The newest team of superheroes has arrived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Eternals is a superhero film that takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. The movie follows the Eternals, an immortal group of aliens who have lived on Earth for 7,000 years, as they reunite to protect the world from their evil counterparts: the Deviants.
Marvel has had an excellent track record of pulling up-and-coming directors and dropping them into a superhero movie, with Jon Watts’s work on the Spider-Man films and Destin Daniel Cretton in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. This time, Academy Award-winning visionary Chloé Zhao has arrived in the MCU, fresh off her Best Picture and Best Director wins for Nomadland. Zhao has never made anything with the feel of an MCU movie, and she brings her style to the most successful movie franchise of all time to lukewarm results.
Nearly everything Marvel makes is watchable. Even in their lesser movies, their movies are consistently action-packed fun with jokes, easter eggs, and visuals that are pretty easy on the eyes. Zhao’s approach has a few of these qualities, but it also has a lot more. There are moments of this film where the storytelling feels quite methodical as if Zhao wanted to take her time with telling a story so vast and epic in scale. Clocking in at over two and a half hours, Zhao makes a movie that is never boring but has qualities that prevent the film from being as engaging as it could be.
Eternals marks a step away from the standard Marvel formula, not feeling as formulaic as the other movies. This is a unique risk for Marvel to take by putting an arthouse director’s style on the mainstream big screen, and for the most part, it works. It doesn’t feel like a disposable, forgettable studio product; it feels like a passion project for Zhao as she helms the film with grace and maturity, as she creates a gorgeous movie with a lot of ambition. It’s an origin story with ideas that have never been seen before, but it’s also a movie that features a lot of familiar ideas, almost as if Zhao’s style was met with the constraints of being a studio film.
Let it be known that Zhao had no easy task with this movie. Eternals introduces ten brand new superheroes to the series, and she had to give every hero a certain amount of development to get the audience to care. This is a near-impossible assignment to pull off, and Zhao does her best. Surprisingly, much of it works, as each hero does stand out, partially due to the diversity of the cast, featuring different races, genders, sexual orientations, and even introducing Makkari, portrayed by Lauren Ridloff, a real-life deaf actress. This is an accomplishment for diversity in film, but each character also has a unique set of powers, and by the final act, the characters are making choices that say a lot about who they are and how different some of them can be.
However, the film has so much world-building and character-building that the screenplay stumbles from time to time. The movie follows two storylines, one that takes place centuries in the past and one that takes place following Endgame. Nonlinear storytelling has been used in superhero films such as Batman Begins. The problem is that Eternals has so many characters that juggling every new face with a story that’s told out of order prevents certain character moments from having the emotional depth they deserve.
Nevertheless, the movie has some outstanding performances from its ensemble cast that make each character stand out. Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden) have an investing relationship that serves as the heart and soul of the film. Kumail Nanjiani steals the show as Kingo, and his subplot surrounding a documentary filmmaker is the highlight of the film, allowing for excellently timed humor.
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The movie mixes your standard “getting the band back together” storyline with vast visuals and high stakes, resulting in a film that generally works but feels as if it is also biting off more than it can chew. Despite the novelty of a movie that tackles such rich themes and doesn’t feel comic-bookish in the slightest, the film’s final act still devolves into a bunch of people in funny costumes battling with CGI and green screens. Marvel’s formula that feels largely absent from the film seeps into Zhao’s vision from time to time to create a movie that feels like a flawed, enormous spectacle.
Many had high hopes about an acclaimed director like Chloé Zhao directing a Marvel movie. Unfortunately, this movie is not the beautiful marriage of two beloved icons that we would expect. It has its messy moments and compared to the MCU’s other work this year, this may be the weakest of them all. However, there is so much to appreciate and respect about Zhao’s artistic choices. Every visual, combined with Ramin Djawadi’s chill-inducing musical score, creates a superhero movie for the ages that may be low-tier MCU but remains entertaining, powerful cinema that will polarize audiences. This is an ambitious, exciting movie that doesn’t entirely stick the landing but remains on par with what we’ve seen from a successful franchise film.
SCORE: 7/10
As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 7 equates to “Good.” A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.
Disclosure: The reviewer saw the film at a press screening for our Eternals review.
