DIRECTOR/WRITER: Chloe’ Zhao
WRITERS: Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo
STARRING: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kit Harington, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Deoghan, and Ma Dong-seok
If you haven’t seen the infamous AVENGERS: ENDGAME yet, you might want to catch that fabulous film before heading to the theater for Marvel’s next installment. Wait a minute…who hasn’t seen Endgame by now, and a few times already, right! Then we should be all good to venture into the next phase of Marvelness from Disney, as we meet the long lost ETERNALS, who have been around for centuries, saving mankind from the nasty Deviants among us, that want to destroy us all.
As Ajak (Salma Hayek) rallies her troops together once again, as they have all been living out their lives amongst us, the time is upon us when the Deviants have returned to destroy all mankind. So as our heroes gather from their mundane existences, until now, it seems that Sersi (Gemma Chan) & Sprite (Lia McHugh), are ready to move back into their past lives, , although it seems that Sersi is going to be forced to leave behind a new man in her life, Dane Whitman (Kit Harrington), as she leaves her professor life, to once again save the world. Ikaris (Richard Madden) has also returned to the show, to flex his muscles and use those piercing eyes of his too, to save the day. The beautiful and dangerous Thena (Angelina Jolie) doesn’t have any trouble flexing a few muscles of her own along the way too, as her friend and confidant Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-seok) has left his world with Dr Strange, to make haste by her side, against the Deviants too. Funny man, and Baliwood star Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) is painfully coming along to assist, as Druig (Barry Keoghan) finds that he has yet to be taken seriously for all of his gifts. And to round out this group of century old heroes, we meet Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) flexing his brain to help the cause, while Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) channels her speed, gentleness and sign language expertise to fight amongst these band of immortals.
But as the Deviants seem to be coming out in force, the Eternals may not be able to weather this new storm, as unless they can all come together for this common cause, this my friends, may be the end of us all…
I give ETERNALS a rating of 5/10: Let’s be serious from the beginning here, anything that was going to come after Avengers: ENDGAME was going to have to be something super spectacular, like bring us to our knees spectacular. So, Director and Writer Chloe’ Zhao (2020 Academy Award winning Director for Nomadland) totally had her work cut out for her from the very start. With that said, it’s not as if ETERNALS is totally without any entertainment value as it plays out…as the casting seems to be pretty spot on, the cinematography is good, and the action is there, and even though I am not a real fan of lots of CGI, which it most definitely has, I thought it was some of the best I have seen in quite some time. But, as these attributes all added to a few of the reasons why I continued to sit through all 2.5 hours of it, there were also quite a few reasons why I feel that this next direction for Marvel, still needs a lot of work. For instance, the storyline, even though multidimensional, doesn’t really seem to head in any definitive direction. I was also surprised by the demise of some of the key characters already too, which made no real sense to me either. I also felt that we needed so much more from the end sequences (yes, there are two), to make us super excited to head into this films next installment. I did enjoy Gemma Chan being cast as the lead this time around, as I enjoyed her immensely as Astrid, in 2018’s Crazy Rich Asians. Kumail Nanjiani was spectacular too, as the suave and debonair funny man throughout this film. I even enjoyed Salma Hayek as the woman on a mission to save our world, but as screen time goes, she was totally shortchanged. The only other person who caught my attention throughout this film, was seeing Kit Harington back on screen! This guy is so dreamy to me, that he does nothing but add absolutely joy for me, into any role he embarks upon. But, sadly, that is where the accolades for these characters stops. Angelina Jolie is as beautiful as ever, but she did nothing spectacular to leave her mark this time around. And I felt that Richard Madden’s as Ikaris, left a lot to be desired too, not to mention that the rest of the roles needed a lot more character development for me to follow them into the next phase of this Marvel world. Suffice to say, that this is one Marvel movie that I would suggest you wait and catch at home when it finally arrives there, as it just isn’t a movie that you have to catch catch on a big screen near you…sorry Disney, I don’t mean to burst the bubble on your Marvel universe, but what I am sharing with my readers here about ETERNALS, is all true!!!
MATINEE CHAT with Kathy Kaiser 