Eternals (2021)

Its fair to say that Marvel have rested on their laurels over the last few years so the idea of them trying to do something different is something that got me curious. What also added to the expectations that I had was the director. I really enjoyed Nomadland and thought that Chloe Zhao deserved her Oscar. So it was disappointing that she has gone from Nomadland to Eternals.

Gemma Chan plays Sersi and she becomes the new leader and she had no presence to her at all. She was never given the journey to get her from cowardly lion to brave leader and as a result I never felt like she was someone to be taken seriously. Richard Madden plays a legally different version of Superman and was the only one who reacted the way you would expect when their truth is revealed. He became the physical villain to stop Sersi and when this happens the character became interesting because sadly up until this point Madden is very dull and whilst he has better screen presence than Chan, he still isn't someone that I would build a film around. Angelina Jolie is clearly there to pick up a paycheck. She never feels like she’s part of the action and has her Jekyll and Hyde character. She got to do some action scenes but we knew she could do it because of films like Tomb Raider but Thena feels like a side character. Barry Keoghan was underused as Druig. It seemed like his power was too powerful and like Captain Marvel got sidelined until his power was useful. Lauren Ridloff was good as the legally different Flash. As a deaf character it felt like she had some freshness and it was a shame that she got sidelined until the final act. I did think the romance between Makkari and Druig was underused to the point where I wondered why they bothered including it. Lia McHugh was the only character that seemed to have any development as not-Maisie Williams. She decides to follow not-Superman just because she fancied him and then gets rewarded with mortality. Kumail Nanjani (Kingo) is perhaps the best in this film because he brings a nice dose of comedy to the film. He is helped with his sidekick Harish Patel (Karun) who seems to whip out a camcorder at every opportunity.

Ultimately the problem with this film is that everyone involved is taking it too seriously. They don't inject much humour into the characters and there were long periods where a bit of humor would have been much appreciated. Also there is the fact that there are too many characters. If there had been three or four then it might have worked but there was way too many. People appear and then disappear and it's hard to really care about them when they spend a fraction of the movie on screen. There were way too many flashbacks which don't really add anything apart from the one where not-Superman kills Ajak. 

I was bored by Eternals. The film had absolutely no right being over two and a half hours long. I nearly nodded off at one point and felt like the endless  flashbacks could have been cut out (with the exception of the revelation one) and the film would have been a snapier film. There were parts of this film that reminded me of Nomadland but when the action scenes came, they seemed like generic action scenes and not the sort of thing that Chloe Zhao would come up with. Like most Marvel films, this probably wont be the last time we see some of the characters. The line from Kit Harrington about his character’s history being complicated was clearly meant to be a tease so I suppose time will tell whether it was worth it but this has to be one of the worst Marvel films I have seen since Captain Marvel and at least that film was shorter.