At long last, the time has come for the much anticipated MCU film, by director Chloe Zhao, Eternals. And I gotta be honest, I was hoping for more but I’m not entirely disappointed with what I got.
So let’s start with what made this one not work for me.
It wasn’t the type of MCU movie that we’re used to. Where we have a nice mix of serious and comedy. This one was much more on the serious side. With the light comedy coming from Kamail Nanjiani & Brian Tyree Henry. But when you’re dealing with humanoid aliens I guess I can understand their lack of humor. Even though they’ve been on Earth for thousands of years. The comedic tone of Marvel movies is what has always made them fun. And that fun really seemed to be missing. I was also underwhelmed by the action sequences. They didn’t feel like big moments. Especially in the final act of the film. And that’s when all the epic moments should be taking place, but it didn’t come across that way.
Turning to the good things now. It seemed to me that the ladies of the Eternals were the leaders of the group. Although Salma Hayek had a smaller role, she starts as their leader, then it gets passed on to Gemma Chan. And Angelina Jolie comes off as the top fighter of the group, even though they had a “superman” type of character with Richard Maddens Ikaris. Having multiple women lead the way in this one was nice to see. Also, I liked the leap they’re taking with Eternals. Moving away from the A-level heroes we’ve all come to know and love, like Iron Man & Captain America, and using these unknown characters to add the next piece to the well-thought-out puzzle that is the MCU.
Eternals may not be the film we were all hoping for, however, in the long run, it will mean something important to the bigger picture of Phase 4. So it will be something that fans should and will watch because they know that.