Movie Review #64: The Eternals (2021)

 

Yeah, there are spoilers for the movie in this review. So don't read on if you don't want to spoiled.

Boy oh boy, I think mister Kevin Fiege has grown too big for his britches. Thinking he can turn just about every Marvel Property into a movie not realizing some just work as comics. I'm amazed they went with this one instead of trying to use the X-Men or Fantastic Four that they own the rights too. For better or worse, even port would have to agree that those things have fans. The mass majority of comic readers and movie watchers and nerds had not even heard of the Eternals before this movie. The majority of Eternal fans (7 out of the 10 of them) are just big Jack Kirby fans who will enjoy any of his work. I'm surprised Kevin Feige wasn't like "Eh the Netflix shows aren't canon to the MCU at all now!" and just revamp Daredevil, or Luke Cage, or Iron Fist, or anything into a movie. I'm surprised they haven't tried to make the Thunderbolts. or New Warriors, or worked harder on bringing about the Young Avengers. Like I'm surprised they didn't just give James Gunn some money to just make a comedic Howard the Duck movie. Any of them should have popped up before the Eternals. 

For the 98% of people who don't know about the Eternals, well they were a concept by Jack Kirby made in the 1970s during his return to Marvel comics. They were human beings given superpowers by Celestials (cool robot God guys that are clearly the best part of the Eternals backstory.) and are pretty much immortal. They fight the Deviants (cool Jack Kirby monsters that are completely ruined and made generic in this film.) and some of them have names like Ikaris and Thena and Gilgamesh and are considered to be those actual ancient people/heroes/myths, and I think that's pretty interesting. However the big problem with the Eternals is that the Inhumans are very similar to them and are honestly a lot more fun to me. They know the Fantastic Four and you have that royal family dynamic to work with. I dunno. I think the Eternals are pretty decent enough but are probably the least entertaining thing Jack Kirby created when he came back to Marvel. Devil Dinosaur should have had a movie before the Eternals, any version, Just saying.

Now that I've revealed my true feelings about the Eternals to portnoyd, which is that they are just fine. I'm going to assume he ups his dislike of some things for our goofy arguments and really probably doesn't hate Hanna-Barbera as much as he pretends. Just never cared for any of their stuff. I don't know why I'm even mentioning that, I guess I just don't want to get into this movie, because uh, It's really bad. I'm going to say this B.C. The First Thanksgiving and Ghoulies IV didn't make me stop watching what I was watching like 50 times to go do something else. I figure I should also bring up what I feel about the MCU. I was a fan until around Captain America: Civil War until I realized every movie was very similar and that I probably wasn't going to be ever watching them again. It was just excitement of seeing these characters on the big screen. I did watch until the end of Endgame to see the big first story see its conclusion and then I just gave up pretty much. I did see Shang Chi which was decent enough but nothing amazing. I'd just rather read Shang Chi comics instead of watching the movie. You can say that for any MCU movie. I'd just rather read that characters or teams comics instead.

 You might be wondering why I felt like watching this movie and it really was because I had heard it was terrible. You tell me a movie is good or great and I'm like yeah whatever but if you tell me a movie is stupid or awful or poorly made or worst ever made and I will run like a mad man to see that movie. I just have to know if it's what you said it is. So if you want me to see a good film tell me it's a piece of shit. Anyway that's why I decided to watch The Eternals. This movie is about 73% exposition dialogue. Talkin about who the Eternals are. Talking about the Celestials. Talking about What happened in the past. Talking about what happened when the Eternals broke up. Talking about how they get back together. Talking about how they are apparently robots who the Celestials created (which I'll bring up in the next paragraph.) Yes, I get that sometimes, well most times a movie needs some exposition dialogue. It's gotta happen, but this movie has way too fucking much and you barely get anything about these characters. 

Unlike most of the people who were angry at this movie and downvoted it on IMDB, I don't care that some of the Eternals are now gay, or black, or deaf. Or any of these things. It's just they are apparently some kind of robots so why the hell did the Celestials make them these things? Why did they make them deaf? or gay? or any of these things. Do the Celestials want diversity? I just felt that they kinda didn't do the diversity thing very well. I hate saying shit like that too because I really do not want to be lumped in with YouTube and Twitter weirdos who are all like NO DIVERSITY EVER IN OUR GENRE COMIC ENTERTAINMENT!!!!! I just want the diversity to make a bit of sense. Oh, another problem is the Deviants are so boring. Go and find any image of the Deviants as drawn by Jack Kirby and then look at these weird gray crappy wolf like things. They are generic as fuck. There's also so much exposition dialogue that I didn't get to get a feel for any of the characters. Not a single one of them. Oh and the comedy in the movie is obnoxious and very not funny. Sometimes Marvel actually has some funny stuff happen in the movies and sometimes it's bullshit garbage. In Eternals it's bullshit garbage.

FINAL VERDICT: Yeah. I kinda want this movie to fail just because I want the MCU to go down now. Just because I'm an asshole and I want my comic books go to back down in price and not OMFG THIS CHARACTER MIGHT BE IN A MOVIE IN 2027 SO YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME 500 DOLLARS FOR THIS COMIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plus it would be funny for them to have the rug pulled out from underneath them because really you were getting too big for your britches when you reached to the absolute bottom of the Z-List for The Eternals. I even think some of the comics are fun and good but there's about 320 Marvel Characters that should appear on the big screen before them. Now to see what Portnoyd says and what I can argue with him about.