Film Review: Eternals
Marvel’s Eternals is an ambitious mess and a fascinating failure
The Marvel Cinematic Universe tries something a little different with Chloé Zhao’s Eternals, injecting the filmmaker’s trademark humanist drama into cosmic-level superheroics. There are plenty of things to like with this new approach, but much of it fights tooth and nail with the dullest iteration of Marvel formula; Eternals’ weighty themes are lost in a story that is lopsided, overstuffed, and brutally overlong. Minor spoilers ahead…
It isn’t hyperbolic to say that Chloé Zhao is most likely Marvel’s biggest “get” since the casting of Robert Downey, Jr. as Iron Man. Hot off of winning both Best Picture and Best Director at the Academy Awards for last year’s sublime Nomadland, Zhao seems like the perfect choice to infuse something new into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a painstakingly constructed Disney empire now a little long in the tooth and a little too comfortable in its own formula. Eternals is nothing if not ambitious: Aiming to combine Zhao’s specific brand of intimate, humanist drama with the galaxies-spanning scale of Jack Kirby’s cosmic creations, the film is the MCU’s attempt at bridging the auteur with wide-appeal. Does it work? Not particularly, but Eternals does give Marvel a fascinating failure - a gutsy mess that’s endlessly intriguing to parse.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has long had issues trusting its most impressive hires: Edgar Wright parted ways from Ant-Man over creative differences, as did Scott Derrickson with Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and indie acquisitions such as Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck - who helmed 2018’s Captain Marvel - typically get their flair stomped out by the Marvel template. Even this year’s biggest hits for the studio lack their filmmakers’ unique voices; Cate Shortland’s Black Widow never really feels like a Cate Shortland movie, and Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - even with its refreshing kineticism - barely captures Cretton’s voice. So color me surprised that Eternals, at many junctures of its interminable runtime, does feel like a Chloé Zhao movie: From its deeply humanist themes to its South Dakota stand-in to its sprawling magic hour photography courtesy of cinematographer Ben Davis, Eternals fits right into Zhao’s wheelhouse. But Eternals doesn’t have a Chloé Zhao problem, it has a Marvel problem.
“…Eternals doesn’t have a Chloé Zhao problem, it has a Marvel problem.”
At any given time, Eternals has plenty of interesting things going on, but any departure from rote superheroics is always fighting tooth and nail with Marvel’s formula, which has never been duller than it is in this film. Centered around a cadre of millennia-old superbeings, Eternals pits its titular heroes - at the word of their omnipotent Celestial overlord Arishem - against the monstrously flavorless Deviants, CGI beasties long-thought extinguished. The film finds itself at its best and most fascinating mining hefty existential pathos from these immortal beings, wandering without purpose and squabbling over the merits and worthiness of humanity, but its primary conflict has the consistency of indigestible cud. Even the film’s surprise big bad - in an effective reveal that is fair, telegraphed, and even sympathetic - gets his storyline usurped by the bland Deviants.
The Eternals themselves are portrayed by a murderers’ row of talent, rarely used at full potential because of one simple fact: there are too many of them. A crowded lineup rarely afforded room to breathe, the Eternals represent an admittedly fascinating spectrum of attachment to humanity: There’s the empathic lead, Sersi (Gemma Chan), who has developed a deep bond with her charges over thousands of years; there’s the dutiful Superman pastiche and love interest Ikaris (Richard Madden); and there’s the hedonistic and flamboyant Kingo (a newly muscled Kumail Nanjiani), injecting comic relief and a fleet Bollywood dance number. There’s also the jaded engineer Phastos (Bryan Tyree Henry), the dementia-riddled warrior Thena (a severely underserved Angelina Jolie), the requisite heavy Gilgamesh (Don Lee), the perpetually childlike Sprite (Lia McHugh), the deaf speedster Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), and bitter mesmer Druig (Barry Keoghan), all led by the maternal Ajak (Salma Hayek). It’s a mouthful of a roster that leads to an awkward revolving door: characters disappear for long stretches of time, inexplicably sit out of climactic battles, and simply just don’t have enough to do.
“The Eternals themselves are portrayed by a murderers’ row of talent, rarely used at full potential because of one simple fact: there are too many of them.”
It’s also a shame that one of Eternals’ weakest links is its leads. There’s a thin, fragile line between somber-slash-contemplative and tired-slash-lifeless, and Gemma Chan’s Sersi and Richard Madden’s Ikaris consistently find themselves on the wrong side of the demarcation. As immortal beings having spent eons as lovers and partners, there’s shockingly little spark or chemistry between them (in fact, none of the Eternals really feel infused with any sort of wisdom or prowess that thousands of years on Earth would grant). Eternals might boast the MCU’s first actual sex scene, but with its sterility and lack of passion, it’s pretty much a non-event not worth the hubbub surrounding it. Gemma Chan, in particular, is capable of much more than the dry, enervated material given to her, showing more verve and bite in her starter MCU role in Captain Marvel than she does as Sersi.
The Eternals operate under the directive of their Celestial master, Arishem, and are strictly prohibited from interfering with Earth life unless Deviants are involved. It’s a rule that’s played with fast and loose - and sometimes not at all - and it gives Eternals some of its best moments, despite its obvious inconsistencies. Comics legend Jack Kirby’s original Eternals were meant to be the originators of Earth’s myths, legends, and religions, and even though the film jettisons much of Kirby’s signature bombast and eye-popping colors, it finds power in the quieter moments outside of comic book violence. From early civilization to ancient Mesoamerica to the Amazon Rainforest, watching the Eternals bristle against or nudge humanity brings a refreshing dose of weightiness and existential ponderings, even if it does lead to a hilariously overwrought and on-the-nose sequence in Hiroshima, Japan. But these humanist leanings clash particularly hard with Eternal’s ugliest and most weightless aspects: Any time we even get a morsel of the good stuff, we’re jaunted back to the present for another shoot ‘em up with some faceless baddies. It’s a frustratingly choppy pattern, especially across a bloated runtime.
On paper, Marvel’s latest has all the requisite ingredients for a smash hit: An Oscar-winning director, megawatt star power, and a cosmic Jack Kirby veneer. Mix those together with a palpable gumption to finally do something adjacent - if not completely outside - of the the typical superhero formula, and you just might have the shot in the arm the MCU needs. Unfortunately, Eternals is all promise without the knowhow of assemblage, sandbagging its most potent threads with bloat and generic formula. It’s a lopsided mess and Marvel is far from finding the right balance between auteur and blockbuster, but Eternals has enough slivers of greatness for one to hope they never stop trying.
