Like most Marvel movies, Eternals has taken social media and the worldwide box office by storm. The reviews, however, have not been so great. I will try my best to review the film on my own with no influence from these callus and strict reviews.

…It’s not that good.

I think it’s important to make a differentiation between reviewing this as a movie on its own and reviewing it as another Marvel movie – so I’m going to do exactly that.

As a Standalone Movie:

The story of the Eternals is a bold one to try and organize. Ten main characters, a massive range of complex themes, and a story about space-gods who built the universe. This could all be wrapped up neatly in a perfect movie, but unfortunately that is not accomplished in Eternals. The film still tackles the various subjects, characters, and stories, but it completely removes the quality from all of them. The two things I would applaud this film for are what good superhero movies usually accomplish: it’s fun and it looks cool. However, the ladder is a stretch due to one particular instance of the most awful and goofy CGI I have ever seen (you know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen the movie…Marvel can do better than that). There are more stakes related to the characters than I expected, but ten is still an ambitious endeavor and it shows. Looking back on the movie, I can’t help but feel like one of the main characters was the flattest of them all. I would be more interested in learning about the Eternals that took a back seat throughout the film, like Phastos or Druig. There are two big twist near the middle of the film, and they shouldn’t have been taken as lightly as they were. It all just seems very obvious that the actors are acting and there isn’t much emersion at all. The story isn’t great and it’s full of convenient plot-points that are only accepted because of how rapidly they are introduced to the audience. For the most part though, the Celestials are done really well. They look awesome and, especially in the movie theatre, they give off an immense and intimidating nature. There are some genuinely funny parts of the movie where the Eternals interact like one big, dysfunctional family. In short: Eternals tries to tell a 7,000 year long story in 2.5 hours. It just doesn’t work out that well.

As a Marvel Movie:

If a step is taken back to observe this movie in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, then it’s actually pretty decent. I do think that Marvel continues to do an awesome job of making new and original movies, whereas other franchises fail miserably at this. It’s definitely goofy that the Eternals conveniently explain why they haven’t been in the other movies. It makes sense that they have been hiding in the shadows and it pertains to their comic origins, but the explanation in the movie almost makes it seem like they’re aware that they’re speaking to the fanbase. Eternals excites me as an avid Marvel fan, because it sets the stage for more large-scale spinoffs like Battleworld or anything having to do with Celestial control. I’m really glad to see the Celestials in the Marvel movies, as they have been getting teased to enter the MCU for many years. At this point in the MCU, it feels like the amount of characters and stories is growing so large that it’s going to cave in on itself. Eternals could fix this and go a different direction in which the more powerful space characters go off to do space things, only appearing as a treat in bigger titles that are similar to Avengers: Endgame in nature. One complaint I have, that is becoming more regular in post-endgame titles, is that far too much was shown in the trailer for the movie. As an audience, especially to Marvel movies, we want to see new stuff in the movie that blows our minds and surprises us. What ever happened to putting fake footage in trailers to hype the movies up? (This was done in the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War and Civil War). There are three or four shots in the Eternals trailer that appeared in the climax of the film! It may be nit-picky of me to point that out, but I feel as though the majority – or at least the final battle of the film – should be saved for the end. Overall, watch it if you’re a Marvel fan. You’ll like it.

Thus concludes my review of Marvel’s Eternals! In short, it’s no masterpiece but I think it’s enjoyable and anybody who’s looking to watch a movie or eat popcorn should go see it. Thank you for reading my scholarly, in-depth, cinematic review.