Movie Review: ‘Eternals’ Is Something New And Refreshing

Review by Lauryn Angel

Marvel Studios’ Eternals is not the typical Marvel movie, and that’s a great thing, as the studio breaks from its formula. That’s not to say the movie is without flaws, but on the whole I enjoyed it, as did the audience I watched it with.

Unlike many of the heroes we were introduced to in earlier Phases, the Eternals don’t really have an origin story. They come to Earth from a planet called Olympia to fight the Deviants, who threaten to wipe out humanity. The Eternals already know how to fight, so we’re almost immediately greeted with a spectacular fight scene that introduces their powers: Sersei (Gemma Chan) can manipulate matter; Ikaris (Richard Madden) has laser vision and can fly; Thena (Angelina Jolie) is a great fighter who wields magical weapons; and the leader, Ajak (Salma Hayek) can heal herself and others.

The film jumps around through both place and time, as the Eternals have guarded humanity for over 7000 years – but only from Deviants. This begs quite a few questions, most of which come from the mouth of Dane Whitman (Kit Harington). But the Eternals don’t have much time to answer questions, as the Deviants, long thought extinct, make a return, but with added powers.
There’s a lot to unpack in this film, as there are a total of ten Eternals, with Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Druig (Barry Keoghan) and Gilgamesh (Don Lee) added to the four mentioned above. That’s quite a few characters to follow, and they come in and out of the story, to the point that I had to remind myself where a couple of them had gone.

The film does have the trademark Marvel blend of action and comedy – most of the latter coming from Kingo and his trusty valet Karun (Harish Patel) but all of the characters have their moments. There are a few moments that hit a sour note for me, mostly involving events of humans committing atrocities on each other, but those moments were just that and didn’t ultimately diminish my enjoyment.

I particularly enjoyed the diversity of the cast, especially the inclusion of Lauren Ridloff as Makkari. While Makkari is a white man in the comics, Ridloff is not only a woman of color, but also deaf. The characters of Ajak and Sprite are also male in the comics, and while gender-swapping in the MCU isn’t new, it does bring a nice balance to the team – unlike the Avengers, who were overwhelmingly white and male. Most viewers likely won’t know about the gender-swapping, and the representation of different races and sexual orientations is more obvious, but all of this points to one thing: this is not another Avengers movie. It’s something new, and I find it refreshing.