universe is a hard sell in that it introduces not just a new hero and their mates or family but a team of ten and even at over two and a half hours that’s a lot of characters to clock. Inevitably some suffer and there are ingenious devices to ensure that we don’t have to sit there watching ten people talking in one scene. In fact, when all ten of them are together they don’t say much at all, they stand in a well organised line looking majestic and powerful. I wonder if they had a debate about which order they had to stand in. It’s a wonder this film doesn’t tell us because it likes to tell us things though not necessarily the things we need to know.  Like all the Marvel movies, Eternals (not The Eternals btw) has great style  - courtesy of director Chloe Zhao - and some stunning cinematography. However, it takes an age to get going  - from an opening crawl that immediately throws names and chronology at you - and there are moments when the viewer may not feel wholly convinced by what they’re seeing.

 

Spoilers ahoy from this point…

At the dawn of Man ten superpowered Eternals are sent to Earth to get rid of creatures called Deviants which look like dragons made of spaghetti. The films first mis-step I feel is to realise these creatures as such obvious CGI creations despite attempts to show their breath and evil eyes. They are fairly standard big screen monsters and while they are used to good effect sometimes they don’t always seem as dangerous as they should. Typically the creatures’ strength and abilities varies depending on the scene they are in and we learn nothing of their origins or reasons for being Deviants. The Eternals’ nomenclature is presumably supposed to inspire classical human myths but do they use other names on other planets? Where do they come from and why indeed are they Eternal? These and other queries go unasked meaning we are expected to like -or not like- these `heroes` on face value. There is plenty of exposition alright but it doesn’t tell us what we actually need to know and given the movie’s length that is disappointing. The  result is as if you watched Avengers- End Game without having seen any of the preceding Avengers films.

We follow a narrative that jumps back and forth through time while the present day focuses on Gemma Chan’s Sersi now a teacher and her relationship with fellow staff member Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington getting a chance to show some comedy skills). Their ordinary life is shattered when the Deviants return attacking them in London only now the creatures have more powers. So the Eternals have to Assemble, dig out their flat stone spaceship and kick ass. They’re an odd bunch and inevitably some of them get less screen time or involvement in the main plot. I have to say I found the first section of the film slightly dull and my attention was definitely wandering until a terrific action sequence in a woodland setting that gives matters a big push.

As a lot of the dialogue leans towards the melodramatic the film relies on how the actors sell it. The two best known cast members suffer from unusual storylines- Salma Hayek’s Ajak is an early casualty and appears only in flashback. Angelina Jolie has an odd role as Thena who is suffering from a disorder that means she can only help out when the plot needs her to! Richard Madden as Ikaris gets the lion’s share of the action once the Eternals are reunited but he and Gemma Chan don’t generate as much screen chemistry as they should. There are strong turns however from Liz McHugh as Sprite, Barry Keoghan as Druig, Bran Tyree Henry as Phastos and Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo. The latter provides the laughs as he has become a Bollywood star over the decades.

Eternals: Look, they've swapped places!

As well as a multi racial cast it is notable that the film marks a number of firsts for Marvel including a character with mental illness, the first male gay character and kiss, their first deaf character and the first sex scene. The dialogue also addresses the issues of responsibility that the Eternals feel for humanity showing some of them having grown so attached to the planet that they are willing to deviate from the planned mission. They act as if this has never happened before yet there are references to other planets they’ve visited. The script isn’t even that clear on why they’ve stick around for so long when  the Deviants were believed to all have been destroyed centuries back.

The film really heats up in the final run in when a shock betrayal leads to the sort of tension that really needed to have been there much earlier. It was probably awkward for the writers to set the right mood yet there is not really enough work done to differentiate these superbeings from the humans they oversee. Having them fall out and take sides near the climax actually works out as far more dramatic than the chaos it creates.

The crescendo of the film is messy though and I had no idea what was going on when oddly shaped bits of gold rock started bursting through the ground and it all related to a volcano or something. Visually it looks great but a confrontation on the beach in which the remaining Eternals try to stop the character who has become the enemy had more impact for me. There are also moments when characters incredulously  switch sides or opinions and by the end you’re hard pressed to know quite what the Eternals’ game plan is.

The bar is set high for Marvel films so Eternals is still a good enough action film if you don’t want to think about the whys and wherefores but it could have been so much more. The end credits tell us the Eternals will return but when they do I hope it is with a more focused film.