Eternals Review: A Complete Waste

Marvel Studios released Eternals a month ago. Marvel was busy creating a hype since 6 months about this movie as it would introduce us to a new world. They were making claims that it was something never seen before.

But all that is down the road and it’s best to say that Eternals was a complete waste. This movie is literally wasted a lot of time in making a simple point and did nothing new apart from adding new characters to it’s bucket.

Here’s my review for Eternals:

ETERNALS

Director:  Chloe Zhao

Writers:  Chloé Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Kaz Firpo, Ryan Firpo, Kaz Firpo, Jack Kirby

Cast:  Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie

Music: Ramin Djawadi

Budget:  $200 Million USD

Genre: Action, Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Superhero, Drama

Synopsis: The Celestials made Eternals a very long time ago and sent some of them to Earth 7000 years ago. Their sole purpose was to protect Earth and it’s people from Deviants. Deviants too were created by Celestials but they went rogue and started killing humans. As the movie progresses, the new leader of Eternals Cersei comes to know that their whole purpose was a lie. All this time, the Celestials just lied about their purpose.

Review: 

The movie begins with the Eternals being sent to Earth 7000 years ago to serve the purpose of protecting Earth and its inhabitants. Soon, the human race starts to develop and wars start to take place. The Eternals then part their ways and we see them living in the current time.

The plot then slowly builds itself as all the Eternals reunite gradually to fight the Deviants. That’s one good thing about this movie. The plot makes you believe that something big and cruel is about to happen until the end of Act 2. Then comes the plot twist of Ikaris being the antagonist. This is followed by the fact that Celestials planted another Celestial inside planet Earth. Hence, Earth was the host planet and human beings were the food.

After these two things are revealed, the plot doesn’t do anything good for this movie. The writing is very poor. If this movie had been under any other studios, then it would have been a miserable failure. The only reason, this movie grossed profit is because of Marvel’s technique of creating Hype and it’s excellent marketing strategy.

There’s no character development and it’s a shame that Marvel Studios cast two pretty good actors only to make sure that there would be no future for their characters. Eternals also lacks the presence of a strong villain, which leads to absence of good fight scenes.

The visual effects are damn good and there are many action sequences too which would have been much better and made more sense if there was a strong Villain.

Cersei, the new leader of Eternals is the biggest mystery as a character. Neither does she possess strong leadership qualities nor does she have proper powers and fighting skills to justify her role. Yes, a complete waste. It’s hard to believe that Marvel messed this movie up in many ways.

The only character that stole the show was Angelina Jolie’s Thena who was stunning throughout the movie. All her action sequences are just a visual treat. The cinematography and camera movement for her sequences is exceptional.

Eternals movie just teased Dane Whitman’s character and it’ll take some time before we see Kit Harrington as Black Knight.

In the climax, Eternals stop the Celestial from taking birth and eating Earth. Does this ring any bells? All this visual explanation was already given in Guardians of the Galaxy : Vol 2. So, in no terms does, Eternals introduce us to a new world.

This movie could have been a lot better if Marvel Studios wanted it to be. It’s clear that the script for this movie was pathetic. The script should have been somewhere near the level of Loki.

All that being discussed, Marvel Studios is currently more focused on building a new Universe and taking the story ahead for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. This is the reason, why Marvel isn’t making any efforts to develop it’s characters.

Character Development 

At this stage Marvel Studios should be very strong in this department as this is crucial for it’s future movies. Contrastingly, Marvel is completely ignoring character development.

All the characters introduced in Eternals weren’t justified and their powers were hardly explained. This is what they did with Shang-Chi. Marvel used Word building in a good way until now. They’re using it for every character.

Marvel also wasted Ikaris by killing him. First of all, the movie never shows anything from his point of view and then suddenly at the end he has a sudden pang of remorse. Seriously? In addition to this, all the action sequences for Ikaris were nothing but a copy. They were the same as the scenes for Man of Steel. Marvel even referenced Superman but then vaguely explained how Celestials chose to give Ikaris his powers.

Eternals could have used Thena more properly if the script didn’t sideline her. Cersei, as already discussed was the biggest failure as a character.

The rest of the characters are sidelined as well and merely shown as supporting characters.

Music  

The background music and effects are pretty good. All the effects would have made more sense, if the script was good.

Cinematography 

The cinematography throughout the movie has been exceptional. All the sequences were filmed with stable cameras taking this movie almost to a higher level.

Direction 

The direction of this movie was okayish. When you couldn’t write a proper script for the movie, you try to balance it with some action and effects. This is what Eternals was.

Marvel Studios has set a benchmark for every department for which I write a review. Kevin Feige knows before going ahead with a project that how good or bad it’ll turn out to be. So, this movie was not a setback, it was a calculated move of introducing characters.

But you can’t do that haphazardly, without making any sense, explanation and proper justification. This why Eternals is a complete waste.

Screenplay 

I don’t know whether this movie competes with Antman & The Wasp in terms of screenplay. But with so many characters and the run time of Eternals, I can say that Eternals has the weakest and poorest script. This is the worst MCU project ever.

The script of Eternals, just takes the concept of Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2 and multiplies it by adding more characters hoping that it will work.

Now, Eternals did make a profit but only because, Kevin Feige is currently King Midas. Whatever he touches, turns to gold.

Action/Effects 

All the action and effects in this movie are just a treat for the eye. But I’ll still point out again that the action scenes and effects for Ikaris were a copy from Man of Steel.

Marvel tried to introduce us to a world of Celestials. But they could only give a brief hint.

Eternals will return and this story line may also have some effect in setting up other characters such as GALACTUS, who is also a Celestial. Kit Harrington’s Dane Whitman a.k.a Black Knight is also supposed to have pivotal role going forward.

So, ETERNALS movie focuses more building the whole MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE rather than focusing on character development. I think this could also be the new normal for Phase 4 especially for new characters.