I appreciate the parts of Eternals that were trying to do something atypical of the MCU. Unfortunately being a part of this mega-franchise leads to qualities that undermine what is good about this movie.
Chloe Zhao shows heartfelt social and political commentary in Nomadland, and here it's obvious she tries to promote liberal (and to an extent, progressive) themes. But damn, the translation of these ideas to a $273 million budget makes them really seem like pandering and propaganda. Something was lost between the script and screen too, because for a superhero movie pushing 3 hours, the plot left me lost and bored way too much.
Sprite and Kingo are well done characters, Nanjiani especially steals the show. Most of the characters though feel like they are thrown at the screen, and not much sticks. The photography is also well done, a nice use of the resources now available to Zhao.
There's a lot of good and bad in this Marvel offering but it seriously does enough things very well that it's worth a serious look. The premise from the get go can be hard to believe at first, 11 main characters crammed into one opening film. The Avengers only had 6 heroes, and had 5 movies to serve as the introduction. How well does the Eternals do with this monumental challenge? Fairly well, actually, certainly better than it had any right to.
This might be the slowest Marvel movie I've ever seen and I mean that in a totally positive way. It doesn't feel the need to give a crash course to introduce all 11 characters and instead ops to put them in real-life situations and let the development happen organically. There's more human story in this one alone than probably 6 or 7 of Marvel's other offerings combined. It's a far, far cry from the traditional Marvel formula and it pays off. The humor was also a few shades different than what we're used to which was extremely welcome.
The worst sin has to be blatantly race-swapping and gender-swapping just to suit the ongoing agenda. I'm sure it went totally unnoticed by the masses though unless you were familiar with the source material.
Is it the best Marvel movie of all time? Uhh no, but as someone going into it expecting just another Marvel popcorn flick I was totally blindsided by it. The Marvel execs should be playing close attention as to what worked here.
All that flashbacks and backstories jammed into a two and a half hour movie made it hard for me to properly connect with the characters, kinda made the climax a little less exciting..
I feel like... this movie would have been so much better as a series instead.
I think I rank it around a mid-tier Marvel movie. The characters are hard to relate to, but I love seeing all these big cosmic concepts and it’s gorgeous. I’d say it’s the best looking Marvel film, but Zhao’s other films looked beautiful as well, so I should have expected that. I am a Marvel comics fan and a Jack Kirby fan in particular, so it was great to see something solely created by him on the screen. Was this the first (very short) sex scene in a Marvel movie? It gets extra points just for that since these movies are usually so sexless.
Compared to the other 2021 Marvel films, I enjoyed it about the same as Black Widow and Shang-Chi, and probably a little more than WandaVision and Loki, and way more than the Falcon & Winter Soldier. Like I said, I’m coming at this movie as a Kirby fan so I might be biased.
Just doesn’t do the source material any justice. It feels like the director was told the basics of the characters and just went, ok let’s make a movie.
Utterly bizarre to take 3 well known male characters and make them female. It completely changes their entire back story and how they experience life. It was equally bizarre to take Kingo, a Japanese character, defined by his samurai armour and fighting style and turn him into an Indian Bollywood actor, I mean come on. Utterly ridiculous.
The movie was just slow, with easily an hour that could have been left on the cutting room floor. With a storyline that just didn’t really draw the audience in. Everything about the storyline was predictable and well, bland. Can see why this is such a low rated movie and why people aren’t bothered about a sequel.
Also, just soo many basic mistakes. The Sahara 7,000 years ago was grass covered, with trees and lakes. Why they showed it as a desert was bizarre. Makkari using the wristwatch sign before watches had been invented? How did not one writer say, er that doesn’t make sense. And the police sirens making a weird noise? How did no-one say er that’s not the noise police cars make?
So, after much hesitation from hearing all the negative and mixed thoughts, I finally dragged myself to check out "Eternals". And oh boy... the naysayers were wrong. What a surprise, an entire generation of audience fed on "safe" and predictable MCU action comedy fare getting turned off by this philosophical musing that literally opened with Pink Floyd's "Time". Yeah.
Needless to say, I couldn't have watched this grand adventure sooner. Is it a masterpiece? Not even remotely close. The filmmakers should have pushed harder against the Marvel executives about squeezing in more action scenes in fear of their audience falling asleep from all the philosophical moral debates the characters have among each other, but no, we get sometimes pointless scenes that serve little purpose other than keeping our ADD minds occupied.
And yet, on the other hand, sometimes they talk too much. Film is a visual medium; "show, don't tell" applies here even more than the book medium. Should have shown us the "beauty of humanity" Ajak talked about so much; should've shown us what's going on in Thena's head through a David Lynch/Sam Raimi-esque horror vision to let us learn how messed up her psychotic visions really are. But nope, we get dialogue and descriptions only.
And YET, I'm someone who believes that intent matters to a certain extent when it comes to filmmaking. The fact that MARVEL and the MCU even allowed such a complicated and bizarre source material to be greenlit, translated, and almost dumbed down for mainstream audiences is an impressive feat in itself. We're talking about literal gods with god-like values regarding the rights and wrongs of grooming an entire species (us) into a species of both beauty and violence. Not human values like money trouble (Falcon & Winter Soldier) or depression (Wandavision), but god-like values about the pains of being an immortal witnessing Hiroshima itself nuked into dust partially because of the main characters. So yeah, definitely a wild and ballsy take by Marvel there that's definitely worth commemorated in every way, no matter how mediocre some of the scenes turned out to be.
And that's why I find it so hard to give it a low score because a lot of the scenes, even though they could use more polish, are such a breath of fresh air compared to everything we've seen before from the generic action comedies that made up of the MCU. Sure, there's jokes here and there in Eternals too, but about 70% of the movie is just contemplation of the human condition and the meaning of their own existence - IN A MARVEL MOVIE. Disney/Marvel. Wrap your head around the movie studio releasing something like that. Even Pixar's Soul couldn't match the complexity of the themes presented here, folks (resorting to the kind of generic kiddish humor commonly found in the MCU instead).
9/10. I have no regrets at all. This was a hit and a swing, and it's a shame lots of people couldn't give this film the support it much needed, so instead, Marvel got a knee-jerk reaction and went for the pandering instead. "Quick! Release some fanservice in the Far From Home trailer!" Yeah. I'm still looking forward to Tobey showing up, but let's just call it what it is: fanservice. I would rather get Eternals 2 any day over Far From Over Spider-Man.
The MCU movie no one was excited to see, Eternals may just have turned out to be one of the best-written of the franchise's efforts. It certainly doesn't follow the standard superhero story formula, and if it's long to accommodate 7000 years of flashbacks, it uses a lot of that real estate to make you get to know and care for the large cast of characters. It's successful in that it gives you time enough to change your mind about some characters, whether you initially liked them or not. At its core, Eternals is a celebration of humanity, warts and all. The film tries to be all-encompassing on that score, so it's not content to show one time, one place, one culture, but many. Its cast provides a cross-section of ethnicities, accents, genders, sexual orientiations, abilities and disabilities, and perhaps most germane to the story, philosophies. This last one is what drives the action and provides surprises. What is one's relationship to humanity when one has been exposed to its entire history - humanist love? Contempt? Would you want to control things, integrate, or live as far away from it as you could? There isn't a monolithic Eternal ethos. Favorite characters? I think there's a reason to feel for each of them, but Angelina Jolie's Thena was a big hit in my group, as were the necessary comedy stylings of Kumail Nanjiani. Makkari out-Flashes Justice League's Flash (I mean, this movie already killed DC's New Gods flick, and it brazenly goes after Superman, Wonder Woman and the Flash). Phaestos is really cool too. If you're a comics fan of a certain age, I think there's even more to be gotten out of it. The Eternals and Deviants have very much been reinvented, but - and I know even comics fans aren't generally Eternals fans - I like how it subtly pays lip service to the original stories and relationships. But the writers obviously read late-80s Avengers (for Sersi and Gilgamesh) because they introduce elements from that not-so-classic era of the book. A bit shoehorned in, but once we get to the mid- and post-credit scenes, it made me quite gleeful.
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Comments 1 - 15 of 23
danisanna
Disappointing for a marvell filmmcmakattack
I appreciate the parts of Eternals that were trying to do something atypical of the MCU. Unfortunately being a part of this mega-franchise leads to qualities that undermine what is good about this movie.Chloe Zhao shows heartfelt social and political commentary in Nomadland, and here it's obvious she tries to promote liberal (and to an extent, progressive) themes. But damn, the translation of these ideas to a $273 million budget makes them really seem like pandering and propaganda. Something was lost between the script and screen too, because for a superhero movie pushing 3 hours, the plot left me lost and bored way too much.
Sprite and Kingo are well done characters, Nanjiani especially steals the show. Most of the characters though feel like they are thrown at the screen, and not much sticks. The photography is also well done, a nice use of the resources now available to Zhao.
DisneyStitch
There's a lot of good and bad in this Marvel offering but it seriously does enough things very well that it's worth a serious look. The premise from the get go can be hard to believe at first, 11 main characters crammed into one opening film. The Avengers only had 6 heroes, and had 5 movies to serve as the introduction. How well does the Eternals do with this monumental challenge? Fairly well, actually, certainly better than it had any right to.This might be the slowest Marvel movie I've ever seen and I mean that in a totally positive way. It doesn't feel the need to give a crash course to introduce all 11 characters and instead ops to put them in real-life situations and let the development happen organically. There's more human story in this one alone than probably 6 or 7 of Marvel's other offerings combined. It's a far, far cry from the traditional Marvel formula and it pays off. The humor was also a few shades different than what we're used to which was extremely welcome.
The worst sin has to be blatantly race-swapping and gender-swapping just to suit the ongoing agenda. I'm sure it went totally unnoticed by the masses though unless you were familiar with the source material.
Is it the best Marvel movie of all time? Uhh no, but as someone going into it expecting just another Marvel popcorn flick I was totally blindsided by it. The Marvel execs should be playing close attention as to what worked here.
DaniloFreiles
Troppi animali sfruttati sul set.Neens
Should've listened to my friend, this movie was a lot better than the trailers suggested. Definitely worth a watch.royalspikey77
Very good visuals, superior acting and a slightly deeper story than most MCU work. what’s not to like?It’s a shame no other MCU characters feature to mesh this story into the existing marvel canon (a few name drops does not a cameo make)
bionysos
Woke shitdhan_bo
Overwhelmed with absolutely meaningless pathos and plastic emotions. Can't believe the same director made a wonderful spiritual Nomadland.And yes, this one is boring as hell.
Linkmaster89
Much better than excepted. Looking forward for Number 2.neko's kat
All that flashbacks and backstories jammed into a two and a half hour movie made it hard for me to properly connect with the characters, kinda made the climax a little less exciting..I feel like... this movie would have been so much better as a series instead.
essaywhu
I think I rank it around a mid-tier Marvel movie. The characters are hard to relate to, but I love seeing all these big cosmic concepts and it’s gorgeous. I’d say it’s the best looking Marvel film, but Zhao’s other films looked beautiful as well, so I should have expected that. I am a Marvel comics fan and a Jack Kirby fan in particular, so it was great to see something solely created by him on the screen. Was this the first (very short) sex scene in a Marvel movie? It gets extra points just for that since these movies are usually so sexless.Compared to the other 2021 Marvel films, I enjoyed it about the same as Black Widow and Shang-Chi, and probably a little more than WandaVision and Loki, and way more than the Falcon & Winter Soldier. Like I said, I’m coming at this movie as a Kirby fan so I might be biased.
jlfitz
Streaming on Disney+chunkylefunga
Just doesn’t do the source material any justice. It feels like the director was told the basics of the characters and just went, ok let’s make a movie.Utterly bizarre to take 3 well known male characters and make them female. It completely changes their entire back story and how they experience life. It was equally bizarre to take Kingo, a Japanese character, defined by his samurai armour and fighting style and turn him into an Indian Bollywood actor, I mean come on. Utterly ridiculous.
The movie was just slow, with easily an hour that could have been left on the cutting room floor. With a storyline that just didn’t really draw the audience in. Everything about the storyline was predictable and well, bland. Can see why this is such a low rated movie and why people aren’t bothered about a sequel.
Also, just soo many basic mistakes. The Sahara 7,000 years ago was grass covered, with trees and lakes. Why they showed it as a desert was bizarre. Makkari using the wristwatch sign before watches had been invented? How did not one writer say, er that doesn’t make sense. And the police sirens making a weird noise? How did no-one say er that’s not the noise police cars make?
MemphisRyder
So, after much hesitation from hearing all the negative and mixed thoughts, I finally dragged myself to check out "Eternals". And oh boy... the naysayers were wrong. What a surprise, an entire generation of audience fed on "safe" and predictable MCU action comedy fare getting turned off by this philosophical musing that literally opened with Pink Floyd's "Time". Yeah.Needless to say, I couldn't have watched this grand adventure sooner. Is it a masterpiece? Not even remotely close. The filmmakers should have pushed harder against the Marvel executives about squeezing in more action scenes in fear of their audience falling asleep from all the philosophical moral debates the characters have among each other, but no, we get sometimes pointless scenes that serve little purpose other than keeping our ADD minds occupied.
And yet, on the other hand, sometimes they talk too much. Film is a visual medium; "show, don't tell" applies here even more than the book medium. Should have shown us the "beauty of humanity" Ajak talked about so much; should've shown us what's going on in Thena's head through a David Lynch/Sam Raimi-esque horror vision to let us learn how messed up her psychotic visions really are. But nope, we get dialogue and descriptions only.
And YET, I'm someone who believes that intent matters to a certain extent when it comes to filmmaking. The fact that MARVEL and the MCU even allowed such a complicated and bizarre source material to be greenlit, translated, and almost dumbed down for mainstream audiences is an impressive feat in itself. We're talking about literal gods with god-like values regarding the rights and wrongs of grooming an entire species (us) into a species of both beauty and violence. Not human values like money trouble (Falcon & Winter Soldier) or depression (Wandavision), but god-like values about the pains of being an immortal witnessing Hiroshima itself nuked into dust partially because of the main characters. So yeah, definitely a wild and ballsy take by Marvel there that's definitely worth commemorated in every way, no matter how mediocre some of the scenes turned out to be.
And that's why I find it so hard to give it a low score because a lot of the scenes, even though they could use more polish, are such a breath of fresh air compared to everything we've seen before from the generic action comedies that made up of the MCU. Sure, there's jokes here and there in Eternals too, but about 70% of the movie is just contemplation of the human condition and the meaning of their own existence - IN A MARVEL MOVIE. Disney/Marvel. Wrap your head around the movie studio releasing something like that. Even Pixar's Soul couldn't match the complexity of the themes presented here, folks (resorting to the kind of generic kiddish humor commonly found in the MCU instead).
9/10. I have no regrets at all. This was a hit and a swing, and it's a shame lots of people couldn't give this film the support it much needed, so instead, Marvel got a knee-jerk reaction and went for the pandering instead. "Quick! Release some fanservice in the Far From Home trailer!" Yeah. I'm still looking forward to Tobey showing up, but let's just call it what it is: fanservice. I would rather get Eternals 2 any day over Far From Over Spider-Man.
Siskoid
The MCU movie no one was excited to see, Eternals may just have turned out to be one of the best-written of the franchise's efforts. It certainly doesn't follow the standard superhero story formula, and if it's long to accommodate 7000 years of flashbacks, it uses a lot of that real estate to make you get to know and care for the large cast of characters. It's successful in that it gives you time enough to change your mind about some characters, whether you initially liked them or not. At its core, Eternals is a celebration of humanity, warts and all. The film tries to be all-encompassing on that score, so it's not content to show one time, one place, one culture, but many. Its cast provides a cross-section of ethnicities, accents, genders, sexual orientiations, abilities and disabilities, and perhaps most germane to the story, philosophies. This last one is what drives the action and provides surprises. What is one's relationship to humanity when one has been exposed to its entire history - humanist love? Contempt? Would you want to control things, integrate, or live as far away from it as you could? There isn't a monolithic Eternal ethos. Favorite characters? I think there's a reason to feel for each of them, but Angelina Jolie's Thena was a big hit in my group, as were the necessary comedy stylings of Kumail Nanjiani. Makkari out-Flashes Justice League's Flash (I mean, this movie already killed DC's New Gods flick, and it brazenly goes after Superman, Wonder Woman and the Flash). Phaestos is really cool too. If you're a comics fan of a certain age, I think there's even more to be gotten out of it. The Eternals and Deviants have very much been reinvented, but - and I know even comics fans aren't generally Eternals fans - I like how it subtly pays lip service to the original stories and relationships. But the writers obviously read late-80s Avengers (for Sersi and Gilgamesh) because they introduce elements from that not-so-classic era of the book. A bit shoehorned in, but once we get to the mid- and post-credit scenes, it made me quite gleeful.Showing items 1 – 15 of 23