New Marvelous Eternals indicates depth, but suffers from shallowness (film review) – Živé.sk

After last year’s break, the fourth phase of the Marvel Film University (MCU) kicked off this year. Avengers: Endgame at the end of the third phase created space for new heroes, which Marvel is now gradually introducing.

In September, it was Shang-Chi and these days Eternals, immortal alien superheroes who have lived on Earth and guarded the human race, are coming to theaters.

This time, Marvel reached out a bit untraditionally for a director known for making independent films rather than blockbusters, Chloé Zhao (she won an Oscar last year for directing Nomadland).

The second non-traditional step was the choice of actors. The Marvel family used to be more of an incubator of upcoming movie stars, but now we will see several well-known Hollywood faces, such as Salma Hayek or Angelina Jolie.

We also talk about the Eternals Marvel in the latest part of the SHARE_talks podcast:

These ingredients led to the expectation that Eternals could be more than just another “classic” Marvel. Unfortunately, Chloé Zhao’s studio has loaded so much that the classic Marevel cliché is the only thing that keeps the whole story at least anyway.

They led us and protected us

Eternals were created thousands of years ago to reside on Earth and protect it from deviants, another alien race that wants to destroy people on Earth. Eternals sent to Earth by Arishem, one of the celestals who were briefly mentioned in the Rangers.

Gradually, they sold people new and new technologies and oversaw their development. At first they were together and helped each other, but later they split up and today they live scattered in different corners of the world hiding their true identity.

The image initially takes place in two timelines. One shows us how eternals on Earth have worked in the past and what prevented them from eventually breaking up. The second takes place in the present and the superheroes meet in it again.

This time Marvel comes with not one or two, but exactly ten new superheroes. If you find it a lot, it’s because it really is a lot. The film is two and a half hours long (it is the second longest film from the MCU after Avengers: Endgame), but with so many new characters, it must be clear that even more minutes can’t be enough for everyone to have the space they need.

The consequence is that although ten superheroes are coming, in reality the screenwriter has chosen only a few of them, who are key to the plot and the others are de facto only supporting characters.

The “main” heroes are Sersi (Gemma Chan) able to transform objects into another type of matter and Ikaris (Richard Madden), a flying hero with laser eyes. Eternalov is initially led by Ajak (Salma Hayek), who is the only one to communicate directly with Arishem.

Of the others, everyone will play an important role in the film, and that’s where their importance to the story begins and ends. This is especially surprising in the case of the warrior Thena, played by Angelina Jolie. Once Jolie decided to join the MCU, we would expect her to choose an adequately important character, but she was really only in numbers.

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Some heroes are only in numbers.

Source: Marvel Studios

The ethnic diversity of the heroes is positive. Marvel has set this goal for a long time (Black panther, Shang-Chi) and Eternals merely further confirm it. MCU has long been not an American phenomenon, but a global phenomenon, so it is appropriate that the composition of the main characters also reflects this.

Less is sometimes more

Eternals suffers mainly from the fact that the creators wanted to push so many things into it that it was not humanly possible to direct it so that it worked. He basically paid for something like the first Justice League from DC, even without complications with the replacement of directors.

Not only do ten new heroes need to be introduced to the audience, but there is also a deep topic about the very essence of the origin and extinction of planets and civilizations, several personal conflicts between the main characters and a love quadrangle. In one movie. 157-minute.

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Yes, “John Snow” will also appear in the film.

Source: Marvel Studios

It turned out as expected. Everything from the named is started, but nothing is properly disassembled. And it was still necessary to create space for action scenes, the quality of which does not deviate in any way from the Marvel average.

We also have reservations about the portrayal of deviants. When it comes to the main negative characters during most of the film, the graphic designers could try to make them at least a little more original. Yes, with the many diverse monsters that comic studios produce today, it’s not easy to differentiate. However, the creators of Eternals seem to have completely resigned from this effort and designed the appearance of the deviants just out of duty.

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Gemma Chan plays great. Thanks to her, her character is one of the most distinctive.

Source: Marvel Studios

Such celestials have already done much better. They differ by the scale itself, which is in completely different orders than any other characters in the MCU. During scenes with them, the viewer is fully aware of their importance and strength.

And that brings us to what should distinguish Eternals from other Marvels in particular. Scale.

Eternals are like everything else that takes place in the MCU universe. As explained in the trailer, they did not intervene even when the world invaded Thanos. However, due to the mentioned shortcomings, this view could not be transferred to the film experience at all. The viewer learns everything he needs to know, but it does not evoke any emotions in him. It is then quite useless to learn what effect the individual characters had on the development of humanity, if we do not form any relationship with them at all.

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Salmy Hayek plays a character that is important for the plot, but we see her relatively little on the screen.

Source: Marvel Studios

And so the only thing that finally captivates the film are the classic, well-known Marvel elements – sympathetic actors (Gemma Chan and Richard Madden are a great couple you can’t imagine), action scenes in which everything is demolished and a pleasant atmosphere. This time, Ramin Djawadi worked on this with his soundtrack, which created, for example, music for the Game of Thrones or the first Iron Man.

Even so, the best Marvel of the year so far

The Marvelovs have not set the bar very high this year yet. Black Widow was rather disappointing a Shang-Chi: The legend of the ten rings Although it showed some potential, it attracted more attention to who Marvel cast in it and why, rather than its content.

In this context, Eternals is still the best Marvel game this year. It’s not a comic book masterpiece, but the Marvel elements just mentioned are enough to make the film look pretty good. The lost potential, which the film lost due to the mentioned shortcomings, will deeply freeze the fan, but it will probably not deprive most viewers of a pleasantly spent film evening.

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