Eternals - Zhao's Talent Is Void In This Lifeless Film
Eternals
Man, Marvel movies just have not hit with me this year. Their shows have, for the most part, except for <i>Falcon and Winter Soldier<i> and <i>What If...<i> been solid, but their movies are just missing. There are a couple of upcoming MCU films that sound interesting. I'm not as interested in their future as three years ago. They're still big, but quality-wise I think they're becoming lesser. I can't even get excited for <i>Spider-Man: No Way Home<i> and I'm a Spider-Man fan! Bringing back characters from better Spider-Man movies than what we've had from Marvel/Sony just isn't going to sell it for me.
I knew this would be a miss. It sounded like a disaster waiting to happen, but when I saw a bit of <i>Nomadland<i> I knew I wasn't even going to get a big, sloppy, <I>Spider-Man 3<I> mess. It was going to be a two-and-a-half-hour drag. It's not even an enjoyable mess like <i>Shang-Chi<i>. Director Chloe Zhao is straining to do something different in this franchise, but the cookie-cutter is too strong! In the end, Zhao ends up being just another young talent in this machine, not doing anything that groundbreaking. It's not the worst mess in the franchise, but it's the biggest stinker in this phase. I had a small this movie would be at least interesting, but it ultimately wasn't.
One of the biggest disappointments this movie had was that it didn't even look that good. The CGI makes Sam Rami's Spider-Man trilogy look as fresh as can be. I'm not sure what went wrong here, but I thought this was largely an ugly movie. The CGI is bland, and <b>everything<b> felt bland. The action was pretty bad, and the costumes were ridiculous. I thought that <i>Nomadland<i> looked well made. None of that is present here. When Kro showed up, I thought that carried some weight visually and thematically, but other than that, this movie lacked a pleasing look. It goes for epic and fails because of it.
I struggled desperately to care for this team. Barry Keoghan, Kumail Nanjiani, and the valet guy were the only characters I cared about in the whole movie. There's no way that you can make me care for a team of people in one movie unless you're the LOTR. These performances were more restricted than bad. It's a testament to Keoghan as a talent that he added so much depth and emotion to his character with little to no help. I could not believe that Gemma Chan's Sersi was the main character. I thought it would be Angelina Jolie, but she barely has anything to do in this movie. Same with Salma Hayek. I could not connect with Sersi like I wanted to. Byran Tyree Henry was not in it as much as I had hoped, but he had some well-done scenes. The movie tries to do so much and cannot do it all. It's trying to be a romance, a story of humanity, a superhero movie, and more. I honestly don't think it succeeds at doing any of them. They all fall short equally. There were scenes where I thought the movie would find its footing. However, I only had a few good sequences, not a good movie.
I walked out feeling empty by the end. I convinced myself that it wasn't that bad, just mediocre. But when I continued to think about this movie, I just got angry. I could not believe how messy and tonally confused the movie was. One minute I was in a comedy with a guy wearing a baby suit, and then I was asked to feel sorry for characters I hadn't even known for fifteen minutes. That's horrific storytelling, and there's no chance I can recommend this movie. Pick what story you want to tell, please. Please do not ask me to endorse your film because you tried to say something about gay politics, Hiroshima, and the beauty of humans (while making humans seem worthless). Just because you <b>touch<b> on issues and topics of today does not mean you did it well. I respect Zhao as an artistic talent in moments, but I hope she never returns to the MCU after this two-and-a-half-hour waste of time. It's one of the two times I've wanted to walk out of a movie theater. If the projector stopped working and the staff came out and said they had run into a technical difficulty and that we could come back for free the next day, I may not have bothered coming back. When Harry Styles and the worst-looking CGI creation I've seen in forever showed up, this film sealed its coffin. I do not want to return here again. If you found some enjoyment here, and I know people did, then that's awesome. I didn't want to come out hating this movie, but that's where I ended up. I will say that I'm currently loving <i>Hawkeye<i> and will hopefully continue to do so. <i>Eternals<i> just did not cut it for me. A few characters work but I forgot about some characters until that showed up again in the third act! It has some interesting ideas in spare moments but it does not capitalize on it well enough to be a satisfying movie.
Solid Not Recommend
4/10
- Noah Newcomb
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