admin
Munya Chimanye Lifestyle Correspondent
Marvel’s “Eternals” debuted for the general population in cinemas around the world on November 5, leaving a dichotomy of opinions running amuck on the internet about the film’s critical value and performance in cinemas.
Although the film boasted a star studded cast, showcasing tremendous locations and visual effects, with the exception of antagonistic “deviants” that resembled string-doll animals reminiscent of the aliens from “Edge of Tomorrow” and stick to a strict diet of humans, “Eternals” was the recipient of frosty reviews from critics because of its underwhelming and ultimately convoluted plot.
This movie comes as the second Marvel film following the end of the “Infinity Saga” that ended with “Avengers: Endgame”, leaving the viewer conscious of the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) would change from there on out.
The first post “Infinity Saga” film, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, was received with few complaints, a Marvel film’s marriage to kung-fu proving that action plus action, equals audience satisfaction.
“Eternals”, however, as a film, saw director Chloé Zhao, renowned for her directorial role in Oscar-winning “Nomadland”, struggle to tell a story set over 7 000 years in two and a half hours of not one, but ten immortals who were sent to Earth in the Stone Age under the guise of protecting the planet.
The premise of the guise created by the “Eternals” creator, a celestial named Arishem (celestials being world-creating beings that have existed since the beginning of the universe who are born by emerging from planets with intelligent life) is that the Eternals were sent to earth with their unique gifts to protect humans from the awkwardly animated deviants.
The ranks of the Eternals showed the diversity of Marvel’s casting, by name: leader of the Eternals Ajak (Salma Hayek), the only one of the group that was able to communicate with Arishem, could heal her allies; light-fashioned weapon wielding Thena (Angelina Jolie); Icarus (Richard Madden) whose powers of flight and laser-shooting eyes felt like a rip off of DC Comics Superman’s; Sersi (Gemma Chan) who was essentially an alchemist; Gilgamesh (Donnie Lee) possessed of mighty strength.
Druig (Barry Keoghan) could control the minds of men; laser-shooting Kingo (Kumail Nanjari); illusion making Sprite (Lia McHugh), who was stuck in the appearance of a child; Phastos, Marvel’s first overtly homosexual superhero, was blessed with the power of invention; and Makari (Lauren Ridloff), Marvel’s first deaf hero, had super speed.
The movie begins with a “Star Wars” — esque script of text rolling down the screen, giving us an introduction to the celestials and the Eternal’s mission, shifting to a scene in Mesopotamia in 5 000 BC. when the Eternals first arrive on Earth.
In a mostly wordless exchange, the Eternals begin their fight with Deviants, protecting the Stone Age locals; after which a few of the characters briefly introduce themselves to one another.
Although equals on their mission to Earth, the plot of the movie revolved around main character Sersi who we discover has settled down in London after the Deviants, for the most part, have been dispatched where she lectures history (or in this case the story of her life) to school going teenagers, among whom Sprite is present.
The two Eternals along with Sersi’s love interest Dane Whitman, played by Kit Harrington, whose character will continue to be of importance in the MCU in the future, are subsequently attacked by a Deviant, thought to be extinct, when Icarus comes to their rescue.
Icarus is revealed to be Sersi’s former lover of 4 000 years, evidence to which we are shown during one of the flashbacks showing the Eternal’s history, and he takes the two other Eternals to Ajak in an effort to gather the group to deal with the Deviant threat.
After finding Ajak dead in the backwaters of America, the trio note that the deviant they encountered stole their fallen comrade’s powers and conclude that they must find the other Eternals with haste.
However, before they can leave, Ajak’s corpse, purportedly as her last action, bestows leadership of the Eternals to Sersi in the form of an orb from her chest that grants Sersi the ability to communicate with Arishem.
After a brief stop in India where Kingo has developed a Bollywood acting career, which he puts aside to join the trio of Eternals accompanied by his valet Karun (Harish Patel), a constant source of comic relief, the quartet plus one make their way to Australia in search of Gilgamesh and Thena.
Thena’s brain, affected by “mad weary” which is described as a sort of crack in her mind made her a danger to the other Eternals, as they discovered just before the group disbanded, resulted in her needing to be secluded and the only of her counterparts fit to do so was he lover and physically strongest of the Eternals, Gilgamesh.
The group finds them in a vast desert expanse, with Thena still in recovery and Gilgamesh aware of the Deviant threat having just killed one.
At this time, Sersi discovers the truth of their mission on Earth: to kill the Deviants and allow society to progress on Earth so the planet could be destroyed for a new celestial to rise from it.
In addition, she discovered that they were not 7 000 years old, but older; however, their memories were erased after each planet they prepared for destruction, hence the crack in Thena’s mind.
This brings the main philosophical argument of the film to boot: if a celestial creates many planets, potentially trillions of lives, would stopping one from being born be just sacrifice to save 7 billion lives. The conclusion is yes for the most part and the Eternals go to seek out Druig who they find somewhere on the Amazon.
Unfortunately, the Deviants knew that they would come to find Druig, and in a coordinated attack kill Gilgamesh with the same self-healing Deviant absorbing his incredible strength. With Druig in tow, the gang finds the final two members, Phastos, who was reluctant to leave his family and Makkari who had found refuge in their spacecraft, the Domo.
While planning a way to dispatch the emerging Eternal, the telegraphed betrayal is revealed in which Icarus killed Ajak because she wished to stop the emergence, and is willing to kill anyone else should they choose to try and stop it, leaving to watch the emergence with Sprite in tow.
Kingo steps away, certain that none of them, even together, could fight Icarus, but the rest of the gang are not deterred.
Through combined effort they manage to nullify Icarus, Thena gets her revenge on the Deviant that killed Icarus and Sersi, kills the emerging celestial, leaving his head and arm emerged for camera crews to later discover.
In between all of these events, there are lengthy visits to the past that try and give us a better sense of the Eternals, which overall disrupt the pace of urgency that is meant to come with the end of the world.
The movie left this writer underwhelmed at the end.
In an effort to redefine the nature of a superhero movie, Marvel’s “Eternals” finds itself trying to do too much, and ultimately not doing enough for the viewer.
With irrelevant on screen deaths and characters that audience just failed to really connect to, this movie can be described well as a beautiful mess.
Online Reporter