While it would be nearly impossible to fully flesh out all 10 Eternals, the film does its best to give each of them a unique personality, world view and character arc. “Eternals” continues MCU’s trend of telling character centric stories. Along this journey, we’re introduced to the other Eternals played brilliantly by a whole host of Hollywood A-listers like Angelina Jolie, Selma Hayek and Kumail Nanjiani. On the positive side, the film is anchored by an investing, on-again, off-again romance between Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Ikaris (Richard Madden) who propel us on a classic get-the-band-back-together trek across the country.
Sadly, there just isn’t enough runtime to fully explore them, and the movie winds up feeling overstuffed as evidenced by an unnecessary villain subplot that probably should have been saved for a sequel. It's stuffed with juicy lore accompanied by frequent exposition dumps and sprinkled with many twists and turns along the way.īeyond just an epic scale, the story tries to dig deeper than previous Marvel films, delving into all kinds of philosophical and morally complex questions. The story is told non-linearly, cutting between the present and various points throughout human history. Just explaining the plot, especially spoiler-free, is a difficult task due to its gargantuan scope. It’s an ambitious movie to a fault, forging uncharted territory while still clinging desperately to the tried and true MCU tropes. I found so much to love, but the execution was far from perfect. Notably, the film currently has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any MCU film and was the first to be labeled rotten on the site. “Eternals” has polarized fans with some audiences lauding it as one of Marvel’s best, and others claiming it’s the worst film they have ever put out. Directed not to interfere in any human conflicts unless Deviants are involved, the Eternals wrestle with these orders of neutrality as a world-ending threat emerges and a newfound secret begins to tear their team apart. The film tells the story of the Eternals, a group of 10 immortals sent to Earth millennia ago to protect humanity from the monstrous Deviants.
Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao crafts a divisive superhero epic unlike anything previously seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for better and for worse.