Eternals

Cast: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harrington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie

Director: Chloé Zhao

Writers: Chloé Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Kirpo, Kaz Firpo

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The idea behind Eternals was that it was supposed to be different. Since around 2015-ish, Marvel Studios has settled into a factory-like production routine of micro-managing every single stage of their filmmaking process, utilising CGI sets, costumes, and other imagery wherever possible, and imposing a strict, narrow set of parameters on the style, craft, and content permitted in their films. This has allowed them to attain a level of quality control founded on uniformity and caution; which means their movies now all look the same and they scarcely take any risks. Some filmmakers, such as Gunn, Coogler, and Waititi, have been able to produce some good works in this system, and others, such as Joss Whedon and Edgar Wright, found it ultimately unmanageable. This has led to another trend with Marvel of enlisting smaller-time directors with less experience of working on blockbusters, the kind of filmmakers who come in with fewer demands and are more willing to defer to the studio and surrender control over certain elements. So, with Chloé Zhao, the Oscar-winning director of Nomadland, charged with taking on their next picture, Marvel Studios as promoted Eternals as proof that they can make ‘real’ movies after all. This is a film shot in real, naturalistic settings with soulful characters in a contemplative story about human nature that demonstrates a level of ambition, and innovation like few other blockbusters of recent memory. Or, that is what it’s desperately trying to be anyway.

The story unfolds over the span of millennia about a team of immortal superheroes sent to Earth to oversee and shape humanity’s development while fending off the Deviants, a race of destructive alien monsters. Leading the superpowered Eternals is maternal healer Ajak (Salma Hayek), charged by their celestial creator Arishem with this mission. Standing impassively beside her on that one featureless beach in all of the promotional shots are Sersi (Gemma Chan), with the ability to manipulate matter, Ikaris (Richard Madden), who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes, Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), who blasts projectiles with his hands, Sprite (Lia McHugh), an illusionist, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), a technological innovator, Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), who can move with superhuman speed, Druig (Barry Keoghan), a manipulator of minds, Gilgamesh (Don Lee), of superhuman strength, and Thena (Angelina Jolie), an elite warrior. Over the course of 7,000 years, they see empires rise and fall in Mesopotamia and Babylon, embark on 5,000 year romantic relationships, and then finally split up in 1521 CE after apparently killing the last of the Deviants. Only it appears that their work is not done yet. In the Year of Our Lord 2021, Deviants turn up in London, where Sersi works in the Natural History Museum and is dating the very normal and mortal Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington). This attacks prompts Sersi to go get the team back together and combat this resurgent threat.

With a cast this talented and expansive, it shouldn’t be that difficult for Marvel to employ their collective charisma and deliver a worthwhile ensemble piece, but they’ve been cast in a movie that doesn’t know how to utilise their individual, distinctive qualities and bring them to the forefront. This is a movie that has Nanjiani, a very funny actor, quipping lines that aren’t funny, where Henry, a heavyweight and versatile performer, is handed paper-thin material, and where Jolie, one of the movie stars of her generation, is barely afforded a presence. Each cast member is treated as a cog in the Marvel machine; their function is not to bring a character to life but to contort themselves into archetypes that all talk and act the same way, and to that end the movie treats its actors interchangeably. Character has typically been one of these movies’ strengths; one thing The Avengers did really well was bring its ensemble together, identify how their differing personalities would manifest in the dynamics between them, and then play them out. Eternals is so bloated with such barely-defined characters that it’s almost fascinating to behold. Everyone is this film has been directed to deliver the same usual brand of quippy banter that is part-and-parcel for the Marvel movies, and through this the studio demonstrates how little they understand the true allure of having stars in their movies even as they can afford every one under the sun.

In her last film Zhao did work with Frances McDormand and directed her to an Oscar win, but she is the exception; Zhao has more experience working with non-professionals than she does with movie stars. Her focus has always been more with capturing moments of natural splendour and while she does demonstrate that she appreciates the visual beauty of the stars as her disposal, her ability to make use of them does not extend far beyond the aesthetic, and even there she has her limitations. The action scenes lack the punch and kinetic energy needed to make their bodies sing; the whole world feels too static and the characters feel too weightless. Whatever little flourishes the movie thinks to add, like how the Jolie character spins and moves in combat with the grace of a ballerina, there is no moment of awe or wonder that a cosmic story such as this should be able to evoke. Early on, Chan and Madden are called upon to perform the MCU’s first ever sex scene, a 10-second clip where their upper bodies are photographed in a gentle missionary, and it falls flat because nothing in their shared performances convey anything remotely sexual or romantic in the way of chemistry. Instead, it is as sexless and staid as any other MCU romance (Raquel S. Benedict said it best, not just for this movie, but all of them: everyone is beautiful and no one is horny).

However picturesque Zhao is able to make the golden-hour sunsets, naturally-lit jungles, and pristine seas look despite the studio’s efforts, it amounts to very little in a movie that has so little else going on. There is an appearance of a thoughtful story that Eternals tries to tell about humanity’s worth and the heroes’ differing opinions on their capacity for evil and good. There is the grain of an arc with Phastos, whose effort to uplift civilisation lead to grave results but who then has his faith restored by his husband and child. It’s not a lot save for what Henry brings, but it’s there. For the rest of the characters, there is no feeling or desire motivating them save a general inclination to do what they believe is right and good. There’s a potentially intriguing twist that takes place when Druig resolve to end an Amazonian people’s warring ways by controlling all of their minds for centuries, but the film never even attempts to unpack and grapple with the morality and true meaning of his choice; the ethics of Druig’s action are just never addressed, never mind questioned. It is emblematic of a studio that has grown to value content over all else, over art, storytelling, or thought. It doesn’t matter what happens or why it happens, all that matters is that the audience has something to occupy their eyes for a couple of hours. So long as it exists, it is sufficient.

It’s the reason why, for all the promotion around this film has celebrated its promotion of diversity, that representation is ultimately meaningless. Yes, the Eternals membership may reflect a greater variety of gender and race than any Marvel movie before it, but how can it be called representation when there is no character beneath those superficial qualities? What does it matter that half the characters are women if there is so little happening with them that they can barely be distinguished from one another? What worth is there in the depiction of a gay kiss when the characters don’t look or feel like they actually mean it? Yes, it’s nice that there’s a deaf character who is treated as an equal and gets to help out once in a while, but is the bar really so low that the audience should be grateful for these paltry ticks on a checklist that do nothing to add depth and feeling to the identities they purport to represent? I’m not sure Eternals is the worst movie Marvel has ever made, not when The Incredible Hulk and Black Widow exist, but it might be the most cynical. It is a movie so transparent in its pandering, so stifling of its potential, so devoid of substance that its aesthetic beauty and occasional moments of levity (I did link the Bollywood dance scene) cannot even begin to fill the overwhelming emptiness that permeates throughout.

★★