I have watched this movie twice now and have concluded that it is truly a movie that is good and bad. It’s really the tale of two halves. One-half nails it with teamwork and focused goals, while the other half flounders lost in the woods with breadcrumbs that lead it back to the good parts. The positive is that the film ends on a high note rather than a confused look.
Let’s get right into this MCU film.
The story of Eternals begins with a Blade Runner-esque text scroll, where it’s explained that the universe was created by Celestial beings, huge creatures that form galaxies. The Celestials run into issues with foreign beings called Deviants, who are deformed creatures that look to torture and take over planets created by the Celestials. To answer the Deviant issue, the Celestials call upon Eternals from a planet called Olympia, who are placed on planets to take care of Deviant issues. The Eternals are planet protectors, each having their own unique abilities, and all are required to stay on a planet until the very last Deviant is destroyed. Pretty simple, right?
That’s the scrolling text and the backstory behind how everything works with the Eternals > Celestials > Deviant relationship. I’m cool with reading that and getting into it. Star Wars does this to catch us up on stories, so it works. That’s all we need to know about the structure of what we’re about to see, right? Wrong.
The first act of the film is a flip-flop of sorts. The story spends a bit of time in the past, then feels the need to jump to the present. It does this many times. In the first set of flashbacks, we’re introduced to all the Eternals, which include Sersi (Gemma Chan), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Athena (Angelina Jolie), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Druig (Barry Keoghan), and Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-seok). We see each in action, as they protect early earth civilization from deviants. The montage of each using their own power to take down the randomly monstrous creatures is impressive, as it explains through actions who they are as individuals and what they bring to the table. This is like the first Avengers film, where we get to see all our heroes in action. It’s a fun montage. It’s all quick, to the point, and cool. The moments shift from protectors of early humans to the modern-day. Each moment, past and present, gives way to breadcrumbs that lead to the next, and the eventual twist that comes in the second act of the film. The moments seem to flip-flop without much substance and context and are hard to keep up with the point of why we’re seeing what we’re seeing. Most of what we see in the past is empty actions that seek to build upon each character. While it is important to develop characters meticulously, the process seems to take forever with the Eternals. I’m not one to complain about character development, as it is quite vital for future tales, but the development comes in trickles through jumping between past/present and it’s tough to see the character development lake the story is trying to populate. It’s truly is a chore to keep track of everything when it’s so separated.
We know that the Eternals destroyed the Deviants in the past at one trickle point. We understand that Ajak falls in love with humanity, despite its constant need for war (which the Eternals cannot influence or interfere with). We also get that some of the Eternals have become so connected with humans that they blame themselves for some of humanity’s downfall, such is the case with the inventor Phastos, who feels guilty for pointing scientists towards the atomic bomb. These constant jumps back and forth create a jumbled/fumbled mess of character development that could have honestly been done so much better than it ended up. The lack of chronological flow and the lack of just simply standing still and explaining what the hell is going on is what hurts the first half of this film. The characters do get developed well, but the 10-mile journey taken could have been done in one mile.
*SPOILER ALERT BEGINS*
Once the characters are out of the way (nearly an hour and a half later), the movie begins to dig its storytelling heels into the ground when the second act is set in motion. The group in the present time is split for whatever reason (which you find out later). The Eternals come back together over the re-emergence of the Deviants, who are this time around evolved and prepped with their own powers. We also are introduced to Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington) at the beginning of act two, who is the love interest of Sersi, who seems to merely be involved to keep Sersi focused on humanity because he absolutely offers nothing in a fight against the Deviants. He seems cool, though. Anyway, as the group begins to come back together to figure out how the Deviants have formed into what they have become, the Eternals go and seek the last person and former leader of the Eternals to complete the band, Ajak…who they find dead. While she can self-heal, somehow the Deviants have found a way to kill her. The majority of the second act is a mystery of sorts that goes into how the Deviants have become this strong and who exactly killed Ajak. I must tell you, it’s a mystery that sheds no immediate light on the killer. Even having the group back together can’t seem to find a trail for the killer. Completely lost and baffled, at least for the time being, the clear part of this mystery is that Sersi is granted the powers of Ajak (who left them to her – she was chosen). The powers allow for Sersi to have direct communication with the Celestial Arishem, who lets her in on the conundrum of act three – the earth will collapse into itself, and all power drawn from perished Deviants and humans will form a new Celestial. Yes, that means that earth will cease to exist. KAAAA-BOOM.
Fun times for the Eternals. How does one solve who killed Ajak, while also stopping the destruction of the earth? Good question. Let’s head to act three.
Act three gives us the big reveal of the film, where Ikaris admits to killing Ajak to stop her from stopping Arishem’s plan to destroy the earth and create a new Celestial (I love it when a story comes together and it’s about an almost fanatical devotion to a celestial being). The group finds this out REALLY late in act three and then must figure out how the heck to stop the most powerful Celestial of them all from destroying the place they were asked to protect. And that is where the true fun of this film begins. The group must find a way to come together to create an ultimate power to stop both Ikaris and the Celestial. While it is cheap in a sense, where it isn’t really earned or understood this point in the story, it’s still neat and more together (no pun intended) than the first half of the film, which, again, seems to be all over the place.
As you can imagine, the group pulls it all off, sparing Ikaris in the process, but doesn’t avoid Arishem’s creepy consequences in the end. And they are unsettling.
*SPOILER ALERT ENDS*
Beyond the basic storytelling that the film seems to be confused about, the characters are sincerely interesting. They are more human than the movie presents, they’re each unique with how they operate, and how they end up in the present (and by the end of the film) makes them a group that you are dying to see in action again. Again, the story and story structure simply failed this film. It was messy at the beginning, took too long to develop characters (I didn’t know that was possible, but it is), and seemed to get on a whole different set of tracks when it finally found ground to stand on once it developed everyone. It also set up some interesting possibilities in the end credits, things you don’t want to miss, but may have been spoiled about online.
Despite this review, you should still check it out and see what you think on your own. One reviewer’s point of view is never enough to judge an entire film that you haven’t seen. The movie really isn’t a disaster like some are making it out to be, but it honestly doesn’t find a set story until it’s halfway over.
