Eternals: Marvel’s Messiest Movie Yet

November 30th, 2021

This is a mostly spoiler-free review of Eternals (2021). Certain plot elements are covered, but mostly ones that were revealed before release.

The latest movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe also happens to be one of the most divisive, with average Eternals reviews being mixed and it getting review bombed before release. And while the movie isn’t bad, the chaotic mix of people falsely reviewing has unintentionally given it the perfect score: a flat 50%, completely unremarkable.

The premise of Eternals is rather straightforward: a race of immortal beings were sent to Earth thousands of years ago so that they can fight creatures called Deviants, alpha predators who ruin ecosystems. The Deviants were thought to be defeated long ago and the Eternals were stuck on the planet like limbo, but a sudden return thrusts them out of retirement. From then on, it becomes a race to figure out why the Deviants are back, how they’re getting stronger, and heavily focuses on patching their group back together after centuries of drama.

Character-driven stories are generally what the MCU is strongest at, with Spider-Man Homecoming and Infinity War being among the most widely praised. Eternals, however, misses the mark by a wide margin.

For starters, there are a total of 10 Eternals with a woman named Sersi at the lead, and the film tries to dedicate a lot of time to all of them semi-equally. There are also two human characters with mild significance, being the boyfriend of Sersi and Karun (an admittedly great comic relief). In addition, their Celestial leader Arishem and a sentient Deviant each have large dedicated segments. If you’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, that seems like a lot!,” you would be correct.

There’s nothing wrong with having a big main cast so long as the writers and director(s) have a good understanding of what their roles are. But storytelling is a careful balancing act, and trying to flesh out so many new characters at once is a great way to make the scale come crashing down.

While the aforementioned Sersi is the main focus, each of the other Eternals get ~15 minutes of dedicated screen time that ultimately feels like not enough for any of them. Unlike other Marvel movies where they could get away with big casts since many were pre-established or carefully use screen time, Eternals wants everyone in the spotlight.

Even worse, the movie seems dedicated to the idea that character development and plot progression can’t happen simultaneously, which is a major detriment to the film as a whole. Constantly stopping to add and explain who a new character is makes the pacing grind to a halt every 10 minutes just when things seem to be picking back up. It also doesn’t help that Eternals makes the grave sin of ignoring show-don’t-tell, having each character spell out who they are in the most dry way possible.

This leads into the pacing, which is all over the place thanks to the huge roster. For starters, it’s the 2nd-longest MCU movie at over 2.5 hours, and it absolutely doesn’t deserve that length considering how little happens. The first hour and 20 minutes is dedicated to getting the Eternals gang back together, with each new introduction stopping everything to explain who they are and why they were messing around wherever.

It’s charming at first with the introduction of Sersi and her boyfriend, and fellow Eternal Kingo does a great job stealing the spotlight despite being one of the least-important characters in the plot.

The same can’t be said for the rest of the cast. With 10 Eternals all trying to have equal time in addition to other major characters, it makes almost none of them stand out in a positive manner despite having a good setup.

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been rather hesitant to use names in the review thus far because there are an ungodly amount for main characters. Sersi acts as the lead, Kingo and Karun are loveable himbos, and Arishem takes the form of their giant red space leader. The rest definitely matter, but are more on the mixed end thanks to bad character development and poor use of screen time.

For starters, because there are so many, it’s really hard to keep track of their names even in the movie itself. The most memorable name to me was Sprite, a fellow Eternal living with Sersi, and that’s only because it made me think of the drink. Other Eternals like Ikaris, Phastos, and Makkari all leave their mark, but early on in the movie there were just too many names and new concepts being tossed around that crude nicknames and identifying them by face/superpowers was just easier.

That isn’t even touching upon Ajak, Druig, Gilgamesh, and Thena, who have their moments but ultimately don’t amount to much. And if I were to name-drop the last two major characters as Kro and Dane, would you even be able to identify which two roles they could be without looking back earlier in the review? There’s just too much, and going over how to fix all of them would almost make this review’s pacing as bad as the movie’s.

Worst of all — Eternals actually does a lot of things right! The original compositions were great and the comedy was pretty good for the most part. It’s the most diverse MCU movie to date in terms of casting and LGBTQ+ representation, plus there was a lot of solid potential in terms of world-building. But thanks to the botched execution it’s just that: potential.

Slight spoiler, but the ending heavily spells out that an Eternals 2 will be happening sometime in the future. After wrapping things up tightly, a last-second “gotcha!” moment happens that feels like it’s meant to be impactful, but just comes across as shoehorned in. It almost feels like a spiritual sequel to Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was notorious for having almost nothing happen except set up more engaging plotlines for later films. With the cast shaping up to be just as big (if not larger thanks to new characters), it’s hard to get excited.

Tightening up what to focus on would have done the movie wonders. Start by cutting the Eternals team in half, and especially work on introducing characters quicker to cut down on repetition. From there, they could have done nearly the exact same plot while having more room to flesh everyone out.

It wouldn’t take much to fix Eternals, but the unnecessary bits drag it down far too hard. An Eternals 2 would be far from bad and has plenty of potential, but it’d be alarming if the sequel is designed just like the original.