Movie Review - Eternals

This is the 26th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or MCU. Fortunately, one doesn't need to have seen any of the previous 25 films to understand this story. Aside from a few references to Avengers: Endgame (2019), this is a stand-alone. It follows Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), which was the 25th MCU flick and another mostly stand-alone. Like most stand-alone entries in the MCU, this is an origin story, which aren't typically my favorite stories in the super-hero genre, but this one manages to rise above the doldrums of the usual origin story, while miring itself in problems typical with epic team films.

Gemma Chan (Let Them All Talk and Crazy Rich Asians) stars as Sersi, an alien being who is immortal. She doesn't age and will never die of natural causes. She first came to Earth in 5,000 BC with other beings like her, but each of the beings have different powers. Her power is transmogrification. She can touch something and change it into something else. She can turn water into coffee. She can turn wood into metal and on and on.

She's lived on Earth for 7,000 years. She currently lives in London, England, where she works as a teacher, giving classes at some university. She's not unlike Diana Prince from Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). She's dating a human who suspects she's some kind of supernatural entity, but it's not confirmed until a monster attacks and she has to use her powers to defend her boyfriend, Dane, played by Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones).

Richard Madden (Rocketman and Game of Thrones) co-stars as Ikaris, another alien being like Sersi. However, if Sersi is Wonder Woman, then Ikaris is Superman, which is a character from Marvel's rival, DC Comics. His powers are very similar to that of Superman. He can fly. He has super strength and most notably he has lasers that emanate from his eyes. He's also the love interest for Sersi. They're romantically involved for the majority of their time on Earth, which is thousands of years. Eventually, they broke up and went their separate ways. They reunite once the monsters start attacking.

Kumail Nanjiani (The Big Sick and Silicon Valley) also co-stars as Kingo, another alien being like Sersi. His unique power is that he can shoot energy balls from his hands. He helps to fight the monsters, known as Deviants. He helped fight them thousands of years ago, when they all first arrived on Earth, but he thought all the Deviants were dead and gone. In the meantime, Kingo has become a Bollywood star with a valet named Karun, played by Harish Patel. Karun knows Kingo's secret and accepts him.

The film does a fairly good job of explaining how these aliens like Kingo have lived for such a long time or what specifically Kingo has been doing. Some might compare this to the recent film The Old Guard (2020), which is also about a group of immortal people. That group was five people. The group here is double that number. There are ten, immortal aliens. Both The Old Guard and this one juggle diversity. This film does so in double the numbers, which might make it the most diverse MCU film ever.

Sersi is played by a woman of Chinese descent. Kingo is played by a Pakistani man. Brian Tyree Henry (Joker and Godzilla vs. Kong) plays Phastos, an alien who is Black and gay. Don Lee (Train to Busan and The Good, The Bad, The Weird) plays Gilgamesh, a fellow alien who is Korean. Lauren Ridloff (Sound of Metal and The Walking Dead) plays Makkari, an Afro-Latina who is deaf. There's even Salma Hayek (Frida and Desperado) who plays Ajak, the leader of the aliens who is Mexican. All of this diversity is of course great. It's a problem of too much of a good thing. The film either needed to be longer or some characters needed to be cut.

Angelina Jolie (Maleficent and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) plays Thena, another alien being like Sersi. She's also the inspiration for the Greek Goddess of War. She's an amazing wielder of weapons. She's beautiful and stunning. She's mostly mute. She's a weighted presence that gives this film gravitas, but she is not needed in this film. If her character were removed, I don't think the film would've lost much.

Lia McHugh (Into the Dark and The Lodge) plays Sprite, another alien being like Sersi. She looks like a child and perhaps could be nonbinary. Her power is that she can create illusions. That power isn't put to great use here. She's meant to be a third wheel in the Sersi and Kingo romance, or the other point in their love triangle. However, the film doesn't really devote enough time to developing that triangle or examining much of Sprite's inner life. I'm sorry to say that her character could've been cut from this film without missing much at all.

Some cuts might have afforded more time to the characters who were more outstanding. Allowing more time with Phastos and his husband, Ben, played by Haaz Sleiman (Breaking Fast and The Visitor) would've been better, especially since Phastos' story goes to a very powerful theme here. It's a theme I thought was handled greatly in Wonder Woman (2017). It's a theme of questioning if humanity is worth saving. That theme was handled with more emotional impact in Wonder Woman, but I liked the way this film frames the dilemma. Here, the argument isn't simply if humanity is good or bad, or its propensity for decimating itself. The argument is basically sacrificing life on Earth for the promise of more life elsewhere and recognizing there's more to the universe than just the Earth. Mixed in are interesting questions of faith and how blindly one can follow someone.

This film by far has some of the best cinematography ever seen in a MCU flick. Director and co-writer Chloé Zhao really knows how to capture gorgeous visuals. The CGI in this film is also superb and the most beautiful. It probably helped that Zhao gave amazing, real backdrops as the foundation, but I was constantly impressed with the look and the VFX at work here.

Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, language and brief sexuality.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 37 mins.

In theaters.