Eternals is a weaker film when it comes to the overall scheme of the MCU, clearly I've seen better, but for what I got as a stand-alone, it was better than I thought, still mediocre in many ways. I appreciate the attempt at being a slower, more melodramatic compared to the other MCU films. Lots of time characters are just sitting or standing around and talking and lots of it. The only thing that kept me from getting really bored was the occasional fight sequences they'd throw in. I'm not saying I need all action and no substance, but the dialog between the characters was uninteresting, and nothing was really grabbing me emotionally. That brings me to my next issue, I personally know nothing about the Eternals, I went into this film completely blind hoping that maybe the film can help introduce these new characters to me. Unfortunately, that also failed in my eyes. I left the movie knowing only what each character's abilities are, and a few of their names. I was driving home from the theater and I couldn't remember all of their names. That's how forgettable the characters and character development was for me. Also, there was no need for this film to be almost three hours long. Why does every Marvel film have to be near three hours long, some actually reach three hours, but that was the Avengers film which I can understand because they have to cram so much story, characters, and information in such a short period of time, however the Russo brothers did a much better job at delivering and executing those things. Chloe Zhao has shown she is a very gifted filmmaker with Nomadland, but apparently she had plenty of creative control, so I have to criticize Zhao for the overall execution of the character development, and too much exposition. However, I do really appreciate the execution of the action and fighting sequences especially having to do with the Deviants. There was one in particular towards the middle of the film that I was having a good time with. Some of the background shots are absolutely breathtaking, and the cinematography was beautiful as well. These things are so strongly executed that they almost outweigh the negatives I mentioned earlier. But as it stands, it is a mediocre film with bad character development, uninteresting interaction between characters, too much exposition, and too long of a running time; but also has exceptional fight sequences, breathtaking backgrounds, beautiful cinematography, and the score are all that make this film what it is. Therefore I reward it with a solid 7.2/10.
Review of Eternals
