"When you love something, you protect it."
Hello everyone!
Four weeks and four Marvel movies later, we're now all caught up until No Way Home becomes readily available for streaming, since I'm still not comfortable just going to the cinema to see it in these times.
And man, it was a bumpy, bumpy ride!
It started off weak and then climbed until it peaked last week, so I was fully expecting this week's to knock it out of the park, except ... it didn't.
Not even a little bit.
It's disappointing because one would THINK that after so many years of making these movies Marvel would have the formula for success down pat, and yet it looks like that's not even remotely the case as they continue further into Phase Four.
They're doing okay with the TV shows, but the movies are often struggling.
Let's dive right into Eternals, shall we?
So about 7000 years ago, a group of super powered beings called Eternals arrive on Earth to deal with a problematic, alien race called Deviants that are hunting humans into extinction. It's very clearly obvious that about half of the Eternals are warriors, and half are mostly scientists or randomly selected for some skill or other to help further their mission.
They continue protecting the fledgling humanity through the hundreds and thousand of years, gently guiding it as well with inventions and shaping human history. Throughout, their leader Ajak (Salma Hayek) keeps in close contact with the Celestial that sent them to Earth, Arishem, to keep him appraised of what's what.
Oh and also, at least two members fall in love and get married as per human tradition at the time, Ikaris (Richard Madden) and Sersi (Gemma Chan), who represent the two halves of the Eternals group.
We're also introduced to the fact that, apparently, while Eternals don't die, they can suffer from basically going insane, like some sort of fractured mind thing-a-ma-bob, which one of their finest warriors, Thena (Angelina Jolie) is buckling under. The way it works is that she suddenly starts spewing nonsense about everyone dying and attacking her own team; as this comes during a time of great human upheaval, the group eventually splits, going separate ways, but continuing to fulfill their mission.
It's where we clock in with Sersi again, in London as she's some sort of teacher and, apparently, dating Kit Harington's character while living with another Eternal, the child-like Sprite. Things seem to be going semi-well until they're attacked by a Deviant, mid-London, which warrants the entrance of none other than Ikaris.
He explains that he wanted to check on Sersi and Sprite after a massive earthquake that had happened, but the Deviant was news to him, so they then travel to see Ajak and speak to her about everything, only to learn that she's dead, apparently killed by the Deviants. Ajak apparently chose Sersi to lead the rest of the Eternals after she was gone, and the orb that she used to contact Arishem passes to the other woman now.
This is where things get hairy because Sersi doesn't quite know how to use the thing, but knows Arishem was going to communicate something important to her, and the Deviants are a problem, so they travel to find Gilgamesh and Thena and tell them the news. Through Gilgamesh's advice, Sersi finally manages to speak with Arishem, and lo and behold what's actually going on (if you think everything was on the up-and-up, you're so wrong).
Arishem and other Celestials are born from planets, and Earth was chosen as host for one of them until the Emergence process could begin. Because every planet has its own apex predator - and the Celestials inside need enormous amounts of intelligent energy to emerge - Arishem created the Deviants to exterminate said predators.
Only, as one Ian Malcolm would say, life finds a way, and the Deviants evolved, beginning to hunt anything intelligent and sentient, which was why Arishem created the Eternals to destroy them, and bring the Celestials to life. After each Emergence, their memories are taken and stored, so Arishem can study the beings, and they're reprogrammed and sent to the next mission.
This naturally causes a division among the Eternals (again) as they gather together to decide whether or not they'll actually allow the Emergence to happen, or prevent it. Sersi is a vocal supporter of stopping it, saying it isn't worth the lives of everyone on Earth, no matter that Celestials create billions more lives by emerging, and it turns out she and Ikaris are way more out of whack than you'd think.
See, Ikaris was actually told the truth by Ajak a LONG time ago, around the same time he decided to up and leave Sersi and never go back (and the time she decided to just wait for him, then choose the option that something happened to him - even though no Eternal at that point had ever died - and moved on without even considering going to look where her supposed soulmate wandered off to). He's also going to ensure the Emergence happens even if he has to destroy the other Eternals, because his mission and his choices have always led to this.
Naturally, this causes more than one problem, and Ikaris eventually leaves, Sprite in tow (she's in love with him, mind), and the group realizes they'll have to figure out how to stop the Emergence AND Ikaris - who just so happens to be their strongest member, if you recall.
Their chief engineer (also responsible for things like the plough and the atomic bomb) figures out that the orb Sersi uses to communicate with Arishem might help them connect to a sort of hive mind and give her enough energy, by stopping their own regeneration process, to put the Celestial emerging to sleep.
So they go ahead and attempt to do this, while Ikaris and Sprite defend the Emergence, and not all of them even fight since some are like 'we're never winning against Ikaris, and I agree with him but don't want to fight with you so, peace out fam'.
Eventually, it boils down to Ikaris and Sersi, and he can't bring himself to kill her because of his lingering feelings for the woman, so he and Sprite join this hive mind and Sersi gets enough energy to change the Celestial into marble, basically killing it. They also learn the only reason the Eternals survived every Emergence was because they linked with whatever Celestial they were bringing forth - and that Sersi managed to change this one through its own energy.
In the aftermath, Ikaris flies into the sun (as you do when you've failed your mission), and Sersi fundamentally changes Sprite with left-over energy to turn her into a human. Things seem to be going back to normal ... until Arishem appears, plucks the three remaining Eternals (because the others that haven't died have taken their ship to find others who're doing Arishem's bidding so they can stop it from happening), and tells them that he'll judge whether or not the humans are allowed to live instead of a Celestial through their memories.
Given that the Eternals' memories are filled with war, plague, famine, and other crimes humanity has perpetuated against each other, we can all see where THIS is going.
And to wrap it up, the Eternals on the ship figure out something's wrong just as they're visited by a random stranger, played by Harry Styles (who made THAT call?!?), introducing himself as Thanos' brother - who knows where their friends are.
Back on Earth, Kit Harington unearths an old family heirloom - a black sword - that seems to have taken lessons from the One Ring with its whisperings and whatnot, so we know there's more to come from that, even as the movie comes to an end.
Whew!
Unfortunately not Marvel's strongest entry into their franchise, Eternals struggles through attempting to introduce a large ensemble cast without giving them much of a backstory, which results in you as a viewer not really connecting to any of them. Why should I root for Druig, for example, who decides to mind control people and create some sort of cult for himself in the middle of the jungle, supposedly to protect the people he's chosen?
Or the engineer, who decided to hole up after WWII for his crimes, and never wanted to emerge out of family life again?
More importantly, viewers can't and don't connect with Sersi, billed as the movie's lead, because Chan's performance and actions don't warrant it. For most of the movie she seems to be either bored or has a perpetually confused look on her face, and her motivations are never really explained, especially given she's supposed to be the most compassionate of them all. And yet ... with no other knowledge, she decides Ikaris must be dead and moves on without a hint of an attempt to look. This is even more confusing as the pair continue to act pretty much connected after their reunion.
In fact, despite claiming Sersi to be the lead, it's Ikaris we get to know the most, his motivations and his choices, which at least make some small lick of sense given the character they're trying to present. A leader in war-time, a warrior with a strong code of honour and loyalty, and the strongest fighter of them all, it would make sense why he went into seclusion so he wouldn't have to lie, or why he continued following Arishem's directive to the very end.
And actually, why would Ajak tell ONLY HER STRONGEST WARRIOR about the Emergence, but leave the others in the dark? What kind of logic is this???
Overall, there is no logic in here, and the plotholes become bigger and bigger as you continue to dissect the movie (Eternals have shaped history, but somehow, NO ONE PUT THAT DOWN?), which is unfortunate. The visuals ARE stunning and the fight sequences are alright (they pale in comparison to Shang-Chi but, anything does), and you feel a moderate something when Gilgamesh dies protecting Thena, but that's about it, as far as I'm concerned.
Eternals suffers from the same problems Justice League did (the theatrical version, that is), in that it tries to introduce people without backstories into a team, which obviously won't work because you don't have the time to establish them. And once they start fighting among themselves, it's literally game over.
So overall, Phase Four as had a rocky sort of ride, in my opinion. It isn't entirely bad, but it also isn't as good as the previous parts of the saga have been, so I'm hoping that the future will bring better things on the horizon.
Until then, you'll see me re-watching some of my favourites from the past, and remembering.
xx
*images and video not mine
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