Eternals; Grade: D
Eternals tells a story about a group of immortal beings, whom are here to help the earth only if Deviants are around. My homie D’Mon was once called a Deviant from the homie Charles, but I can rest assure you that unfortunately D’Mon does not make an appearance in this film nor is he a deviant…. They got D’Mon all wrong, D’Mon is a decent southern man whom is actually a solid wing man, actually the only wing man that has actually delivered. Anyhow deviants are monsters that look a lot like the beast monster from HellBoy (2004). Why can Eternals only help earth if it only involves Deviants?! Well Eternals were told by a transformer like robot that they can not interfere with conflict of society, as surely if they did interfere it would ruin their progression as human beings… Nothing says “Human Progression” than allowing loved ones die of tragedies and unnecessary murders, when you have the ability to save everyone or in Druig’s (Barry Keoghan) case mind control them to be quality loving civilians, finally accomplishing world peace. Anyhow the Deviants are back once again, as the Eternals have finally gotten off their lazy asses and now will help mankind from these fowl beasts.
The film maker of Eternals Chloe Zhao, most known for her depressing dramas such as The Songs my Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, and Nomadland… Chloe Zhao somehow was called on by Marvel to take on this epic action comedic filled superhero film. I say somehow not because I question her film making ability, I’m a fan of Chloe Zhao and enjoy her depressing films about real life, but I do question why exactly did Marvel decided to contact one that doesn’t have qualifications of the movie they want her to make?! Chloe has no experience in action or comedy, so I’m not sure why Marvel decided she could potentially make a good superhero film of this caliber?! I don’t judge Chloe for taking on this film, if anything I applaud her for thinking to herself, “Marvel will potentially fund majority of my low budget passion depressing projects, I’ll make their stupid superhero movie for the sake of money!” What better way to get funding, than having a company like Marvel that throws money away on a regular basis?!
Eternals felt like it could go either way: A surprisingly good film from an unlikely successor or a recipe for a disaster. I was only looking forward to this film due to Chloe Zhao and the talent behind it, I didn’t watch any trailers for it, Chloe Zhao’s name was the selling point for me. However: I almost skipped it due to it being the worst reviewed film of the MCU thus far, since I don’t really care for the MCU… I figure what’s the point of sitting through mediocrity once again?! However I somehow made my way through the theater solely for Chloe Zhao, though I love her films I never have seen one in a theater, as I hoped maybe Zhao will make something different from the repetitive norm of the MCU. Well I will say in some way Eternals is different from any MCU film I’ve seen thus far… That’s not much of a compliment, due to it being different as this is easily the most unbearable film I’ve seen thus far from the MCU.
One of the main reasons I was terrified of Eternals, was the running time… Two hours and thirty seven minutes?! Why?! Well that nightmare came true: This movie is WAY too long and it’s not justified at all. The film has a very simple premise: A group of superheroes, coming together to stop an entity from doing harm on the planet. That can easily been a 1 hour forty minute movie, now why is it almost fifty minutes longer than it was required?! I can honestly say it needed to be cut 40-50 minutes, there is WAY too much unneeded exposition that honestly doesn’t help the story or even takes any momentum from the story. I really do not need to see like six sequences of these useless bastards fighting bad guys from different centuries, I get the gist of the superheroes we have here, we don’t need this many.
The film is dreadfully BORING, how boring?! I almost fell asleep like five times while watching it. Chloe Zhao can get away with it with a drama where you’re actually telling a real story featuring characters you can relate to and such. You can not get away with it in a freaking action packed superhero film, that was meant to entertain people, this is why I question why Marvel booked Chloe because this could never work.
It’s really hard to pin point what I actually like about this film, because honestly nothing really works here. The action is boring, it feels like the same repetitive pre-school action sequences I keep experiencing from these marvel films. The comedy… I really have no idea why comedy was placed in this film. Like majority of the film is actually serious, but suddenly it attempts that Marvel end of the popsicle stick humor just randomly… Once it was introduced, I was so confused because this film has been serious for a good thirty minutes, now it wants to be playful?! It’s got to be the studios fault, there is no way Chloe Zhao wanted to write humor in this film, she’s been so accustomed to depressing stories and wanted to make a serious Marvel film, then the studio said, “NAH I WANT A BAD IKEA JOKE HERE!”
Characters… Unless it involves an insult or a “HUH?” I didn’t like any of the characters, they’re all pretty one note despite all this exposition. They’ll be a great debate going on, on whom is the worst character in the MCU: Flash from Spider-Man now has real competition… IKARIS (Richard Madden)!!! This expressionless dork… What a pussy this guy is. Spoiler Alert: This man wants to eliminate an entire civilization of people and make way for a new one, all because his past lover Sersi (Gemma Chan) whom he was together for thousands of years, moved on and found someone else… Now I know why most Marvel Man Children are Wimps… It’s this type of shit! I know losing a dime piece like Sersi is a tragedy within itself, however you’ve been with that woman for thousands of years. It’s time to move on, be happy for the memories you shared with her, and be happy she found happiness. There is nobody worth killing an entire civilization of people… Dude out here betraying his family and putting innocent lives at risk all for a girl, bitch please grow a pair, I can’t stand my gender man we gotta stop normalizing this level of wimps.
I felt Eternals were thankful I didn’t watch the trailer, because if I did I would’ve never saw this movie. It reminded me too much of the X-Men movies where they had a thousand reshoots… Only this felt like a parody of those exact films. I’m happy Chloe Zhao robbed Marvel just to get funding for any future project of hers, if you’re going to take cash from a company might as well be Disney.
Overall, Eternals is BAD! I don’t recommend this movie at all, go watch any other Chloe Zhao movie. Out of the four Marvel films released this year: I’m surprised Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was my favorite, I thought it looked terrible but it surprised me, as Eternals being the worst of the bunch was only a major surprise. -Mitch Smietana