Eternals

Our Review

The Oscar winner’s swing that Marvel’s machine could not contain. Chloe Zhao made a 260 million dollar art film about ten immortal beings who have lived on Earth for seven thousand years, and the results are more interesting than they are good. The movie wants to be Terrence Malick with superpowers: grass level photography, whispered voiceovers, characters staring at sunsets while civilization rises and falls behind them.

The cast is stacked and mostly stranded. Gemma Chan’s Sersi carries the emotional spine, a woman who loves humanity despite its cruelty. Angelina Jolie’s Thena gets the mythic tragedy subplot, a warrior whose memories are breaking her mind, and Brian Tyree Henry’s Phastos has the film’s most human scene, weeping over Hiroshima for the tech he gave mankind. Kumail Nanjiani plays a Bollywood star immortal, the one joke the marketing sold.

The problem is pace. Two and a half hours of exposition about cosmic rules nobody can invest in, told in flashbacks that keep interrupting the present tense story, and an ending that resolves nothing but sequel setup. The midcredits reveal of a godlike new character plays as a shrug.

Admirable, sleepy, and the franchise’s biggest box office miss to that point. Our score: 4/10, the ambition earns a point back on reflection.