Sarcastic Movie Review: Eternals

Eternals has me convinced that mainstream media has no clue what normal people like. The movie was being panned by critics before its release, which made a lot of people a lot less excited for it, but turns out the movie is actually pretty good.

The movie isn’t without its faults for sure, but the way people were talking it up as the worst movie of the MCU and the fall of Marvel and all that clearly are quite disconnected from the regular movie going audience.

No, what eternals actually lacks is the ‘marvel movie magic’ which is to say large action set pieces, quipy dialogue and charismatic characters. It’s not that all this does not exist in the eternals but it is noticeably more toned down than the other movies in the MCU.

Now the movie is not perfect either, far from it in fact. It feels both too long and too short at the same time, that is to say it has a certain pacing issue.

It feels like a story that needed to be told across multiple movies as well, unlike the Avengers were we got to know the characters first from their own individual movies, in Eternals we are introduced to a whole host of new characters right of the bat and we really don’t have enough time to get attached to them.

The story itself had a lot going on and seemed to jump cut at odd places, it’s languid styling and exposition dumps also makes it feel like a movie at odds with itself.

But despite all this, underneath it all is a straight forward story with likable and relatable characters working towards an understandably important goal.

This might also be one of those rare MCU movies, that maybe did not need to be part of the MCU. I’m sure they’ll built on it in the future, but right now the past events of the MCU when they’re mentioned feels very shoe-horned in and the movie would have maybe been better without it.

The Plot

The story revolves around the Eternals a group of super-powered protectors send to combat the ‘deviants’ a group of extra-terrestrial monsters that was send to earth over 7000 years ago by the celestial Arisham.

See what I mean! There are already more elements in it worthy of a ‘lord of the rings’ type story and we barely have time to take in the epic scale of their existence.

The said Eternals who arrive on earth are:

Ajak: the leader of the eternals with healing powers

Ikaris: has super strength, flight and lazer vision. So basically a budget Superman.  

Sersi: mater manipulation. Basically she can change non organic things to other things. i.e. rocks to water etc.

Sprite: Stuck in the body of a child and has illusion powers

Thena: warrior princess archetype, with energy weapons.

Gilgamesh: brawler archetype with super-strength and energy gauntlets

Kingo: finger pistols that shoot actual lasers

Druig: can mind control people, and is kinda creepy.