The saga of the Eternals, a race of immortal beings who lived on Earth and shaped its history and civilizations.
I have been a huge Marvel fan since 2008’s “Iron Man.” I never read comic books as a kid and while I was obviously aware of Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, and Captain America, Marvel’s big-screen adaptations of these comic book characters and their adventures, have been a very satisfying and rewarding experience for me. That is, of course, until now. While “Eternals” is magnificently grandiose and filled with the customary onscreen carnage and mayhem we have come to expect from a Marvel film, its heart, or lack thereof, is where they drop the ball.
We are introduced to the Eternals, immortals who possess superhuman abilities and have been around for thousands of years, and who were created by the Celestials, powerful cosmic beings who are over 100,000,000 years old. As a result of Thanos snapping half of the universe away, and then Hulk snapping them back into existence, Earth is now faced with a new threat, something the Eternals refer to as the “emergence,” paving the way for the return of their old adversaries, the Deviants, who they have been locked in a millennium-old conflict with.
The Eternals have been on earth for over 7,000 years and have helped mankind evolve over time, quietly living among us and keeping the Deviants at bay, but when a new breed of Deviant surfaces, causing all sorts of havoc on the streets of London, Sersi (Gemma Chan) and Sprite (Lia McHugh) do their best to stop it but when Ikaris (Richard Madden), a fellow Eternal, returns to earth and joins in the fight, eventually killing the creature, he informs Sersi and Sprite about the approaching emergence. Now they must search the globe, seeking the rest of the Eternals, before the Earth, and everyone and everything on it, is obliterated by the Deviants.
The problem with “Eternals” is that it feels empty and uninspiring. Its immediate predecessor, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” was a story I was unfamiliar with but director Destin Daniel Cretton delivered a top-notch film, filled with excitement and the welcome addition of Asian folklore and mythology into the MCU. Here, the Eternals are God-like beings and we are told they are virtually indestructible but as the story unfolds, we learn that is not the case and that they can die, just like us mere mortals. Like the Avengers, they play nicely together, for the most part, but when asked why they didn’t stop Thanos, they were informed by their creators, the Celestials, not to interfere with anything that does not include the Deviants.
When one of the Eternals is found dead, they assume it was a Deviant but soon thereafter, they learn there is a traitor among them and that they were responsible for the other’s death. With their demise, Sersi is automatically put in charge but that is not welcomed by everyone. Infighting ensues but as more and more Deviants materialize, they must put their differences aside and work together in the hopes of preventing the emergence from occurring.
One of the biggest issues I had with the film is the majority of the Eternals are not relatable. As I mentioned earlier, they are God-like and at times, their egotistical and cavalier attitudes reflect this attribute. They believe they are better than humans and it shows. With the Avengers, even though many of them had superhuman powers, and even though Thor was a god, they never looked down on the people they swore to protect, each of them willing to fight to the death, with some of them giving their lives in the process. Each Avenger had to endure their own personal demons but they became better people as a result of their suffering and afflictions, something the Eternals can’t seem to comprehend. They refuse to admit the possibility of their imperfections and failures and because of this, we as an audience, cannot identify with them, even though they are the protagonists of the story.
Gemma Chan, as the leader of the Eternals, never commands the screen and feels like an odd choice as the group’s taskmaster. Throughout the entire 157-minute runtime, she constantly questions her new position, insistent that somebody else, better suited for the role, should acquire it but it is unwaveringly stated that she is the one. When we finally reach the anticlimactic denouement, she manages to singlehandedly prevent the emergence and when asked how she did it, she responds with an unenthusiastic, “I don’t know.” I get it, sometimes we can’t see the extent of our abilities because we refuse to believe in ourselves, a very human characteristic, but even after preventing the emergence, she is none the wiser as to how she actually stopped it, which, in my opinion, doesn’t inspire much confidence.
In “The Matrix,” Neo refused to believe he was the Chosen One but because Morpheus was dogged in his confidence in him and his capabilities, Neo gradually began to accept the possibility that maybe he was their savior, and because he experienced a journey of self-discovery, when the time came, he would know what to do, which he did. Here, Sersi is given the position of the group’s leader, not because she earned it or achieved an abundance of self-knowledge, but because her predecessor believed in her and because she has a good heart but that does not necessarily equate to a great leader. At one point early on in the film, she manages to kill a Deviant by reorganizing its matter and, just like the end of the movie, when asked how she accomplished her feat, she responds with, “I don’t know.” If there are any future sequels, maybe she will finally understand her true potential, and exactly what her capabilities are, as will we, but for the time being, we just have to accept her as the team leader, because, well, the script says so.
Available on Digital HD January 12th, and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray & DVD February 15th
