Eternals

***Eternals*** is a 2021 American epic superhero film based on the Marvel Comics race of the same name. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the 26th film in the *Marvel Cinematic Universe* (MCU). The film was directed by Chloé Zhao, who wrote the screenplay with Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo. It stars an ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie. In the film, the Eternals, an immortal alien race, emerge from hiding after thousands of years to protect Earth from their evil counterparts, the Deviants.

*Eternals* premiered in Los Angeles on October 18, 2021, and was released theatrically in the United States on November 5, as part of Phase Four of the MCU. The film received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the visuals but criticized its exposition, pacing, runtime, and lack of character development. It is the lowest-rated MCU film on both websites, and the first installment to be classified as "rotten" on Rotten Tomatoes.

## Plot

Following the events of *Avengers: Endgame*, an unexpected tragedy forces the Eternals, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years, out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, the Deviants.

## Good Qualities

1. Beautiful cinematography, more so than the previous MCU movies.
	* In fact, director Chloe Zhao was given creative freedom when making the movie, a ***MARVEL*** of a Disney production.
2. There are some good action sequences, despite how few and far between they are.
3. The costume designs for the Eternals are excellent, as they try to be faithful to the original comic source material.
4. Nice and realistic visual effects, much like the previous films, and it still holds up pretty well in 2020s standards.
5. There are some funny moments, such as when Ikaris, thinking Phastos' table is made of vibranium, breaks it in half, only for Phastos to nonchalantly call him an ass.
6. Despite the lack of great character developments, the characters of Eternals are at least likable at best.
	* At least the film does try to be as faithful to the source material of Eternals and its characters as possible.
	* Druig and Makkari have good chemistry.
	* Despite them not having enough time together on screen, Thena and Gilgamesh also had good chemistry as the former and her well being was being taken care of by the latter for several centuries while they never had disputes with each other.
7. The film's CGI effects are great, much like the previous MCU films.
8. Amazing soundtrack that was composed by Ramin Djawadi.
9. For most of the time, the acting is great, especially from Gemma Chan and Angelina Jolie, and some of the other performances, such as from Don Lee, Lia McHugh, and Barry Keoghan are decent.
10. Some film versions trimmed out the LGBT scene that features Phastos and his husband Ben kissing before the former departed with his fellow Eternals.
11. If the post credit scene is an indication, Blade is coming to the MCU!
12. While the LGBT scenes are shoehorned and out of place, at least it's a slight improvement to how Disney portrays its LGBT characters, since Phastos is at least a prominent character.
13. Makkari is a fairly likable character and great representation for the deaf community. She was even played by an actual deaf actress (Lauren Ridloff).
14. *"Druig sucks."*

## Bad Qualities

1. The film is pretty much inferior compared to the previous MCU films that made them look great, and it lacks charm, and its interesting ideas from the previous MCU films and sometimes the weaker films.
2. The characters are still likable, but the problem with the movie was that there are too many characters to introduce, especially the Eternals, while the runtime was 2 hours and 35 minutes long (a few minutes close to *2012'*s runtime), leaving them without any great character development.
	* Besides of that, instead of being produced as a individual film, it could had been produced as a film trilogy (similar to *The Golden Compass*), or even a Disney+ series, to extend and explore the content, storylines, and character developments of each and every Eternal so the audiences can understand and get to know the characters for the first time.
3. The story can be rather very confusing to some fans, especially when compared to the other MCU films.
4. Ikaris as the twist villain is really confusing, particularly with how they were setting up Kro and maybe Druig (who was the villain in the comics) as the villains.
	* Kro and the rest of animalistic Deviants did not serve as greater, legitimate threats like their comic counterparts, and they only had few appearances on screen before being killed off as if they were softest sausages (most particularly Kro in his fully conscious, humanoid figure that appeared in near the end of the final conflict).
	* Despite the best intimidations and antagonizations of the Celestials, only one, Arishem the Judge, served little time to set up rules for the Eternals to not interfere with human conflicts, and when they violated that rule by killing off a Celestial that was about to be emerged from the Earth, Arishem only abducted Sersi, Kingo, and Phastos and they disappeared from the space, leaving the ending as a cliffhanger had this film being financially bombed.
5. There are some weird moments that were not in a good way, or even funny.
6. **Anachronisms:** Druig uses the word "genocide" in a scene set in the 16th century. The word was invented in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin to describe the Armenian genocide and during World War II.
	* When they are using sign language (American) there are a number of anachronistic signs. e.g. In the Mesopotamia scene (~500BC), the sign used for "time" is to tap her wrist as if she is wearing a wristwatch.
7. It is not as faithful to the source material to the comics of the same name.
8. Just like *Chaos Walking*, this film has uneven pacing which makes the film feels a lot longer than it is.
	* Even *mh:greatestmovies:Avengers: Endgame* was 181 minutes, except it was well-paced.
9. The film seems a little too exposition heavy.
10. The controversial usage of Hiroshima is brought up to introduce the idea that Phastos, having been responsible for giving humanity many of its greater inventions, introduced the concept of nuclear power to humans and became dismayed when they weaponized it, to the point of giving up on humanity and their mission of protecting it. Come the next scene in the present day, he's moved on completely. Aside from attracting controversy before the film's release, some viewers were disappointed that the idea wasn't expanded upon.
11. The scenes set thousands of years in the past are used to provide exposition or establish the characters (and, admittedly, most of them doing it successfully), but the actual plot and character development all takes part in the present.
12. The sex scene featuring Ikaris and Sersi was unnecessary to be added to the film, despite it being shown for fewer seconds.
	* Plus, they're relationship is forced as they mostly lacked chemistry.
13. It creates numerous plot holes throughout the film. For example:
	* The Eternals are not from Earth but speak English, even before England existed. (Yes, we get it about the aliens and other outer space beings from *Captain Marvel,* the *Thor* tetralogy*,* and two *Guardians of the Galaxy* films can speak English like Thor, Loki, Gamora, Nebula, Yondu, Mantis, Ronan, and among others, but this is not an excuse!) In early scenes they speak to locals in Mesopotamia (and other locales) in the local native language, but then speak to each other in English. Even if the movie takes the liberty that they are speaking a different language but the viewer is only hearing English, the characters all still speak in different accents, despite supposedly hailing from the same place and arriving on Earth at the same time, and none of their accents change in 7000 years.
	* If Ikaris was so committed to the Emergence, why did he help reunite the Eternals? Unless he only helped gathered the Eternals to prevent them from stopping the Emergence while exposing his own indirect murder of Ajak the first time he spoke with them, there was no reason for him to go back to the group. He could've simply refused to help the Eternals and then fly away to protect the incoming Celestial after saving Sersi and Sprite from Kro's attacks back in London.
	* The infamous moment of the film was when the Celestial was turned into stone on the Earth's crust, almost no one, not even politicians, governments, or international organizations talked about a strange giant creature remaining on the crust. *Spider-Man: No Way Home*, *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*, *Thor: Love and Thunder*, and several following Disney+ shows did not even talked about the Celestial being frozen on the Earth (we get that veteran and rookie superheroes have their own issues and problems to deal with as they don't have time to explore the world, but that is not an excuse for such ignorance of a massive figure that rose to the skies!).
14. Karun, despite being entertaining, serves very little to no purpose to the story other than being a comic relief and a side character. The same can be said for Dane Whitman/Black Knight, who only serves to set up future installments.
15. Bad and disappointing direction from Chloe Zhao.
	* It doesn't help that she was the same person who directed *Nomadland*, (another film distributed by Disney) ***a film that won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director early on during the same year.***
	* In fact, this actually makes it a lot more upsetting, as Zhao went from directing an Oscar-winning film that was hailed as the ceremony's best, to directing one of, if not the most utterly underwhelming movie in the MCU, all in the same year.
16. Some points during the film pandered to the LGBT community by having Phastos and his husband Ben kissing each other while raising a child who just served as a side character who, like Karun and Dane Whitman/Black Knight, did not actually contribute anything to the plot. Additionally, the same-sex relationship is not faithful to the comic source where Phastos actually has a wife named Ms. Stoss while they never had any children, whether they were biological, foster, or adoptive. The relationship, not only it is unimportant to the main plot, it even caused immense controversy that made Russia, Indonesia, and nine Middle Eastern nations to censor or even ban the film or its parts from playing in their theaters.
	* To make things worse, the actors criticized the censorship of the film within the Middle Eastern theaters, which made the fans refuse to see the movie even more. One point before, Angelina Jolie once said that we should respect everyone's cultures, which is now hypocritical.
17. The ending: Some time had passed since the Eternals stopped Ikaris and the emergence. By the time Sersi and Dane Whitman were going out on a stroll, Sersi and a few of the Eternals were taken away by Arishem and are never seen again. Meaning the journey throughout the film has been pretty much pointless in the end.
	* It's weird when Dane is the only one who cared, then goes home to don the Black Knight outfit to rescue Sersi, while the remaining Eternals don't seem too concerned or worried when she, Phastos, and Kingo were captured by Arishem.
18. There's a weird cameo from Harry Styles as Eros in the mid-credits scene. Granted, Eros' presence (and subsequently Pip's) is pretty cool and the costume is very accurate to the comics, but his performance is pretty awkward, since he seems to keep going back and forth between accents as if he got lost in between the lines.