Review: 'Eternals' is an uneasy mix of Marvel's action dynamics and director Chloé Zhao's ethereal imagery
What used to be a thrill of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was how individual directors could, within the confines of the superhero sandbox, play around with genre conventions — which is how we got Joe Johnston making a war movie (“Captain America: The First Avenger”), the Russo brothers making a political thriller (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) and Taika Waititi making a comedic fantasy flick (“Thor: Ragnarok”).
It’s not often, though, that a director’s vision is so at odds with the audience demands of a big-budget blockbuster as what happens with Chloé Zhao and Marvel’s “Eternals.”
Zhao is a wizard at mood, creating beauty out of the prosaic details of van life in her Oscar-winning “Nomadland” or the rodeo circuit in “The Rider.” Nobody this side of Terrence Malick can evoke such a sense of wonder out of something as simple as a sunrise.
Putting a passel of otherworldly super-beings in front of those sunrises — and staying true to both Zhao’s sensibilities and the requirements that those superheroes, you know, do something — is another matter altogether.
The Eternals, created in the comics by Jack Kirby in the 1970s, are 10 beings who arrived on Earth at the beginning of history, tasked by their godlike creator, a Celestial named Arishem, with two missions: To nudge humanity gently toward progress, and to defeat an evil monster species, the Deviants, that appear bent on destroying all human life.
The Eternals do this with a variety of powers. Ikarus (Richard Madden) flies — and, more often, floats — and fires lasers from his eyes. Sersi (Gemma Chan) can alter inanimate matter, and has an empathic connection to humanity. Sprite (Lia McHugh) is a shape-shifter, but usually in the body of a teen girl. Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) fires bolts of energy from his fingers. Druig (Barry Keoghan) can control humans’ minds. Phantos (Brian Tyree Henry) is an inventor, gradually introducing technological advances to the humans. Gilgamesh (Don Lee) is the strongest of the bunch, while Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) is the fastest (as well as being deaf). Thena (Angelina Jolie) is a fearsome warrior, while Ajak (Salma Hayek) is their leader, the link back to the Celestials.
With 10 heroes, “Eternals” has space for representation — Black, Latina, south Asian, east Asian, deaf and, as we learn later, LGBTQ — which can only be a good thing as Marvel’s universe tries to emulate our own.
The script (credited to Zhou, writing alone and with Patrick Burleigh, and Ryan and Kaz Firpo) sends these Eternals to various moments in Earth’s history, starting about 7,000 B.C., battling Deviants without changing human history too strongly. It’s later explained that they did not interfere in Thanos’ plan to eliminate half of all life in the universe because it wasn’t Deviant-related — but Ajak and others admired the humans’ resilience and ability to fight back.
In the 21st century, though, the Deviants are believed to be dead, and the Eternals have scattered to build their own lives. That’s how we find Sersi in London, working at a museum (oddly, the same job Diana Prince has in “Wonder Woman 1984,” just in a different city) and having a seemingly normal romance with a human coworker, Dane Whitman (Kit Harington). But when a Deviant attacks in London, and Ikarus and Sprite show up to fight it, Sersi must return to her old mission.
Cue the “getting the band back together” montage, which has its fun moments, like finding Kingo is now a Bollywood action star, and Phantos is happily married to a guy in Chicago and fixing their kid’s bike. Other revelations, like Druig’s fiefdom in the Amazon or Thena battling the superhero version of Alzheimer’s, are less cheery.
Along the way, the Eternals learn something unsettling about the Celestials — and each must decide how to respond.
Zhou and cinematographer Ben Davis (whose Marvel history includes “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Doctor Strange” and “Captain Marvel”) create some beautiful images of superheroes posing superheroically on beaches and near erupting volcanoes. Zhou concentrates on character, particularly Chan’s Sersi finding her emotional voice through her compassion for humanity, in ways Marvel movies often don’t.
It’s the thing Marvel movies are supposed to have — action — where “Eternals” doesn’t quite keep up. The action set pieces have a robotic sameness to them, serviceable but not dynamic, like a director’s afterthought rather than an organic part of the whole.
“Eternals” isn’t a terrible Marvel movie, just an average one. Considering the talent at work, and the potential of such a world-changing set of heroes, it could have been so much more.
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‘Eternals’
★★★
Opens Friday, November 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality. Running time: 157 minutes.