In the early days of the Multiverse Saga, Disney decided to shine the spotlight onto one of Marvel’s most iconic group of cosmic entities. Created by the Celestials, the Eternals were sent to Earth to dispose of a race of monstrous creatures that threatened the safety of humanity. Having completed their mission, the group have lived normal lives for centuries, until their ancient enemies returned in the 21st century. Banding back together, uncovering shocking truths, and encountering heartbreaking betrayals, the Eternals have to race against the clock to save the Earth. However, in spite of such a promising premise, this movie was a major miss for many fans (myself included).
Pro/Con #1: The Characters
No matter the shortcomings of this movie, though, I can at least appreciate the diverse range of characters. More specifically, I love how they’re overall portrayed in terms of powers and personalities. For example, Eternals such as Sprite have grown to despise their longevity and strive to be human. Others such as Ikaris struggle between loyalty to the Celestials and loyalty to his friends. Even still, the rest of them struggle with wrestle with holding onto the lives they made for themselves, how to use their powers, and their overall identities. Basically, it’s very fascinating to watch them grapple these intense moments in their lives while also trying to do what they believe is right, before accepting a responsibility that’s bigger than themselves. Moving on from this, another favorable aspect of these Eternals is their varying powers! I mean, you’ve got a Superman, a woman who can manipulate the elements, and so many more! Just seeing that large a range of powers, all assembled and working together like a team of pseudo-avengers is simply amazing to see onscreen. However, it’s not just how cool these powers look, but also how they were executed that has grabbed my attention. One example comes from a character that even haters of this movie have come to love: the speedster Makkari. Many fans have regarded her portrayal as how a speedster should truly be depicted, and I can’t help but agree. After all, the way she runs throughout varying landscapes and fights Ikarus remind me of Quicksilver from the X-Men prequels. Unlike the Quicksilver from Age of Ultron, who was pretty fast, was still slow enough to get hit by a random bullet from a cop. Anyway, one of my favorite examples has to be when Sersi managed to turn the newborn Celestial into marble. Granted, she got a boost from her friends and a strong source of energy, but the fact she was able to turn such a powerful entity into basically stone is mind-blowing.
However, in spite of these positive attributes, there are too many negative traits that I just can’t ignore. For instance, one glaring fact is utterly how there are just too many characters for a standalone movie. A reason that movies such as the “Avengers” films and “Captain America: Civil War” were so effective was because each character already had their own film, and then more movies where we got to explore their identities and struggles before the next team-up movies. In “Eternals,” on the other hand, they just threw in all these new characters with summarized backgrounds and personalities. Between each new introduction, we’re barely given enough time to familiarize or sympathize with the current one before we’re thrust into the next one. These rushed introductions also pose another problem: rushed character developments. With so many characters introduced in one movie, there’s only so much time to fit so much material into. Therefore, without the support of aforementioned origin movies, the directors can’t afford to spend too much time on each individual. This would lead to each character’s subplots go from introduction, to abrupt alliance changes, and then all of a sudden everyone’s a good guy and saved everyone. Either that, or people like Ikarus decide to just launch themselves into the sun out of guilt. While it’s understandable that he felt bad about betraying his friends, characters like Bucky were able to handle their guilt without having to unalive themselves as a solution. Overall, the execution of these characters was hastened to the point where it was disorganized and nonsensical.
Pro/Con #2: The Story
Generally, the story was pretty good and especially because of its premise. After all, we’re introduced to a bunch of brand-new characters with their own unique powers and stories. The plot thickens when their ancient enemies—creatures known as Deviants—returned after centuries of inactiveness. Believing that their return is connected with the recent but unnatural earthquakes, Sersi and the other Eternals reunite to resolve the matter. However, it soon turns into a murder mystery when they find out that their original leader, Ajak, was killed by the Deviants. Yet the Eternals unfortunately can’t afford to dwell on this tragic event, as they’re trying to stall the birth of a new Celestial that would destroy the Earth. But what I especially appreciate was the plot twist that Ikarus not only tried to help the Celestials with that plot, but knew about it for centuries. Further, the fact that Ikarus fed Ajak to the Deviants because she tried to stop said plot only twists the knife that much harder. It’s truly heartbreaking to see such betrayal within a close group of friends, and especially when Ikarus finally realized his mistake but flew himself into the sun out of guilt. But if any good came out of this, Sersi was able to find her strength and rise up to rally the rest of the Eternals, saving billions of innocent lives from needless cosmic destruction.
Although, in spite of such a promising premise, the execution of said premise was sloppy to say the least. Specifically, where they truly messed up with this film was allowing the story to go all over the place. For example, there was that subplot (that I completely forgot about until halfway through writing this) of the rogue Deviant, Kro. We find out that Kro was definitely not happy with the purpose of his creation, and kept evolving until he achieved a higher form of intelligence so he could get his revenge. However, that story is completely drowned out by everything that’s going on with the Eternals. Therefore, when he shows up in the finale only to get quickly defeated, it’s quickly forgotten by many moviegoers. As if that wasn’t enough, the timing of the reveal for the Celestials was way too soon. About halfway through the movie, Arishem the Judge explains the true purpose of the Eternals and Deviants, and how Celestials are born. As incredible a reveal as it was, I feel like that would’ve been much better if it were revealed later in the movie to give it some incredibly high stakes. Instead, we have to balance that along with all the back-to-back Eternal introductions, the mystery of Ajak’s murder, and the mystery behind the Deviants’ return. Basically, the potential was right there for a truly good story, but too much was going on to reach that effect.
Pro/Con #3: The Lore
If there’s one thing I love about fantasy or sci-fi movies, it’s the lore behind them. In spite of its faults, The Eternals did establish some attention-grabbing lore. For example, there’s the whole story behind the Celestials. As someone who’s a fan of Marvel, but didn’t know anything about the Celestials, I was intrigued to find out how they were born. Not only are they born from within actual planets, but massive intelligent populations are necessary to sustain such a phenomenon. Further, there’s the whole complicated, interconnected system the Celestials put in place to make sure it happens. At first, Arishem created the Deviants to get rid of apex predators to make sure populations would thrive. But when the Deviants started killing said populations, it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart that he made the Eternals to stop them. Instead, he only made the Eternals as a form of pest control in order to ensure the birth of Celestials like Tiamut. It’s really cruel, heartless, and arguably worse than what Thanos did in “Infinity War.” However, there’s a sense of grim normalcy about it, almost like nature in a cosmic sense. While it’s definitely not justifiable, it’s just as morbidly fascinating to discover more and more about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe functions.
Nevertheless, just like with the story, the lore is lost in the midst of the chaotic plot line. While finding out the true purpose of these various cosmic beings is interesting, it’s hard to keep up with that while also keeping up with everything else that’s going on with the movie. For example, we get a brief but intentionally vague summary of the Eternals in the beginning. That is followed by a long enough intervention from the story, then we find out a bit more once they discover Ajak’s death, back to the story, and finally the reveal of the Emergence. Oh, but then we get more story and ultimately forget about the lore in the midst of the final fight scene. Along the way, while all this is happening, we get a ton of new characters, stories, and subplots thrown at us. Movies like Shang-Chi, on the other hand, introduced a bit of lore surrounding Wenwu and his artifacts—Ten Rings—but focused fully on the story for the rest of the film. We didn’t need constant updates or backtracks, because the audience already understood the lore. Plus, it was short enough where people could keep it in the back of their minds while enjoying the story. If Eternals followed this same guideline, perhaps our collective brains wouldn’t feel such an overload of information to keep us from having a good time.
Conclusion
To be frank, this movie is still ABSOLUTE garbage and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. However, I can’t help but feel the need to give credit where credit’s due. Plus, in an era where many MCU movies and shows are hit or miss, sometimes we just gotta make the most of it. Further, with so much negativity and complaining from online fans, finding the bright side even in horrible movies like this one can be healthy.
