Sunday, January 30, 2022

The Eternals (2021)

 'The Eternals' is the first MCU movie to get a certified rotten rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The story of a group of immortal, super powered beings who have being living on Earth for 7,000 years, this story and these characters feel very shoehorned into an already crowed Marvel Cinematic Universe. They are here to fight a previously unseen threat called 'Deviants' (as opposed to 'Divergents' from the Loki series), but mostly they are here to check various representational check boxes, ethnic, sexual orientation, differently abled, so far underserved in Disney's chief global cash cow, as well as set up later movies. 

It's a very talkie movie, a lot of exposition needs imparting. Good enough set pieces. It's sprawling in its very conception, but remarkably well edited, it felt tighter then it's 2 hour 37 minute running time. With 9 'Eternal' leads not everyone gets well developed, but apparently there is going to be a sequel. Richard Madden is even blander then Simu Liu, and ironically is in a love triangle with his Game of Thrones brother Kit Harington for a woman named Sersi (Gemma Chan). I feel kind of bad for Angelina Jolie that apparently she felt the need to do a Marvel film for the money. Also if you're going to make a movie about a bunch of characters who do not age, it's a bit of shame they'd already used Paul Rudd as another Marvel character.

There's some interesting ideas here, but the movie feels forced, the cast uneven and the whole thing overstuffed. **

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