We're just like the soldiers down there. Pawns to their leaders. Blinded by loyalty.

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The fact that this is the MCU film with the lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes is perhaps the most baffling moment in recent cinema. There are a ton of people who absolutely hate this film. And I just can't bring myself to figure out why. People are saying that this is an ultra-unique take on the MCU that barely even feels like a Marvel movie, and that's just not true. This has the MCU comedy, the MCU action, and the MCU format. Sure, it's a bit longer than your typical MCU movie, but that's not nearly as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. I've seen people tear this film to shreds because it's "too long and doesn't tie into the MCU." Quite frankly, this sucks. Not only is this a good movie in general, it's a perfectly good MCU entry. It's out of the ordinary by only a tiny bit. The reaction this has gotten from both sides - "OMG I LOVE HOW THIS IS SO DIFFERENT FROM EVERYTHING MARVEL HAS EVER DONE" and "I HATE THIS IT IS SO DIFFERENT FROM EVERYTHING MARVEL HAS EVER DONE" - is completely unwarranted, in my opinion. However, if you made me pick one of those viewpoints, I'd lean strongly towards the first one. I am a pro-Eternals Letterboxd user, and I'm ready to tell everyone why I love this movie.

Eternals is first and foremost an ensemble film. It is a film about ten characters, their relationships, and their reactions to certain happenings. Because the film has to develop ten characters, it takes its time. It weaves in and out of flashback and present day masterfully, and slowly presents us with an understanding of these characters and the situation they are in. And then, things fall apart. It's a fantastic screenplay with a fantastic cast playing fantastic characters. And that's not even mentioning Chloe Zhao, who directed the shit out of this film. Surprisingly, Gemma Chan is not the most beautiful aspect of this film. It is instead the gorgeous color correction, sweeping IMAX shots (there was more IMAX than I expected, actually - I'd wager that the majority of the film is IMAX), and impeccably shot and edited fight sequences. Seriously, those fight sequences were boss. Perfectly executed, perfectly entertaining. And this story, ensemble, and direction is all brought together by what is quite frankly a perfectly paced film. If this film had been shorter, I know that some of the general public would be happier, but the film would be way worse because of it. The characters and story would be a whole lot weaker, and the entire film would feel completely off-kilter. I want to spend the majority of this review discussing the ensemble of actors and characters, but before I do that, I'd like to mention some of my flaws with the film

1. The Deviants stayed in the film way longer than they should have.
2. Take the "sentient Deviant" out of the film and you'd have literally the same movie.
3. The relationship between Sersi and Ikaris wasn't developed in the slightest.
4. Ikaris is a character I have a lot of issues with. I'll talk about him when I go over the characters.
5. There are a few plot holes about how the Celestial dude created them all to fight the Deviants, but several of their powers aren't in the slightest useful for that purpose. Also, how the Celestial didn’t want them to fight Thanos even though wiping out half of the universe is definitely not in his best interests!

And that's it! I'll start with Ikaris, because I'm sure those of you who adored the film even more than me are confused why I wasn't a big fan of him. I just felt that for the first two thirds of the film, he was kind of a cardboard cutout. Everyone really loved him and trusted him and you just didn't feel ANY of that. His whole personality was "he's handsome." And for an ensemble with so much personality, that surprised me. Richard Madden's performance also didn't do much for me, and I wonder if that was a more major part of my dislike for the character than I initially thought. However, the third act took his character in very interesting directions and I have to say, he's grown on me because of that. He may not be my least favorite character in the film any more. And that's saying something, because I loved the Eternals characters. I'm going to roughly work back by how much I liked the character, by the way, but this won't be an exact ranking. I already think I like Ikaris more than the next character, actually.

OK. I just returned to this review after leaving it idle for more than a week. And I'm going to just leave it as is. Such a lazy move, I know, but I am at a very busy point in my life right now and reviews just aren't my priority. However, I want to put this out, for my OCD's sake. Sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I'm writing an Eternals review for my school newspaper right now and I'll post that on this site like I did with my Dune review. Then you'll get some expanded thoughts of mine. The gist of what I was going to say - I liked all the other characters, Phastos and Druig especially because they had phenomenal performances and were the thematic backbone of the movie. And Sprite isn't as annoying as people says she is, she's actually really deep and interesting. Again, sorry I didn't finish. I'll be coming with reviews of all the other films I saw soon, though they'll be short. Feel free to ask me questions if I don't expand enough on any of them.

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2021