Eternals Movie Review Eating: 3.5/5
Movie cast: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harington, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Ma Dong-seok, Harish Patel
Eternals movie director: Chloe Zhao
Eternals movie rating: 3.5 stars
God, free will, grand design, meaning of life, purpose of humanity — Chloe Zhao explores a lot in the latest film from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Eternals. The Oscar-winning director of Nomadland does so while giving us no less than 10 super superheroes, a Sentient being, a lot of ever-evolving Deviants, an end-of-the-world scenario, and the start of a series that is expected to fill the gap the Avengers left.
It’s a lot to pack into one film, even if it comes in at a long 2 hours and 36 minutes. Zhao, though, almost pulls it off, keeping a complex story that spans from outer universe to ancient Mesopotamia, via Bollywood of now, relatively uncomplicated. Her characters or Eternals also pack in genuine diversity, good acting and a warmth that is unusual to find in films such as it, which are more intent on impressing than winning over.Eternals are beings with powers sent from planet Olympia by Arishem to fight the Deviants who are destroying humans on planet Earth. They came 7,000 years ago and are still around because, well, Arishem hasn’t called them back yet, though the last of the Deviants were done and dusted thousands of years ago. Why haven’t the Eternals interfered as humans stumble from one conflict to another? It is to let humanity develop, as it was intended to. Why haven’t they helped mankind along with the scientific progress at their disposal? It is to let humanity find its way, as it was intended to. Human beings have come to revere some of them as gods over the years.
Then, Deviants resurface, and the lives of the Eternals, most of whom have now settled down as humans, is upended. Zhao gives Sersi (Chan), Ikris (Hadden), Sprite (McHugh), Thena (Jolie), Gilgamesh (Dong-seok), Kingo (Nanjiani), Phastos (Tyree Henry), Makkari (Ridloff), Druig (Keoghan) and their leader, Ajak (Hayek), all individual stories and lives — some invariably getting more time than the others. In the years that they have been apart, they have found love, families, solitude, delusions of grandeur, or companionship, even fear.
Are humans worth saving? What is it that makes them special? Is it okay to sacrifice anyone for a larger cause? Zhao raises all these questions, and satisfactorily nudges one towards the right answers. At least in the first two hours of its length, Zhao’s eye for detail, open spaces and landscapes make the Eternals as lifelike as they can be. Their powers, visualised as golden curlicues, are interesting and not overpowering, even though it is disconcerting to hear characters constantly talk of mankind as insignificant small things to be looked after.
The Eternals opening crawl informs us that the titular beings were created by Arishem, the Prime Celestial. Think of Arishem as a supergod who only deals in planet-level talks — it makes sense given Celestials are the size of planets themselves. Arishem dispatched our Eternals to protect Earth from the Deviants, evil ugly-looking beasts who are essentially apex predators. They were instructed not to interfere in any other human conflict. Eternals arrived on our planet over 7,000 years ago and have since been living in secret, having gone their separate ways centuries ago due to a tragedy, as more expository narration tells us.
There’s Sersi (Gemma Chan, from Humans) who can transmute any inanimate matter and is living as a Natural History Museum employee in London. We have Ikaris (Richard Madden, from Game of Thrones) who is basically Marvel’s Superman given he can fly and shoots beams out of his eyes. Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani, from Silicon Valley), who can fire blasts from his hands, has chosen the peculiar disguise as Bollywood’s biggest movie star. Sprite (Lia McHugh, from The Lodge) can cast life-like illusions and has the appearance of a 12-year-old. Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry, from Atlanta) is a tech wizard.
Makkari (Lauren Ridloff, from The Walking Dead) is basically Marvel’s The Flash since she has super speed. Druig (Barry Keoghan, from Dunkirk) can take over human minds at scale. Gilgamesh (Don Lee, from Train to Busan) is the strongest of the Eternals with his fist capable of stopping nearly anything. Thena (Angelina Jolie), who gives the Goddess of War her name, can summon weapons out of thin air. That leaves Ajak (Salma Hayek) who has healing powers. More importantly, Ajak leads the group as the “Prime Eternal” (she’s like a mother for the rest) and can talk to Arishem.
Eternals spends its first half or so jumping across time to show us the group’s journey on Earth — the big events they were part of, what led to their split, and the team slowly coming back together in present day as the old Deviant threat re-emerges. It might be watchable, but it’s not remotely interesting. Frustratingly, Eternals never really takes us inside these immortal yet fallible beings.Zhao’s three previous features are all modestly scaled dramas about disenfranchised characters whom the commercial mainstream tends to ignore. She likes to engage old forms and new ideas, and is interested in issues of identity and in foundational American virtues like self-reliance. In “The Rider,” the lead character is a Native American who’s a cowboy; “Nomadland” tracks a woman in her 60s who, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, travels the open road. The intimacy of her earlier work, its scope and relative quiet, may have made her seem like an unusual choice for Marvel, but her movies steer clear of overt politics, in the way of most American indies, which makes her a fine fit for a global company that’s interested in alienating exactly no one.
Mostly, Zhao has one of the most important qualifications for this gig: she’s good with actors. For all their special effects and endless brawling, Marvel movies are as character-driven as any Bond movie and they need charismatic performers and appealing personalities to hold their many prefabricated moving parts together. (There’s a reason so many Marvel directors are Sundance Film Festival alumni.) “Eternals” also benefits from Zhao’s feel for natural landscapes and her love for wide open spaces. It doesn’t happen enough, but sometimes, when the movie quiets down, the Eternals and their worlds converge, and the larger questions of existence percolating through this story — why are we here, who am I? — finally resound more strongly than even its branding. Eternals feels like it’s thinly plotted for most of its 156 minutes, before being thrown into the deep end. That tilts the balance and sinks the ship. Zhao unfurls the story of the Eternals on an epic and elaborate stage, though that ends up being a double-edged sword. We get a grandiose mythology about the creation of the (Marvel) universe, alongside backstories for its titular immortal beings. But we are never really given the time to understand them, care for them, or connect with them.
Eternals is out Friday, November 5 in cinemas worldwide. In India, Eternals is available in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada.
