Eternals Movie Review & Comments

Just back from seeing this at the excellent Everyman Cinema and I thought it was great, lots to set up but all handled really well, some fantastic action set pieces, Mark Kermode said this was a mess and I don’t agree with that, it was all very coherent to me, not sure what he is on about. 4/5 for me, my wife scored it 3.5/5 and not her type of film at all. It was a packed show so that’s good.
Critics as ever need to be taken with a pinch of salt. It was only a couple of weeks ago he was raving about Venom 2.
 
Watched it last night,thought it was boring in some parts and a little slow,got the feeling of seen it all before in much better MCU films,I think I’m watching them now juts for the sake of watching them,im more hyped to watch the new Ghostbusters hopefully Spider-Man in December will be better
 
I’m not a big fan of this genre of films so never really get invested in them, but as I have a limitless card, I’ll sit and watch on a rainy afternoon, each time hoping to become a convert.

Seems to me the marvel universe is also limitless (sadly). I found it boring (more than usual). There were no interesting characters and character development was entirely absent. The “enemy” hardly threatened humanity unless you were a remote tribe in the middle of nowhere
(spoiler alert, one minute they’re running for their lives and then amazingly every single one has access to a shotgun?).

The CGI was meh and the “style” of said effects was repetitive and boring. It seems to me that these films are all made in a similar manner, that being a series of action set pieces interwoven with virtue signalling plot (with holes) to link them together; throw in the usual child character (suitably irritating), the usual comic character (that are not funny), the usual disenfranchised character, the inevitable victory against the odds, and there you have it, a marvel film. Acknowledging, as you can tell that I am not a fan in general, I thought this was a weak outing all up.
 
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Just back from seeing this at the excellent Everyman Cinema and I thought it was great, lots to set up but all handled really well, some fantastic action set pieces, Mark Kermode said this was a mess and I don’t agree with that, it was all very coherent to me, not sure what he is on about. 4/5 for me, my wife scored it 3.5/5 and not her type of film at all. It was a packed show so that’s good.
Its only about 5% of the time I agree with him. I watched his review and then went on to watch his Wonder Woman 1984, Mark the most consistant reviewer I take notice of and then think the opposite.
 
Watched this tonight. Visually it wasn’t too bad although I’ve seen better. Only problem with the film…. I was bored…!! Boring characters and story that I just couldn’t get invested in so I just didn’t care what happened to them. It’s all been done before in the MCU, only bigger and better.
What might be really sad is that Marvel have shown that good writing with talented actors and appropriate direction can overcome even "less interesting" C-list characters like Cap, Iron Man and the Guardians.

It was always going to be difficult to follow Endgame. Yes the MCU formula should be modified to keep it fresh. But @Mark Costello review suggests that this film is trying to have its cake and eat it.

Eternals is being marketed as an awards darling with critic proof causes rather than a must see blockbuster film. So it's ironic that the critics for varying reasons find Eternals 'meh' and whatever secondary awards it might have received will probably be taken by Dune.
 
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Its only about 5% of the time I agree with him. I watched his review and then went on to watch his Wonder Woman 1984, Mark the most consistant reviewer I take notice of and then think the opposite.
I concur. It never used to be the case but definitely in the last year or two I can reliably dismiss his reviews. That might be a function of the times we are living in though.

Only flaw in the Marvel ark is
in Iron Man 3 Tony had Jarvis destroy his Iron Man suits so he would not be Iron Man
Did not know that which is weird because I have watched this film. I think my mind has blocked any traces of Iron Man 3 from returning to my brain since "Trevor!"
 
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Watched this on IMAX and it looked and sounded incredible. Film itself, not too bad, apart from the forced beach sex scene and gay kiss. I have no issue with either at all, but what the hell are they doing in a Marvel film? There was really no need for them at all and seemed forced and just thrown in there for the sake of it! Especially the "sex" scene, I mean honstley it did nothing for the film at all.

The film itself, i'd give it a 7.5/10
 
I can see why so many critics were grumbling about this film as it is very different from the usual Marvel fare they introduced too many characters to be able to give them a proper introduction having had a few days to gather my thoughts probably a seven for my
 
The review said:
And with this cast, you get the feeling that if Zhao had been allowed, she would have made a much more interesting film if she’d jettisoned the Deviant plot line entirely and just focussed on this group of characters, their inter-relationships and their time on earth (how have they impacted culture, divergent thoughts on the human race, etc) and the almost natural conflicts that would have arisen from these.

This comment about the Deviants is exactly what I said when I came out of the cinema. They could have been excised completely. A better story would have been that the Eternals knew their true purpose all along, and yet over time some of them turned against it leading to internal conflict. I also think it would have been a better film with (at least) two fewer Eternals, and skipping the Mahd Wy'ry subplot, which didn't really add a lot.

One had the sense that the Deviants were there (a) to provide fight scenes and (b) to give a reason for the Eternals not to have interfered in Thanos's plans
(though that made bog all sense anyway - if new Celestials require populations, then a threat to wipe out have of all populations is a far greated threat to humanity than the Deviants were). Also: why didn't Richard Madden just dump Selma Hayak's body in space? By leaving it where he did he created the chance that the hotline to Arisham, and so the purpose of the mission, would be disclosed to another Eternal. He could have shut that down, let the plan run its course and gone home happy).
 
4/10 A Disapointment - After the very enjoyable Shang Chi, had resonable hopes for this. On the plus side this looked & sounded great but is was long (i looked at watch a number of times which I didnt during Dune & NDTD which are similar lengths). Having to introduce so many characters, you I just didnt end up caring for them, as each had so much plot and back story (Basil Exposition from Austin Powers wouldnt of gone amiss). The humour (apart from 1 human character) just didnt work

Ive enjoyed most of the MCU films but this is down there with Iron Man 2 & Thor Dark World for me
 
Marvel should have had the balls to put Jack Kirby's Eternals on the big screen, instead of this lifeless turd
 
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Just watched it on Disney+. 6/10 is about the best I could give it if I was feeling very generous. Most of the characters were pretty tedious. As for the twist...not really hard to see that one coming within a few mins of watching.
 
Disney + imax presentation was great..no way this film needs to be 2 and half hours

First 1 hr was jumping all over the place and convoluted...2 hr got a bit more interesting. Some great imax shots and set pieces...but overall just an average superhero flick.
 
More or less what I expected, average at best. It felt like I was watching one of those superhero movies from an independent comic company. One no one had ever heard of before but some movie studio had spent some bucks on. It had only tenuous links to Marvel with mentions of the Avengers and the inclusion of Dane Whitman. The plot was predictable and the end twist I saw coming a mile off.

I don't know how Marvel is going to do a second one without some help from more mainstream Marvel characters. This will be the first Marvel movie I won't rewatch, probably ever.
 
Watched it last night around a friend's.

It was rubbish, possibly not helped by the cast being TV actors for the most part.

Really missed a trick with the Deviants, they were the best part of the film by a country mile and I was expecting a team up at the end

4 out of 10 if I'm being generous.

Phase 4 has some proper turds.
 
Everyone is dampening my enthusiasm again :laugh:

My bro-in-law watched it last night and said Richard Madden's performance is the most wooden thing he's ever seen. Would agree with most too that the cast were very poor.

I'll be diving in at the weekend. Don't think I've ever gone in before though to any Marvel project with such low expectation.
 
I quite liked it, but that's as far as I'd go.

I liked the fact that it was slow and thoughtful.

Lots of shades of grey in the characters motivations rather than just another "kill the big bad" movie plot.

But it was still very light weight, still a marvel movie. The idea that it is award worthy is absurd.

I also appreciate that Marvel tries to do something a little different occasionally rather than just churn out the exact same film each year.
 
I rewatched it too last night and feel about the same as I did before. I dont mind it. There is a good film in there somewhere. Its just a bit of a bloated mess. Some have said it would have been better as a mini-series (and Loki or Hawkeye should have been movies). Perhaps.

Theres good stuff in there. A colossal sense of scale and I like that Zhao and the writers had the courage to take big swings. Like Ikaris, they aim high even if they crash & burn. Better that than a safe, vanilla effort like Black Widow (this is much better than that).

The fights and action scenes arent bad at all. Well choreographed and fairly epic, if a tad generic.

Its got interesting themes and perspectives, like when Druig is lamenting humans warlike nature and resolves to settle the matter at the cost of free will. Its also good at weighing the cosmic scales and the arithmetic of lives.

I love the idea of long lived beings suffering mentally from the weight of thousands of years of memories. That was interesting and something I hadn't considered before.

Its also beautiful and immense. The sheer scale of the Celestials is awe inspiring.


There's also stuff I disliked.

Pacing was off.
Didn't like how the eternals claim credit for many of humanity's achievements, kind of undermines us a bit.
Many of the characters are bland, and there are too many of them.
I absolutely hated Brian Tyree Henry's character. He's miserable, self righteous and constantly angry and seems to have a bit of insecurity where Ikaris is concerned- yet the film seems to want us to be on his side. Eff off. Also his line "I've wanted to clip your wings for a long time" seems strange considering up till his betrayal Ikaris was a serious and brave leader. What is his problem? Was he worried Ikaris would run off with his husband.

Couldn't give a solitary crap about either of the post credits scenes.

Query:
When is Eternals set in the MCU? It seems to me the appearance of a continent-sized beings on Earth would be the most significant and terrifying thing that's ever happened in human history, even including Thanos. Yet there's no mention of it in Hawkeye or Spider-Man.


Sticking with 6/10. Lower tier but not a total write off.
 
Watched it this morning...

chernobyl-not-great.gif
 
Everyone is dampening my enthusiasm again :laugh:

My bro-in-law watched it last night and said Richard Madden's performance is the most wooden thing he's ever seen. Would agree with most too that the cast were very poor.

I'll be diving in at the weekend. Don't think I've ever gone in before though to any Marvel project with such low expectation.
I agree even kit Harrington was particularly wooden and hardly used. I would have thought he would have been better as the main charactor

What made me chuckle ( as a game of thrones fan ) is they were both in love with cerscei
 
The worst film in the MCU, period. Cardboard characters, failed humour, stupid and unnecessarily long running time. Crap action, awful CGI, wooden performances. I liked nothing about the production design, all that yellow stringy geometry floating about, unimaginative creatures.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the conspicuous diversity. That's the least of this movie's problems. It's a 4/10 from me, and as I say, a new low in the MCU. I felt embarrassed for everyone involved.
 
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The worst film in the MCU, period. Cardboard characters, failed humour, stuipid and unnecessarily long running time. Crap action, awful CGI, wooden performances. I liked nothing about the production design, all that yellow stringy geometry floating about, unimaginative creatures.

Honestly, I couldn't care less about the conspicuous diversity. That's the least of this movie's problems. It's a 4/10 from me, and as I say, a new low in the MCU. I felt embarrassed for everyone involved.

It isn't great, but I don't think its the worst MCU film. I don't even think it was the worst MCU film of 2021 :laugh:
 
Don't know if it was the lowered expectations due to everything I've heard surrounding this movie but it wasn't bad, kept our interest and we managed to watch it all the way through without either of us falling asleep. Liked how they loosely merged current scientific understanding of the universe to the MCU. On the "woke-ism" front, it wasn't too in your face as I've heard from some critics but then some trigger easily and obsess over feeling victimised regardless of which end of the spectrum they fall on in the culture wars. Yes some parts were long and bloated and I could see myself feeling restless if I'd watched it at the cinema or worse, cringe, if I'd been involved in making the movie. The best part however was the ending where they hint toward a few characters that are likely to be introduced. Certainly hope the poor reception of this doesn't stifle their chances. Overall 5.5/10.
 
Watched it last night on Disney+ and it was actually better than I expected. After the reviews etc I wasn't at all interested but thought nothing better to do on a rainy Thursday.

The thing that really bugged me was the whole poser thing from black widow. Geez did this movie have a lot of posing, including needless lining up for no reason.

I thought Angelina Jolie character
appeared to be there only because she was famous, really was a pointless character. She was meant to be the greatest warrior, but seemed to get constantly beat,the subplot could have been cut with no real impact on the movie and tightened up the timing

The twist I saw coming a mile away.

Additionally
the titan or whatever it's called seemed to be tiny when it broke through the earth, it barely covered a couple of miles and so wouldn't destroy the earth, just leave a big hole

Other than that I found the audio a bit compressed, just didn't have the dynamics I was expecting, I ended up playing it pretty loud to make up for it, certainly volume dial wise higher than I would normally.
 

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