I've got to be honest, I don't know how to feel about this film. In my opinion Marvel publishing hasn't figured out how to make The Eternals work in a real an tangible way, so I don't know what kind of film to expect from this, except that Chloé Zhao's films have all been amazing in their own ways and in Feige I Trust.
I totally agree with you. I'm not big into the Eternals and know maybe Sersi from her time in the Avengers in the 90's so like Shang-Chi this is another one I'm pretty much going into knowledge blind of. Which if going with Shang-Chi might be beneficial to my enjoyment. There's no real expectations for me to look at and fail it in my mind, but there really hasn't been a seriously bad fim in the MCU cannon for me since Thor: The Dark World. I trust the studio to make it a decent movie at least.
The 90s Avengers run with Sersi and the Black Knight was a huge favorite of mine at the time and is still in a Nostalgia-y way one of my all time favorite Avengers runs. I have some fondness for Makkari from when he was Quasar's best friend in that book. Other than that none of the Eternals stuff from my younger days struck me as very good. (I admit I havnt read the original Kirby, and I do want to.)
Then there was the Neil Gaiman reboot of a few years back. It was a pretty big rebooting and retconning of their concept and it was enjoyable enough with cool art. But it didn't set the world on fire and its retcons didn't quite make sense with a lot of other Eternal stories.
The current Marvel Eternals series by Kieran Gillan has gone 6 issues and is now taking a break for a few related one shots before picking up again. The art has been gorgeous and the story has had a great mystery, cool action and is doing metric TON of Worldbuilding to make what Gaiman introduced actually work with all the stuff that came before it and Thanos's whole family tree and everything. Epic and mythological and fun. It's been really great and I absolutely recommend it.
-ZacWilliam, I've been looking forward to this film a whole lot just for Sersi and Dane on the big screen. I wish I felt comfortable seeing it in the theater.
I read this as well and thought it was their best try yet to relaunch them in a modern setting, but even it kinda fell apart before becoming anything, as evidence of The Eternals not really having any meaningful interactions with 616 (That's not really a thing now, is it?) heavy-hitters.
Saw it last night. Don't have a lot of time to write up my thoughts but overall it feels very middle tier Marvel. It's a bit slow but it's also juggling a larger cast than most and uses the time to at least give each character some time. Action can be quite a bit spread out but it generally pretty cool. I'd give it a B- (6.75/10) I don't think it's bad at all but an Epic needs excitement just as much as gravitas and they went too far on the latter. Not as good as Shang-Chi was in fun but better in sense of scope.
I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would. You could tell it was a hard job balancing ten characters' emotional arch and on-screen time, but I felt they did a decent job letting that play out. The shots and lighting were gorgeous and aside from one or two shots I think this is some of the best cg integration we've seen. Lots of real world effects being blended with cg characters in very impressive ways.
I think the issue is that this is definitely not a "normal" Marvel movie. They take a lot fo chances that they haven't before
including the MCU's first sex scene
and introduce a lot to the MCU without immediately showing how it's going to play out. The structure of the film also isn't traditionally laid out and as stupid as that may seem it makes a difference with General Audiences. I watched the film with my 8 year old son and he felt the runtime more than me.
From an exhibition point of view, if they could have gotten it closer to 2:15 I would have been happier with the turn around and I don't know if the story would have suffered that much. As is this is a four shows a day release it suffers from not squeezing out that five shows that would have boosted the box office. I know that exhibitors are trying to "give theater goers their moneys worth", but Iron Man was a tight two hours and never had a moment of down time. That's what they should be chasing IMO.
I actually liked it a lot more than I thought I would. You could tell it was a hard job balancing ten characters' emotional arch and on-screen time, but I felt they did a decent job letting that play out. The shots and lighting were gorgeous and aside from one or two shots I think this is some of the best cg integration we've seen. Lots of real world effects being blended with cg characters in very impressive ways.
I think the issue is that this is definitely not a "normal" Marvel movie. They take a lot fo chances that they haven't before
including the MCU's first sex scene
and introduce a lot to the MCU without immediately showing how it's going to play out. The structure of the film also isn't traditionally laid out and as stupid as that may seem it makes a difference with General Audiences. I watched the film with my 8 year old son and he felt the runtime more than me.
From an exhibition point of view, if they could have gotten it closer to 2:15 I would have been happier with the turn around and I don't know if the story would have suffered that much. As is this is a four shows a day release it suffers from not squeezing out that five shows that would have boosted the box office. I know that exhibitors are trying to "give theater goers their moneys worth", but Iron Man was a tight two hours and never had a moment of down time. That's what they should be chasing IMO.
I agree with both of you guys for the most part. I liked the movie, but didn't love it. I certainly think there was some fat that should have been trimmed, just unnecessarily long and redundant shots. If I remember correctly there were 4 shots of Thena walking slowly out into the water, and everyone of them lingered longer than it needed to. A solid shot of her walking out letting you see her face, and then the over the shoulder shot of the 2 observing her would of done fine. Same thing for the " arriving at the farm" and "arriving at Australia" and pretty much any other "arriving" scene. As much as the Bollywood dance scene is fun, it's also too long for an already long movie.
I did love the varied beliefs of the different team members, there motivations and why each of them made the choices they did. I feel like a lot of times it's difficult to allow for multiple viewpoints of something like this without making it feel forced, or like a weird character turn or shift.
I did love the varied beliefs of the different team members, there motivations and why each of them made the choices they did. I feel like a lot of times it's difficult to allow for multiple viewpoints of something like this without making it feel forced, or like a weird character turn or shift.
I've heard a lot of complaints about Kingo being removed from the end of the film, but I honestly thought that was one of the most ballsy, interesting character moves they made. I felt it was a decision that made a lot of sense in the way it was pulled off.
The 90s Avengers run with Sersi and the Black Knight was a huge favorite of mine at the time and is still in a Nostalgia-y way one of my all time favorite Avengers runs. I have some fondness for Makkari from when he was Quasar's best friend in that book. Other than that none of the Eternals stuff from my younger days struck me as very good. (I admit I havnt read the original Kirby, and I do want to.)
Man, this could not match my own experience better. Saved me a lot of typing.
I don't think Marvel (post-Kirby) has really ever been able to do anything worthwhile with the Eternals as a whole, though some of them have excelled elsewhere individually (well, Sersi has, and Makkari to a lesser extent). The current Gillen run is pretty good, though I'm a couple of issues behind and I still feel there's an element of "uh, what do we do with this?" hovering in the background.
I adore Dane Whitman, great Avengers run(s), some fun stuff in the excellent Ostrander/Ferry H4H run, and the Spurrier mini that just finished and King in Black oneshot are excellent. REALLY glad I was spoiled re: the extent of his role in the film before I saw it, or I would have been really disappointed. As it was, I ended up getting considerably more in the way of Black Knight progression that I expected. I feel this was a weird place to introduce him though, even with his connection to Sersi.
The cast was great, I even loved Jolie's Thena after going huh? when they announced her. What I want from the MCU now is Something New, not the same old formulaic superhero stuff, and this was another solid step in that direction.
Just saw it. Went in knowing pretty much nothing about these characters and came out feeling it was a very large movie that did a lot of things to both introduce a whole host of new characters while also setting up a boatload of things to come later. I think I enjoyed Shang-Chi more (that was just a pure fun movie), while this one was more of an experience. Just a very big thing with a lot of complexity that leaves me feeling, I guess "overwhelmed" is the word? It just threw a whole lot in at once and has left me really needing to sleep on it and process it all.
Of course, the whole time I couldn't help wondering
did the Avengers have any kind of reaction to the global earthquake?
Just saw it. It's been weeks so no need to put in a spoiler tag?
I kinda loved it. Didn't see the trailer. Didn't know the plot or what was going to happen. Didn't even know about Dane being there.
Favorite Eternal was Kingo. He was great, even though he had the most boring of powers. I always maintained that more abstract or mental powers are better than that physical stuff and Kingo only displayed blasts? If only it was more energy manipulation or draining or a specific element. But his humor made him great.
This was practically Justice League. Loved that part near the end.
Superman - Ikaris
Thena - Wonder Woman
Makkari - Flash
Phastos - Cyborg
I suppose Kingo and Gilgamesh were the funny guys so Aquaman and Shazam.
The valet, personal documentation with no powers is Batman, haha. Kidding. Probably Druig.
I agree they kinda extended the run time. They spent extra time just visiting set pieces for Thena Gil, Druig, Phastos. I guess Makkari counts. Could have condensed that or made it go faster.
I don't get what happened in the end tho. Was she dead? They really went out of their way not to say what exactly was done to her. Doesn't explain how the powers were changed either to effect that change. Would that they were clearer.
Finally saw it. Liked it a whole lot more than I expected. Good movie. Didn't need them to bother mentioning the Avengers or Thanos (other than maybe that one scene), since I felt it cheapened trying to link it to the larger universe.
I do wonder how the second mention of Thanos (mid-credits) will be explained. Preserving the "Eros is Thanos's brother" thing from the comics when Thanos was definitely not an Eternal (else Earth's Eternals would have at least wanted to meet him). So we're looking at more of a found family sort of brother thing. Was Eros a Titanian Eternal (in which case, why does he look human, unless he rebooted his appearance later?), a pink Kree Eternal who met Thanos later and agreed with the population reduction plan because he also thought it better to delay Celestial birthing, etc? Was Titan a failed Celestial incubator?
I agree they kinda extended the run time. They spent extra time just visiting set pieces for Thena Gil, Druig, Phastos. I guess Makkari counts. Could have condensed that or made it go faster.
I understand that it was big and expensive, but did we really need to see that much of the Bollywood number? Kill your darlings.
That said, I watched with my wife this weekend - who didn't see it in theaters but has seen all the rest of the MCU - and she really enjoyed it. She wished we'd seen more of Dane, he could have been the every man instead of the Valet, which would have built his character a more to make us care about the post-credits scene.
Just watched it. Cool movie - I really didn't know what to expect.
When I saw Icarus, for some reason, I kept on thinking of Homelander.
Still trying to understand the end - I think I mis-heard something, so I may go back and watch that again.
I've had a general idea of what's going on w/ Avengers comics for the last 25-ish years, but before that, I have some pretty big gaps in what I know. But judging by the cameos at the end, there were times where things got weird. (It turns out I didn't hear who I thought I heard in the post credits scene, too. Hm.)
Finally watched it and man, I went in with low expectations and still came out disappointed. Plot felt all over the board, more than once my wife asked me “Wait, what’s going on?” And all I could do was shrug my shoulders. I wasn’t sure who to root for, who was the villain of the film (seriously, the Deviant guy had every right to be angry), or what the point of the movie even was.
The honest trailer with the quick shot of the Guardians reminded me that Marvel can take a loose group of characters and make you care for them.
Finally saw it... really had to force myself through it. And I'm one of the people who think Thor: The Dark World is okay-ish. This one, though - worst MCU film to date.
Long, dragging, everyone keeps acting. So. Goddamn. Seeeeeerious. There's hardly any joy in this. So much by-the-numbers checking tickboxes. When they showed the Hiroshima scene, I rolled my eyes.
Hey, I remember comic Sersi to be a fun-loving party animal. Film Sersi was dull and always seemed to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders. And went out of her was to drag everyone else down with her. I feel sorry for Dane. He deserves better (like comic Sersi).
Even the characters I wanted to root for left me cold. So Phastos is the MCU's first openly gay protagonist. I just wish they'd have picked a more interesting character. Same for Kingo - I wanted to enjoy his antics, but it all seemed so... hollow.
In the end, the mid and post credit stingers were the most interesting parts of the film. Everything else was meh.
I know HISHE isn't all that popular around here, but they really do have a point with this one. This really could have averted the film's very convoluted, over-complicated climax:
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