'Eternals' fails to live up to the potential of its Marvel Comics inspiration

The "Eternals" are outshined by the guest stars in their own film.

Kirk Boxleitner | Nov 11, 20210

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In one important sense, filmmaker Chloé Zhao's cinematic adaptation of comics creator Jack Kirby's "Eternals" is incredibly faithful, in that both tried to establish a semi-independent universe-in-microcosm within a broader Marvel universe, and neither one quite managed to stick that particular landing.

While "Eternals" has been review-bombed online, it matters why it doesn't work, which is far different from the reasons motivating a number of internet trolls with grudges.

Zhao is to be commended for making Kirby's collection of otherworldly immortals more gender-balanced, and even more ethnically diverse, than they were in the comics, while also delivering an emotionally earnest portrayal of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's first openly gay couple, and she absolutely nails the existentially terrifying scale of the cosmically powerful Celestials.

But in so many other ways, "Eternals" is victimized by Disney's glaringly obvious attempts to turn it into the MCU's first "prestige cinema" project, complete with an Academy Award-winning director and a cast of multiple Academy and Emmy award-winning and nominated actors and actresses, and a mostly somber tone throughout, that stands in complete contrast to the sheer bombast with which Kirby told these same tales (even his narrative captions always ended in exclamation points).

Given that "Eternals" shares a premise with the "Ancient Aliens" TV series, it's perhaps understandable that this film would want to overcompensate into the territory of demanding to be taken super-seriously (a few tonally dissonant moments of obligatory MCU-style wisecracks notwithstanding), but forcing almost all of the actors to limit themselves to graven facial expressions for the better part of three hours ironically robs a lot of scenes that could have been far more moving of their potential dramatic "oomph."

And with a primary cast of characters this expansive, "Eternals" really should have been made as a Disney+ streaming series instead, since it's bad enough to cast already well-known stars like Angelina Jolie and Salma Hayek and then give them so little to do, but it's downright criminal to cast international talents like Kumail Nanjiani and Don Lee and then only afford them enough time onscreen to make us realize we were robbed by not seeing far more of them.

I should be thrilled to see Gemma Chan, of AMC's 2015-18 series "Humans," receiving broader exposure, but her performance as the Eternal Sersi (like all Eternals, her character is meant to have inspired the characters in humanity's ancient legends) feels strangely constrained.

Yes, I'm going to be That Guy Who Won't Shut Up About The Comics, but the Sersi I remember from the Marvel Comics of the 1980s and '90s was fascinating for how she hid the traumas of immortality behind a mask of frivolity, as a well-connected high-society social butterfly who was always up for a party, and I find myself wishing that Chan had been afforded that chance to cut loose.

In a similar vein, while Zhao brings her signature naturalistic cinematography to "Eternals," it actually detracts significantly from several key action sequences, which are rendered muddy and unclear in a bid to make the intricate CGI constructs seem more earthy, grounded and "real."

The costume, technology and creature designs for this film are all suitably otherworldly and impeccably well-rendered for what they're meant to be, but they're simply not Jack Kirby, whose chunky, untamed, crude-yet-elegant combination of hieroglyphic and futuristic is only ever approached by the aesthetic of the Celestials themselves.

If you're wondering what a more authentically Kirby-esque "Eternals" would have looked like, go back and watch "Thor: Ragnarok," specifically the scenes set on the trash planet of Sakaar.

Indeed, "Thor: Ragnarok" director Taika Waititi would have been much better helming this franchise than Chloé Zhao, as Alejandro Jodorowsky seemed to recognize when he chose Waititi to direct a film adaptation of Jodorowsky's mind-blowing sci-fi graphic novel series, "The Incal."

In the meantime, I found myself drawing the most enjoyment from the Easter eggs left in this film's margins, from Kit Harrington playing Sersi's human love interest Dane Whitman, who becomes the antiheroic Black Knight in Marvel Comics, and a mid-credits appearance by a member of the Infinity Watch (I'm not spoiling it, so Wikipedia it on your own if you wish) and the one member of Thanos' family I never expected to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And yes, there are both mid-credits and end-credits scenes, because this is an MCU joint, after all.3