Eternals Movie Review

It’s midnight and I need to talk about Eternals. Marvel’s newest ensemble movie just dropped, boasting remarkable visuals and a wonderfully diverse cast, but that doesn’t answer the question: is this a good movie?

The short answer is yes, but not for the reasons you would think. While there are some truly great things about this movie, there were some key fundamentals missing. Was this movie well written? No. They had so many characters and backstories and flashbacks and A, B, and C plots, and (gasps for breath) worldbuilding to cover, that the idea of a perfectly cohesive movie coming out of that is ridiculous. The writing is easily the area where the film struggled the most. The second it began with scrolling text, I knew we’d be in for a bit of a mess in terms of pacing, how exposition would be conveyed, and so on. Just the idea of all the content they had to cram into this movie makes me not envy the writer, and I imagine they did their best, but goodness me was it all over the place.

However, this juggling of scenes and characters made for one hell of a ride. I think of it like a big Godzilla film; the action was enjoyable, and even when things confused me or made little sense, I was still excited to see some fun action sequences with amazing powers. The entire final battle just had me happy to be watching a thrilling, fast-paced scene, even if I had no idea what was going on in the grand scheme of the plot.

While the writing left something to be desired, the rest of the film on a somewhat more superficial level was great. The visuals, in particular the scenery, was gorgeous. I was always engaged with the sets and locations. The effects were also fun, Gemma Chan’s Sersi in particular had super cool powers. Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo also had the most amazing looking shooting power. I thought each Eternal had a unique power, and each power was visually conveyed in a smart and easy to interpret way. When you’re working with an ensemble cast bigger than the original Avengers, that’s a hard task. Kudos to them.

Speaking of that cast, I thought all of them were great. Kumail lit up the screen, Angelina Jolie’s Thena was the badass I loved to see, and Salma Hayek’s Ajak deserved more screen time. They all had great dynamics with each other, and the acting from all of them was solid. Oh, and I just have to say it: the Game of Thrones representation? Kit Harington just made me think of the bad things about Game of Thrones, poor guy, but Richard Madden set my heart ablaze (I LOVE YOU FOREVER ROBB STARK!!!!!).

Listen. Ok. Hear me out. From this point on, I’ll be discussing a huge spoiler, so please for the love of all things, don’t read the rest of this if you haven’t seen this movie. Richard Madden’s Ikaris… his character turn at the end genuinely surprised me. I loved it. I was blindsided. It played perfectly to his stoic demeanor and ideals shown through the rest of the movie. His turn was great. The scene where he tries to kill Sersi but fails? And then Gemma Chan doing this wonderful emoting, looking at him all upset? I LOVED IT. I thought it was so good.

However…this also led to what was the funniest part of the movie. Ikaris…to atone for his betrayal of his Eternals family…flies. Into. The. Sun. And. Dies. Listen to me…I’ve never used so many ellipses in an article because I need to emphasize this point…I laughed…so hard…that I sat there, tears streaming down my face, holding my hands over my mouth to keep quiet, and struggled not to throw up. I almost…threw…up… I laughed so hard. This also brings up the issue of the writing. Someone thought this was profound, that Ikaris would die by flying into the sun. But no. It was so sudden. It came so out of left field in this wild ride of a movie, that I almost peed my pants. That’s right. 25 years old and I almost peed and threw up in this movie theater. I’ve never enjoyed a Marvel scene so much. I’m sitting here quietly laughing, tears in my eyes again, as I write about this scene. That’s really all I have to say about that, I just really needed to tell someone how funny that scene was to me. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

But all that aside, the movie ended on a slow note, with some hilarious cameos and teasers that’s become standard for the lumbering monster that is the MCU. Eternals wasn’t terrible, it wasn’t stellar, but it was a hell of a great time.