--Arishem, Eternals
"Five years ago, Thanos erased half of the population of the universe. Delayed the emergence. But the people of this planet brought everyone back with the snap of a finger . . . I have seen them fight and lie and kill, but I have also seen them laugh and love . . . This planet and these people have changed me."
--Ajak, Eternals
Eternals could certainly have been a somewhat better film, but its blunders are far smaller and less frequent than those of more popular but asinine MCU films like Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: No Way Home. Only WandaVision and Loki rival its unprecedented focus on more overtly philosophical themes, and only films like The Incredible Hulk and The Winter Soldier aspire to this level of more serious storytelling that does not resort to filling the dialogue with repetitive, unnecessary jokes that conflict with the more solemn parts. Yes, there are some rushed story developments. Yes, with the introduction of a cast this large, some characters are more overlooked than others. What Eternals still does right is boldly address artistically relevant concepts that brush up against the issue of what it means to be human, spanning a host of themes pertaining to cosmology, ethics, and broader metaphysics. Never before has an MCU movie directly grappled with theological, moral, and existential issues that have ramifications for everyone's life one way or another, and Eternals accomplishes this while balancing its humor and drama far more than any MCU film since The Winter Soldier and opening the door to potential cosmic horror, and perhaps even setting the stage for entities like Galactus to eventually appear. The Eternals might be superhuman, but their struggles reflect humanity in ways that actually point to concepts and truths that transcend mere entertainment.
Production Values
Even with a handful of scenes with weaker CGI, like when Arishem shows Sersi the World Forge, the visual effects, practical and digital, at their heights are some of the best in the entire MCU, if not the best. The massive Celestials with their physical scale in comparison to planets and nebulae is by far one of the most incredible things the MCU has ever put on the screen. Still, the deeply personal side of the story comes across in everything from the brief and very publicized sex scene to the varying ideological motivations of the Eternals themselves as they grapple with, ironically, very human problems. In fact, the sex scene is one of the shortest and most intimate I have seen in a film, and it does have direct relevance to the backstory of two main characters. Director Chloe Zhao also merits praise for how she handled the action sequences, from the real-time hyper-speed of Makkari to Ikaris's style of combat. She says Zack Snyder's parts of the DCEU inspired her, and anyone who appreciated the excellent choreography of the Kryptonian fights in Man of Steel or Zack Snyder's Justice League will see definite echoes of that in how Ikaris moves, even if he seems weaker than Superman.
Ikaris is also acted in a way that clashes stoicism with deep emotion (the part near the end where his eyebeams activate and deactivate to visualize his conflict between his commitment to Arishem and his love for another character is incredibly well-crafted), a trend that starts with his relationship with Gemma Chan's Sersi and ends in one of the most natural places a character of his powers and name would wind up. Gemma Chan might not have the most expressive role, but not every character in every movie needs to be very expressive. Not everyone is like this; just because some people in real life and some fictional characters are does not mean every character needs to be. Gemma Chan acts wonderfully with what the role of Sersi requires of her. The relationship between Ikaris and Sersi is a major strength for the film because it unites very personal and very abstract aspects of the storytelling. Their love is just one kind of love that gets repeatedly talked about: few mainstream movies ever explore the various kinds of love in such a sincere and thoughtful way as Eternals.
Regarding other characters, Brian Tyree Henry's Phastos, Angelina Jolie's Thena, Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, and Don Lee's Gilgamesh also benefit from excellent performances and more direct characterization than the Eternals that have yet to be named. Kingo is actually the most like the popular MCU style of character, making jokes and yet having his own serious moments as well, but the fact that he is the only Eternal to lean into comedy so much means that neither his comedy nor the solemn drama of the other characters cancel each other's effectiveness out. Unfortunately, Makkari, a deaf Eternal played by a deaf actress, does not have the characterization depth to match her uniquely presented fighting style, and the same is true of Sprite to a lesser extent. The Deviant villain Kro also suffers from shallow characterization, albeit in a more forgiveable sense than most other Marvel movies because the cast is enormous here. He could have been an incredible antagonist because even his very few lines are thematically poignant and very personal, but he has too few scenes to make a point or impact that was not already made by something else in the movie.
Story
Some spoilers are below.
Long ago, a group of extraterrestrial warriors called Eternals from the planet Olympia were tasked by the Celestial Arishem to protect humans from a race of creatures called Deviants that feed on intelligent life. Though the Eternals saved Mesopotamian civilization from Deviants, they were told by Arishem not to stop humans from engaging in conflicts with each other, no matter how cruel or gratuitous they were. The MCU's present-day setting sees a strange earthquake and the reappearance of Deviants haunt Earth even after the Avengers reversed the effects of Thanos's genocidal snap. These weighty events reunite the Eternals, and Arishem himself explains the true nature of the Eternals' mission to protect humans from a specific threat--and it is not at all what had been implied to the Olympian warriors beforehand.
Intellectual Content
Faith (in the sense of actual belief in the unproven, not evidence-fortified commitment), utilitarianism, the morality of interfering or not interfering with the fights of others, and the very concept of human value are confronted to varying extents in an MCU first. As the pseudo-gods of the MCU--unless Arishem the Judge is literally the uncaused cause, which is the One-Above-All in Marvel comics lore, even he is not truly God--the Celestials have a role in Eternals that cuts right to the heart of major theological issues about moral obligations. Switch the Eternals deliberating on whether they will obey Arishem despite their own personal objections with humans disputing whether they should follow the instructions of a supposed deity like Yahweh even if they dislike the commands, and the relevance of the themes in Eternals becomes very clear. Atheists and theists alike could see this. Unsurprisingly, none of the humans or Eternals come up with anything more than personal preferences, subjective conscience-based ideas, or utilitarian or faith-based arguments for their beliefs and actions, but at least an MCU movie has broached truly vital philosophical issues that are more foundational than all the other philosophical concepts dealt with in the preceding films.
Conclusion
Eternals has been irrationally, unjustly hated in ways that might surpass the misguided hatred of almost everything in Thor: The Dark World. Movies like Iron Man 3, Endgame, and Guardians of the Galaxy are far more mediocre or mixed quality films than Eternals ever is, yet they are treated as if they are much better. Though not as aggressively mixed in quality as the theatrical cut of Batman v Superman, which had very high highs and very low lows, Eternals does have something in common with it. For all their faults, at least the storytellers of both films were trying to explore truly deep ideas and the psychological reactions of characters to those ideas in a sincere, attentive way. That is something that is not true of Shang-Chi, Thor: Ragnarok, Guardians of the Galaxy, and several other popular but idiotically overrated MCU entries. Chloe Zhao and the cast of Eternals deserve more appreciation and praise than they have received for this alone.
Content:
1. Violence: Eternals has more blood than the MCU typically has, most of it coming from Deviants as the Eternals fight them.
2. Profanity: Words like "shit" are sometimes used.
3. Sexuality: A very brief sex scene that does not show any genitals or female breasts is shown near the beginning of the movie. As I mentioned earlier, it is actually one of the most intimate, soft sex scenes I have ever seen. Much later, two men briefly kiss.
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