Eternals (2021 | USA | 157 minutes | Chloe Zhao)

It was just two months ago, almost to the day, that I was, uhh, marveling at how Marvel Films’ blockbusters were mostly entertaining in the same ways. Watch enough of the movies, and they have a formula down for delivering a satisfying film experience. All that gets turned on its head with Eternals, the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The movie is filled with lush, gorgeous cinematography, and a rich and diverse cast. You shouldn’t expect less when dealing with the reigning Best Director, Chloe Zhao. It’s also weirdly somehow both too long and not long enough. Altogether, though, the movie is messy, unfocused, and a massive disappointment. 

Over a span of roughly seven thousand years, a group of “Eternals” have been keeping earth safe from a scary group of monsters called “Deviants.” There’s some added confusion as to who knew what when and who’s good and evil and some double and triple-crossing, but the Eternals v. Deviants is the battle the movie sets up at the beginning. 

Part of the problem with Eternals is that there are a lot of Eternals, including (in no particular order) Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden, who presumably left his charisma on the battlefield set of 1917), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Thena (an underused Angelina Jolie), Druig (Barry Keoghan), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani, newly ripped but performatively conflicted about it), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), and Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry).

Because this was the first time we saw most, if not all, of these characters, so much time is spent world-building. Some of it was nice with the picturesque scenery but this movie felt like it was almost all world-building. With ten Eternals, there are a lot of characters to introduce. The #SnyderCut was four hours long and it had fewer characters to introduce and it felt like a shorter movie. That’s even stipulating that everyone knows Batman’s origin story and most people know Superman’s. 

Eternals was excruciatingly long at 2 hours, 37 minutes (the four trailers before this preview screening became even more unwelcome and unnecessary as the movie progressed). There were multiple scenes after the epic showdown that dragged on. By the time the lights mercifully came back on, I thought I was gone so long my girlfriend moved on with her life and my employer replaced me. 

The movie is a triumph of representation (Thena has mental health issues, Makkari is deaf, Druig is moody, Phastos is gay and struggles to channel his creativity, Ikaris is an asshole) but I wish there were fewer characters given more time to explore what makes them unique. As I said in the first paragraph, this movie felt way too long but also not long enough to fully develop each superhero. The script leans heavily on mythology, too. I was surprised by how literal Ikaris’s character arc lined up with Icarus’s. 

I kept wondering if this movie would get better once the backstories were told. I wanted the movie to get better, or mercifully end, and neither seemed to happen. There were several scenes that were after the final showdown, including one “bonus scene” after the credits. I kept hoping the movie would begin to lean on the proven tropes Marvel films have already perfected. I was hoping for something, anything. The fight scenes could’ve felt less muted, or the humor could’ve been less subtle, or maybe Ikaris could’ve been less of a dick, or the movie could’ve taken itself less seriously. Instead, it was flattened by its own ambition. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. 

Sometimes it’s a mistake to send a visionary to do a hack’s job. 

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Eternals opens in theaters today, November 5, 2021.