(M) ★★★
Director: Chloé Zhao.
Cast: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Angelina Jolie, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Salma Hayek, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Bill Skarsgård, David Kaye.
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| "How long do we have to pose like this?" |
In the wake of its box office-breaking, era-ending Endgame, Marvel's subsequent fare has paled in comparison.
That's not to say the post-Endgame films have been bad. Au contraire. Spider-Man: No Way Home, Black Widow and Shang Chi & The Legend Of The Ten Rings have all been great fun, with some strong highlights. But next to Endgame, they're small cheese.
Similarly, Eternals lives in the shadow of the great MCU films that have come before, and superhero fatigue is very real for many. Even the two-year-long COVID-enforced gap in releases hasn't eased this.
All of this is no fault of Zhao and her superb cast. Yes, Eternals has its flaws, but this film would have felt far more impressive five years ago. Now, it feels good without being great - an enjoyable but bloated push into Marvel's cosmic comics catalogue that lacks a truly fresh angle to make it stand out from the crowd beyond its very welcome representation.
For those who don't know their Celestials from their Deviants, the film deals with a team of superheroes - the Eternals - who are sent to Earth by the god-like Celestials to protect mankind from some weird beasties known as the Deviants.
With their job seemingly completed, the Eternals hang out on Earth for a few extra centuries, waiting for their next mission. But the Deviants have returned, and are far more powerful than our timeless heroes remember.
There are a lot of firsts for Marvel in this film. Across its wonderfully diverse cast, there is a differently abled hero, a gay hero, and plenty of ethnicities that have never seen themselves reflected back like this. Representation is important. If you think otherwise, you're probably white or stupid or both.
Naturally, the problems with the film are nothing to do with this. They stem from the difficult task of explaining the convoluted backstory behind these characters and their overlords - it's far easier by comparison to say "I got bit by a radioactive spider". But the film struggles to explain its exposition and so overcompensates. There's an opening crawl, then we see what's explained in that opening crawl actually happening. Then, when big reveals are revealed, things get explained again.
This would be a deal-breaker for a film that doesn't look as good as this, or that doesn't have such excellent depth and heart, or such a fascinating array of characters so well portrayed. As much as Eternals crawls in places and struggles under the weight of its exposition, these lulls are surrounded by shining character moments and great fun.
The theme of family (insert Fast & Furious joke here) is minor compared to what Eternals is trying to say about humanity itself. Characters go back and forth about whether mankind is worth saving, about whether the few must die so the many can live - the kinds of ideas that have kept philosophers awake at night for millennia and are fun to explore in a superhero blockbuster.
With 10 Eternals in play, the film gets plenty of opportunities to kick around these ideas, but its biggest strength is that each character and their perspective feels fully fleshed out and distinctive, beyond their colourful costumes and varied power sets. There are no weak links in the cast, but Henry, Jolie, Madden and Nanjiani really shine.
Zhao handles the action scenes nicely, making good shot choices to ensure the combat doesn't get lost in hard-to-follow close-ups and edits, and generally the film looks amazing. She also lets the character moments breathe amid the global carnage.
Eternals is not the home-run many had hoped it would be, but nor is it the disaster many are claiming. It's a slightly over-stuffed ensemble piece that delivers a wonderful array of cool characters and some much needed diversity in the superhero genre.
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