Chloe Zhao, fresh from her Oscar-winning Nomadland, brings a visual sensibility and a philosophical seriousness to Eternals that is entirely unlike anything the MCU had previously attempted. The result is a film of considerable beauty and real ideas, one that reaches further than any other entry in the franchise. It is also, unfortunately, narratively inert for long stretches and burdened by a cast of ten characters of whom perhaps four receive enough development to feel fully realised.
At a Glance
Director: Chloe Zhao
Runtime: 157 minutes
Starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Barry Keoghan
Release: 2021
Critics Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, a visually beautiful film that cannot translate its ambitions into dramatic momentum)
Audience Rating: ★★½ (2.5/5 stars, a film that rewards patience but tests it)
Review Breakdown
Plot
A group of immortal beings called Eternals have lived on Earth for seven thousand years, protecting humanity from predatory creatures called Deviants but forbidden from interfering in human conflicts. When the Deviants return in a new and more dangerous form, the Eternals must reunite and confront the truth about their mission and their creators. The plot is structured around a series of flashbacks spanning millennia, and the non-linear approach creates significant problems: it is difficult to invest in characters whose relationships are established across multiple time periods without any single period receiving enough attention. The central revelation, that the Eternals have been unknowingly facilitating the birth of a new Celestial that will destroy Earth in the process, is interesting, but the film takes so long to arrive at it that the narrative momentum has largely dissipated by the time it does.
Characters
Ten characters in 157 minutes is an almost impossible challenge, and the film does not meet it. Gemma Chan's Sersi and Richard Madden's Ikaris receive the most development, and their relationship gives the film its emotional centre, though neither performance is particularly dynamic. Barry Keoghan's Druig and Brian Tyree Henry's Phastos are the film's most compelling characters, the former a man whose contempt for human suffering has curdled into something dangerous, the latter the MCU's first openly gay superhero, handled with a warmth and specificity that makes him one of the film's most human presences. Angelina Jolie's Thena is given a promising arc involving a form of cosmic PTSD, but the film does not give it room to develop. Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo provides comic relief that the film deploys with mixed results. Jolie, Hayek, and Madden in particular feel underserved by a script that cannot find time for any of them. Don Lee's Gilgamesh is warm and likeable in a role that is essentially functional, and his dynamic with Jolie's Thena is one of the film's most affecting relationships.
Tone
Zhao's visual sensibility is the film's greatest asset and its most distinctive quality. Shot largely on location with natural light, Eternals has a warmth and a physical beauty that is entirely unlike the franchise's typical aesthetic, and the landscapes of the Mesopotamian plains, the Amazon rainforest, and the South Dakota Badlands give the film a sense of scale and history that studio-bound productions cannot replicate. The philosophical seriousness of the film's concerns, questions about free will, the ethics of creation, and the value of human life, is admirable, but the film struggles to dramatise these ideas in ways that generate tension.
Meaning / Themes
Eternals is the MCU's most explicitly philosophical film, engaging with questions about the relationship between creators and their creations, the ethics of sacrifice, and whether a species that produces both Hiroshima and Hamlet is worth preserving. These are worthwhile questions, and the film's willingness to ask them without easy answers is commendable. The problem is that the characters through whom these questions are explored are insufficiently developed to make the answers feel personal rather than abstract, and a philosophical debate conducted by characters we do not fully know is ultimately an academic exercise.
Direction
Zhao's direction is visually distinctive and dramatically uneven. The action sequences are competently staged but lack the kinetic energy and spatial clarity of the franchise's best work, and the intercutting between time periods creates a fragmentation that prevents any single sequence from building sufficient momentum. The film is at its best in its quieter moments, in the scenes between characters that allow Zhao's instinct for naturalistic performance and her eye for landscape to work together. At 157 minutes, it is the MCU's longest film, and it feels it.
Cultural Reception
Eternals received mixed reviews on its release, becoming the first MCU film to receive a Rotten Tomatoes score below 50% from critics, though audience scores were more favourable. It was a moderate commercial success and generated real critical debate about the limits of auteur filmmaking within the franchise model. It is now regarded as the MCU's most interesting creative experiment and its most instructive failure, a film whose ambition exceeded its execution but whose willingness to attempt something different deserves acknowledgement. Zhao's visual approach and Henry's Phastos are consistently cited as its most notable achievements.
Final Verdict: A noble failure and the MCU's most interesting disappointment. Chloe Zhao brings a visual beauty and philosophical seriousness to the material that the franchise had never previously attempted, but the film cannot support ten characters across 157 minutes without losing dramatic coherence. Admirable in its reach, frustrating in its grasp.