I was never really familiar with the Eternals at all before this film. The first trailer for this film seemed interesting enough and it looked to be a very different Marvel film so I got interested. However I found each trailer got worse after that and I started to care less and less. Honestly if this wasn’t an MCU film, I probably wouldn’t have even seen it. The only thing that was giving me hope was that it was being directed by Chloé Zhao who just won best picture for Nomadland so I was hoping that she could salvage these characters who just seemed extremely uninteresting the more I saw of them. 

Chloé Zhao seems to have a habit of making her films very beautiful and stunning to look at. This is arguably one of the most beautiful MCU movies to look at with the effects looking pretty good and the landscapes are very gorgeous to look at especially for a Marvel film. With that being said though, not even Zhao could save these characters though. Most of it isn’t really due to the actors themselves as they try their hardest to make these characters interesting but the dialogue in this movie was terrible. It contained some of the worst dialogue I’ve heard in the MCU in awhile and I just found every single one of these so called heroes to be unlikable and not at all in a good way like the film was intending at certain points. Ikaris is basically Superman and the twist regarding this character was kind of dumb and predictable despite Richard Madden trying his best to make this character come across as a genuine hero/threat. Sersi is also one of the least interesting lead characters I’ve seen in awhile. So much focus is put on her taking over for Ajak but she’s just a blank slate and I really didn’t care about her trying and this is no fault of Gemma Chan, it’s just the script just gave her nothing to work with to get me to care about her overcoming her uncertainty about being the next leader of this group. It was one of the least interesting arcs for a main character in a superhero film I’ve seen in awhile. Angelina Jolie plays someone who goes crazy at times because she remembers something and that’s not really done in an interesting way either since she also isn’t likable. Don Lee was pretty much disposable here. Salma Hayek played Ajak who was their leader and even she does some unjustifiable things that just make me not want to root for her as much as the film tries to make me feel any sort of sympathy toward her character especially when the film tries to force emotion out of you and it was painful how forced it came across. Speaking of that Lia McHugh played Sprite and was by far the worst actor in the movie and probably the most annoying character in a Marvel movie possibly ever. The film tries to make me feel sympathy for her too by talking about how she can never grow up but she was just the worst and just came across as whiny to me. Especially with Ajak and she tries to show any amount of emotion it’s just horrible to watch. Brian Tyree Henry is an actor I usually like but here he was just kind of nothing other than the technical genius who I guess invents technology for humans to use which was kind of dumb but other than that I just found him to be very forgettable. Lauren Ridloff plays Makkari who is the one that uses sign language and I at least liked that Marvel included the deaf community here even if she’s a nothing character like so many of the others. Barry Keoghan is Druig and at first I thought he might be the only likable guy here but then the movie even screws that up by making him irredeemable like the rest of them and that was the point I knew the movie was flat out doomed. Kumail Nanjiani is Kingo and this guy tried really hard to be funny and he got a few smirks from me but he was still extremely unlikable and I just didn’t care about his character or how he became an actor either especially since he has a camera guy film everything for awhile which got annoying after awhile. I think the camera guy might’ve been the best character in the movie purely because he was the only likable character. The villain is not interesting either and even though him connecting with Sersi could’ve been interesting, but it just comes down to how bad the characters are and the connection isn’t really strong either like other hero/villain connections. The main problem with this film besides the obvious unlikable characters, is that there’s too many of them and there’s no time for development. This is why this could’ve maybe been better as a Disney Plus series to focus more time on every character and maybe there would’ve been characters to salvage here. Instead we’re left with an overlong slog over 2 and a half hours and I felt just about every minute of it. There was one genuinely funny moment in the film but that part was in the trailer anyway so there was not much else to be entertained by in that regard. The movie tried so hard to take itself so seriously but it still just gave me nothing to engage in because the story just wasn’t interesting and it just felt entirely pointless. Not every Marvel film has to feel of significant importance but this one in particular just felt like a waste of time. While this film did deviate from the final fight formula, it felt long and drawn out with not much excitement. I appreciated that it tried something different here but it ended up bringing the film down even more than before. The film also ended on a cliffhanger but I shudder at the thought of this getting a sequel. One of the credits scented was at least decent though. It definitely wasn’t worth sitting through this though because it was a painful bore and way too long with everything being shoved in at once. 

Conclusion: Possibly the worst group of heroes I’ve seen in awhile. Easily the worst MCU movie for me as well and that’s saying something. These characters are the worst and the dialogue and story are both terrible. Even Zhao’s directing and the beautiful landscapes couldn’t save this as much as she tried. It kind of hurt that Zhao went from winning best picture with Nomadland to this and it basically killed her momentum for me. Spider Man can’t come soon enough at this point to get the bad taste of this movie out. Over 2 and a half hours I’m not getting back. 

LE