The Eternals

This is the first time I've been to a theater since the pandemic started. Before this, the last movie I'd seen in the theater was Birds of Prey (...and the Fantabulous something something). We paid the extra money to see Black Widow on opening weekend on Disney+ (and kind of regretted it), and we also waited for Shang-Chi to come to the channel.

So, did The Eternals live up to the (somewhat low) bar set by Birds of Prey? Um... yeah, but not by much. It's a very pretty movie, and it has a decent plot, but it's LONG. At 2 hours and 37 minutes, it's not quite as long as Endgame, but Endgame earned its length. Two and a half hours is a long time to spend watching characters I don't really care about.

So who are the characters? Well, basically the Justice League, if the Justice League were thousands of years old and completely useless. We've got a guy who flies and has heat vision (they even make a Superman joke about him in the movie), a female warrior with a sort of Amazon vibe, a speedster, and so on. There are also some original powers in there, but nothing to write home about.

There was a lot I liked about the movie. I loved the whole "Trolley Problem" nature of the plot, though this movie's final dilemma reminded me a little of "The Cabin in the Woods" and a lot of a certain Doctor Who episode.

The casting was decent, the acting was good, the special effects were great (except for one horrible CGI character in the mid-credits scene), and the action scenes were exciting. But I just couldn't get invested in these characters. Arguably it's because I didn't know who these characters were going in, but I enjoyed "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Shang-Chi" despite not being familiar with the characters.

I think humor was a big factor. The Eternals takes itself way too seriously. It does have a few really good jokes, but not nearly enough. It's not nearly as dreary as "Batman V Superman" - at least this movie's in color - but The Eternals could have benefitted from less exposition and more editing. Heck, it even starts with an opening crawl explaining the plot, despite everything getting explained later as well.

One of the biggest problems I had with the movie (besides the length) was the random application of the group's Prime Directive. Never interfere with the natural flow of human history, except when you want to. The Eternals are basically an entire team of Captain Kirks.

Anyway, it was okay, but long. Did I mention that it was long? It's long. It's longer than 1984's "Dune", which I sometimes think I'm still watching today. I really think The Eternals would have been better as a miniseries on Disney+ instead of a theatrical movie. The way it jumps forward and backward in time would really help it there - have each episode start with a flashback before jumping to present day.

I'll update my "Ranking the MCU" list after Spider-Man comes out, but I can tell you that the Eternals will probably be in the bottom 10. This doesn't make it terrible - I love all the MCU films, even the one at the very bottom.  

Btw, it's long.