My Review of "Eternals"

Eternals is the latest Marvel movie to come out in theatres. It's been held back for quite some time because of the pandemic but we're finally seeing the overall vision of what phase 4 is all about. This movie is quite a departure of the bubblegum Marvel movies we know and love. That may be a good thing and a bad thing. You don't have quite the usual superhero fare but I found that it was a refreshing look into the way superhero movies could be portrayed.

The movie starts off with a Star Wars like opening crawl. It talks about the heroes that were created by a celestial space being to fight off demon creatures. These beings are known as the Eternals and they're spread across space. Each of these Eternal members have super powers that are vastly different from one another. This particular group was placed on Earth to fight demons.

They kind of got rid of these demons pretty quickly. After they've eliminated what was thought to be the last of the demons they were told to stay on earth until they got word that the mission was over. Days turned to weeks and weeks turned to years. Soon as you know it they've been on Earth for thousands of years.

During this long break all of the Eternal members separated to live their own lives in different parts of the Earth. Some of them had families, became movie stars and just enjoying the joys of living. All this comes to an end when a mysterious earthquake rocks London where the Eternal Sersi lives.

She soon finds out that the demons that they thought were long gone have come back and with new powers. All of a sudden she realizes that they all have to get back together to get rid of these demons once again.

There's a lot more to the movie but I'd hate to ruin it for everyone looking to watch the movie. It's a great departure from the other Marvel movies because it really dives into culture, existentialism and our purposes in life.

These Eternals have been stuck on earth for thousands of years not knowing whether they're ever going to hear back from their celestial master. They don't know what is the true reason for their mission if they're told to continue to stay on Earth. What do you do with your life if that's the case?

They go on to talk about how they can't meddle with the humans that live on Earth because it will greatly affect their evolution. They have a character there that can literally eliminate all wars and conflict on Earth. What would the repercussions be if he had done so? They talk about the human evolutions after each war that was fought. In some ways a lot of the rational behind their reasoning makes a lot of sense and at the same time sometimes it doesn't.

It would be greatly underestimating the resilience of human beings to assume that we wouldn't be able to evolve without war and conflict. There's also some talks about the Eternals individually and as a whole. Later on there are a few twists that I won't spoil that turn all of the members upside down and not understand their existence as a whole.

There's tons of questions to reflect on in this movie. It's something that can be further discussed after the movie with people that have seen the movie. This movie doesn't really give you a good versus evil battle we're used to in Marvel movies. Everyone in this movie is in some sort of grey area because everyone means well but the information that they have in their heads is different from each other. That can be the same with humanity. We can all be given the same information and interpret the information differently.

The movie is also very culturally diverse. You have so many groups of people represented in this movie. It makes sense as this movie is based in all areas around the world throughout different periods of time. You get a sense that there is some sort of united understanding for certain things and it all melds together nicely in one sweet package at the end.

There was a lot of internal thoughts while watching it and it opened up my thoughts about determinism. It's very odd that a superhero movie went so deep into thought about such theoretical and philosophical ideologies. Kids will hate this movie but the Marvel movies have been around for 12 years. Some of the kids that grew up watching those old movies are probably into their late high school to university/college years. It would only make sense that the Marvel movies grew up with them.

Outside of the actual topic of this movie there are two major game of thrones actors in this movie and the main superhero in the movie has the name of Sersi. It was utterly distracting having these heroes calling for Sersi when Cersei of Game of Thrones was one of the main villains of the TV show.

Overall I had a blast watching this movie. I can tell it's not for everyone. I went on opening day and no one was in the theatres. It definitely will not cater to most Marvel fans. To me it felt like Marvel was leveling up with their movies. I have to give this movie an 8 out of 10. This movie will be better remembered years from now when people start realizing how great of a movie it really is.