Eternals (2021)

Written by Per Gunnar Jonsson on April 19, 2022

Although it was nice to watch a Marvel movie which is not just a rehash of the same old universe and which was reasonably woke-free for once this movie was unfortunately pretty meh. It is not as bad as many of the detractors claim but it is miles away from being as good as some of those who liked it claims. It is actually pretty meh.

On the good side there are some decent special effects but that is more or less to be expected. It is the one thing that Marvel movies usually have going for them after all.

It is a fairly serious movie that is not so polluted with comic relief as some of the Marvel movies.

The story is a interesting one but it is unfortunately a bit wasted by the implementation in this movie. Also, it pretty much screws up evolution from the extinction of the dinosaurs as well as any form of religious theories (not that I am a great believer in those though). But then this is pure superhero fantasy so I’m not too bothered by that.

My main gripe with this movie is that it, as is way to often the case with Hollywood, portrays the Eternals more like a bunch of bickering dysfunctional children than the wise thousands of years old beings that they are supposed to be.

Ikarus in particular is a pure Hollywood asshat. He reminds me of that pervert asshole Homelander in the depraved Hollywood creation The Boys. However Druig and Sprite also grated on me in a lot of the scenes. I never like characters that betray people, stick knifes in peoples backs (literally) and so on.

The movie also felt a bit slow. There was a lot of rather boring filler material between the actual action or advancement of the story, and a shitload of flashbacks. I hate flashbacks but then that is probably personal. To me they just interrupt the flow.

The movie also does not really feel very positive. It ends rather sadly actually. Also, at the end they may have saved Earth but, if the story is to believed, by doing so they prevented billions and billions of beings from ever being created. Not really a win-win is it?

It is clear that this movie was setting things up for a continuation and, despite my reservations about this one, I think there is a pretty good oportunity to create something decent from this. It all depends on whether they pick a decent write/director or one of the woke Marvel hacks.