Please use this thread for feedback/questions/general discussion related to Marvel’s The Eternals.
Any and all spoiler-discussion is permitted here.
WH Park and I will be reviewing the film this Tuesday on a special edition of MCU L8R available on the Patreon feed.
I think there’s quite a lot to criticise in the eternals, but I really enjoyed it. Maybe I’m just dumb but I did not foresee the ikaris heel turn, in fact I thought it was well scripted where at points I was predicting phena, druig or phastos being the antagonist. Humour goes a long way for me in the mcu but I think it can weigh it down at times and lower the stakes of the plot, eternals balances it pretty well and I really enjoyed kumail nanjanis performance.
As far as criticisms go, sprite sucks and her actions are far too easily forgiven. Now that she’s human I hope she’s gone from the mcu. Pip looks terrible in the mid credits scene, he could genuinely be the jar jar binks of the mcu if he’s featured regularly. I have no problem with Harry styles casting, I’m not a fan, but he’s in christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, and I think he’s very good in it.
This probably falls on the lower end of my rankings in mcu movies, but that’s no bad thing.
Finally I cannot understand anyone complaining about there being a gay character in the mcu, the storyline is there to give weight to phastos’s decision making, it’s not shoehorned in to have a gay subplot, like I’ve seen some critics say, it could be the same plot if he had a wife, but also gives good representation to the lgbt community.
Cheers. Look forward to the review.
Sean from Toronto
While good timing for marketing purposes, I do think that Chloé Zhao’s Oscar wins for Best Picture and Best Director earlier this year for Nomadland resulted in some heightened expectations for Eternals. While I do appreciate her decision to shoot in practical locations, Zhao’s shooting style ultimately didn’t mesh well with a comic book superhero film and I found the colour scheme of the film to be quite muted, compared to the previous MCU offerings. Also, I wasn’t too enthralled by the story, which I viewed as “Justice League meets Highlander.” I’m not going as far as to say that Eternals is a bad film, but it’s not an MCU film I plan on rewatching anytime soon.
Also for the post-credits, I do wish they made it more obvious that the offscreen voice speaking to Kit Harington was Mahershala Ali as Blade since I didn’t clue into that fact until reading about it afterwards. That said, I did like the very brief Game of Thrones Stark brothers reunion between Harington and Richard Madden, even if it was only for a single scene.
I’ll keep this simple. I don’t understand the hate. God forbid a movie has strong characters of color, a gay father, or minority women leading the group. This is the world we live in and I loved the diversity.
Loved the reference to Game of Thrones with the Stark brothers and the end scene with Blade. The possibilities this movie opens up to future MCU characters is exciting. The Eternals is fresh and doesn’t lag. I never felt bored, felt each character was engaging and I clearly understood the logic of each Eternal’s decision at the end.
I blocked out as much noise as possible and I wound up enjoying Eternals. Chloe Zhao’s direction had heavy traces of Jack Kirby and Neil Gaiman in the film’s visually operatic aesthetic and I understood each Celestials’ motivations. I appreciated the parallel storytelling of past and present. I thought Angelina Jolie did a very good job conveying Thena’s PTSD. Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo was funny and I found Gemma Chan to be a very capable leading woman.
Overall, I came away from it more intrigued about these crop of characters…especially Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman.
The second post credit stinger made me smile a mile wide. I knew the voice right away that it was Blade. My hype for the Daywalker went way, way up.
Jake from The Windy City
After seeing the online reviews, I figured this film would be a total flop. I almost went into the theater wanting Eternals to fail. I must admit, however, that from the moment the movie started, I was satisfied, but it was not blow-out Marvel fantastic. I was curious to see how the film would handle so many various plots and I really thought the film wouldn’t be able to do it properly, but it delivered. I found each charter to be unique and I really believe the audience got to know all of them properly. The final battle was also remarkably beautiful, the hand reaching out and the enormity of it was spectacular, it was a visual I won’t soon forget. The issue with this film, which I don’t find to be too momentous, is the villain. The deviant villain was pretty useless and not too menacing, I’d like to see this team again with a better villain. Also, it was not too well paced. Lots of talking vs action. It was a simple, enjoyable film but nothing memorable and very low key for Marvel standards especially with Spider-Man: No Way Home coming up.
6 Infinity Stones out of 10.