Review: Eternals

The gods that have walked with us. 

Okay, let’s talk about the Eternals. The Eternals first appeared in Marvel comics in July 1976, it being a passion project by the late great comic artist legend Jack Kirby. If you think the grand battle between god-like, humanoid non-humans seem like The New Gods of DC, call down, Kirby wrote that too. The Eternals of the comics are a cousin species to modern humans, having been created by the Celestials while experimenting on early man. These experiments created both the Eternals and the ‘deformed’ Deviants, and the gene modifications are also what led to the eventual evolution of Homo Superior Sapiens, aka Mutants. Now, all of that, forget that, because the MCU Eternals are a bit different. Let’s get to it, shall we? 

 

I’m going to cover the flashbacks once again all in one go, like with Shang-Chi. Again, it’s a bit easier on the noodle.  

 

It's a good group.

Our story begins 7000 years ago. Well, technically it begins a lot longer ago. The Celestials, a race of immensely powerful aliens that forge stars, had a problem. They wished to encourage the growth of sentient life in the universe, but their efforts in cultivating civilizations were complicated by Deviants, a species of invasive predators that hunt intelligent life across the galaxy. To combat them, the Celestials created the Eternals, a race of super beings. Groups of Eternals are sent throughout the galaxy, possibly universe, to hunt Deviants and protect developing species. A group of Ten Eternals are sent to Earth in 5000 BC by Arishem the Judge. They are Ajak, the leader who has healing powers; Ikaris, he is capable of flight and shooting cosmic energy from his eyes; Sersi, she can transmute non-sentient material into any other material with a touch; Kingo, he can fire bullets of cosmic energy from his hands; Phastos, he’s a technopath, he can control technology, and design, create, and manufacture advanced technology at an incredible rate; Sprite, she creates illusions; Druig, he can control people’s minds; Makkari, she can move at superhuman speed; Thena, she can manipulate her cosmic energy into weapons; and Gilgamesh, he can manipulate his cosmic energy to make heavy gauntlets. They all also have extremely durable bodies, superhuman strength, and obviously immortality. They save an early human village from a Deviant attack, and then introduce themselves to the populace.  

 

A Wedge shape ship is a very unintuitive design.

The Eternals worked to protect humans and to foster our development. Phastos tries to give humanity steam power at about 4000 BC, but it gets downgraded to a plow, much to his chagrin. The Eternals kill Deviants, and bond with humanity. Sersi seems to gel with humanity almost instantly. Over the centuries, Sersi and Ikaris form a close relationship, so much so they marry. Tension existed before this point, but it finally boiled over in 1521, when the Spanish invaded Tenochtitlan. At the same time, the Eternals slay the last of the Deviants, but Thena begins to be afflicted with an Eternal disease called Mahd Wy’ry, a dementia like disease that causes Eternals to freak out and attack their allies. They’re able to stop Thena too, but that combined with the Spanish genocide of the Aztec proves too much for Druig. He screams at them that it’s infuriating that he has the power to make humanity stop killing each other but can’t because it’s against their prime directive. They’re supposed to only kill Deviants and let Humans do as they do.  He mind-controls the Conquistadors and the Aztecs and marches off. Without anything else to do, Ajak tells the other Eternals to go out and live their lives. When it’s time to return to their home world of Olympia, they’ll gather again.  

 

In the modern day, Sersi is living as a museum curator and teacher in modern London. Sprite is also living with her, but they haven’t seen the others in centuries. Even Sersi’s husband Ikaris mysteriously left centuries ago. Sersi has started a relationship with a colleague Dane Whitman, who wants them to live together but she’s got… trust issues since Ikaris left. Plus, it’s hard to explain when your roommate is a 7000-year-old who looks 13. Yeah, immortality really screwed Sprite over. After celebrating Dane’s birthday, they head home but are attacked by an enormous Deviant. As they run, Dane has a great interaction with Sprite, “I thought you said you killed them all of them!” “You believed me?” “I do now!” While battling the Deviant, it’s called Kro everywhere besides the movie, Ikaris returns and hits it with his laser eyes. Kro retreats, but not before showing off that it is capable of healing itself. The fact that the big Deviant used a power like Ajak, the Eternals elect to check on her in her home in South Dakota. 

 

Sprite and Sir Barely-Appearing-In-This-Film

They arrive and find the place smashed up, and Ajak dead in a field. Sersi mourns at Ajak’s body, and a gold drop leaves her body and bonds with Sersi. This drop connects Sersi to Arishem, their boss. She only has enough time to marvel at Arishem’s scale before being drawn from her trance. For context, Arishem is so colossal that an adult human is basically an Ant in comparison. Knowing that the Deviants will probably start killing again, the trio elect to gather the other six Eternals. They travel to Bollywood and get Kingo first. The finger gunning Eternal is a Bollywood film star, hiss latest project being an adaptation of Ikaris’ story. They tell him of Ajak’s death, and he agrees to put his movie on hold to help them. But he brings his valet Karun Patel with him, the old Indian is in the know about the Eternals and is filming a documentary about them. They take his plane to Australia to check on Gilgamesh and Thena. On the way, Sprite asks the obvious question, how Kingo can be a movie star when he doesn’t age. Kingo explains that he’s “part of a dynasty,” revealing that the story is that his earlier films starred his “Great-Grandfather, Grandfather and Father.” Sprite angrily asks why he ditched her years ago, with Kingo revealing that he just got sick of having to move every five years to keep people from realizing Sprite doesn’t age. They arrive in the Outback, Gilgamesh has been Thena’s caretaker for the last few centuries and has taken up baking. Her Wy’ry has gotten worse since they were also attacked by a Deviant. They have dinner together, Kingo having a funny line about Thor “He used to follow me around all over, but now he won’t take my calls!” but Sersi slips away to examine Thena’s art. The painting is of a planet being destroyed. Having an intuitive thought, Sersi connects to Arishem for answer.  

 

Kingo has style.

Arishem reveals that virtually everything the Eternals know is a lie. The Prime Eternal reveals that his kind need sentient life to flourish as part of their lifecycle. He originally created the Deviants to hunt predators on different worlds to allow intelligent life to flourish. But there was a design flaw in them, which caused the Deviants to become predators in truth. He made the Eternals next at the World Forge. The Eternals are revealed to be highly advanced artificial lifeforms, to correct this imbalance. Why is Arishem so obsessed with seeing species thrive? That’s the real screwed up part. Earth and other world’s Eternals visit have a seed in the planet’s core. The seed grows and develops with the intelligent life on a planet. When a certain quota or benchmark is reached, an Emergence happens, the seed spawning into a full-grown Celestial. The Celestial in Earth is already named, Tiamut the Communicator. After the Emergence, the Eternals will also be gathered, and returned to the World Forge, where their minds will be reset. As it turns out, Mahd Wy’ry is just repressed memories forcing their way up again. While the death is gruesome, the Celestials that are born will go on to use their power to forge more stars. Arishem reveals that without Celestials, star creation will stop, and the universe will grow cold.  So… damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Sersi tells the other’s this information, and they agree to try to delay the Emergence.  

 

The Scale of Arishem is insane.

 They travel to the Amazon jungle where Druig is ruling over a small community. Druig is hesitant to help them but doesn’t kick them out. In the night, a group of Deviants attack. Ikaris and the others kill the lesser ones, Sersi even transmuting one into a tree. Gilgamesh and Thena try to kill Kro, but Thena’s Mahd Wy’ry starts acting up again. Gilgamesh rushes to help her, but Kro attacks him and absorbs his power. This transfusion gives him a more humanoid form and the ability to speak. He swears to kill the Eternals for their crimes against his people and runs off. Thena rushes to the dying Gilgamesh, and he tells her to remember him, which she swears to do. They cremate Gilgamesh and Thena spreads his ashes in a river. Druig agrees to help, but his mind-control isn’t strong enough to affect a Celestial. They think to go to Phastos in Chicago to ask if he can make something to make it possible.  

 

Phastos had been totally MIA since WW2, as he apparently helped develop the atomic bombs. More recently, he’d met Ben Stoss, and they have a son, Jack. He initially refuses to help the others, but Ben convinces him to do everything to give their son a future. They head to Iraq and find their ship, the Domo at an archaeological site. Inside they find Makkari, who has been squatting in there for a while. Using the ships technology, Phastos develops the Uni-Mind, a device that can combine their cosmic power together and boost Druig’s power to affect Tiamut. Not everyone is 100% down with the plan, though, chiefly Ikaris.  

 

Why? … Because he wants to complete his mission. It’s revealed that six days ago, he went to Ajak. His old boss had revealed that the Avengers bringing back half of all life made her further doubt Arishem. It was clear that she’d been having doubts since the ancient past. She wants to get the others and try to figure out how to save Earth. Ikaris takes her to see something in Alaska. He reveals a group of Deviants were trapped in the ice but were thawing out due to global warming. He is dead set on completing their mission and going home. He pushes Ajak into the ravine, where Kro attacks and kills her, and then upgrades his fellow Deviants. He returned her body to her home, but then has a breakdown and heat visions her house.  

 

Love Makkari speed scenes.

Sersi senses Tiamut stirring and Phastos sends Makkari to find the point where Tiamut will break through. She finds it on a volcanic island in the Indian Ocean. Just before she can return, the others realize that Ikaris killed Ajak and he reveals he knew about the Emergence centuries ago, which is why he left Sersi, since he didn’t think that he could lie to her about it. When Makkari comes in, he tries to kill her, but she races away. Ikaris and Sprite leave to protect Tiamut. Kingo doesn’t want to face off against Arishem, but can’t bring himself to fight his friends, so he abstains. He and Karun leave, but not before the old valet thanks the Eternals for everything they have done for Earth. So, it’s Sersi, Phastos, Makkari, Druig and Thena vs. Ikaris and Sprite vs. Kro. It’s a hell of a brawl, go see how it turns out.  

 

Good first, I loved the cast. Gemma Chan is great as Sersi, she’s very empathetic and kind to everyone, has great power but is clearly freaked out by using it. Richard Madden is phenomenal as Ikaris. He’s powerful, aloof, and tormented by the things he feels he must do. He feels like a much more interesting evil Superman story. Don’t show me a Superman corrupted by an evil upbringing, or driven mad by Lois’ death, show me one who must choose between two great evils. Is it more ethical to kill billions so trillions might live? Or to risk the future to let people just… live. Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo steals every damn scene he is in. He’s funny, charming, but also dealing with the whole abandoning Sprite back in the day. Harish Patel is also great as Karun for comic relief. Lia McHugh is interesting as Sprite. She does a great job at portraying how… disconnected Sprite is from the rest of the world as she’s been trapped as a child for millennia. I can’t think of a worse hell. Brian Tyree Henry is great as Phastos. His bit about trying to push technology faster than humans could really process to be disappointed when no one agreed was funny as hell in the flashbacks. I loved his scenes with his family, and how they convinced him to save creation. I liked Lauren Ridloff as Makkari. Her superspeed was great, I liked that we never got a Quicksilver X-Men slowmo scene, just speed all the time. She’s got an amazing scene in the finale where she uses her overwhelming speed to beat the piss out of Ikaris. The fact that she’s the first deaf MCU character was very interesting. Her having to sign to communicate did add a bit of flair to the character. Barry Keoghan as Druig was… interesting. Obviously, mind controlling a civilization is kind of messed up, but I do understand his frustration with not being able to force humans to just stop hurting each other. He and Makkari have a subtle romance that was cute to see. Kingo “Is this new? Cuz I hate it.” Don Lee was great as Gilgamesh. I liked seeing him as this brawler but also doing his damnedest to look after the ailing Thena. It feels like a pair of aging siblings trying to look after each other, it was sweet. Kit Harington was fun as Dane Whitman. I would say he’s a bit underutilized, but kind of hard to work the Black Knight into the Eternals story more. The post-credits scene seems to suggest that we’ll see him again sooner rather than later. Do I need to say anything about Salma Hayek as Ajak and Angelina Jolie as Thena? They were amazing, duh. I absolutely loved the effects in this, and how each character’s power had a unique visual component to it. And the Scale of Arishem was amazing. Celestials are enormous beings of nearly unfathomable power. They’d be considered a type 4 on the Kardashev Scale, I think. The Kardashev scale is a hypothetical scaling of civilization based on their technological prowess and energy use. A type One civilization can use and store all the available energy of it’ planet. Type Two has total control of its sun and planetary system. Type 3 has control of the energy available in its whole galaxy. Type 4 control the energy of multiple galaxies. For reference, we’re like at .75 on this scale, so the power difference between us and a Celestial is quite literally intergalactic in scale.  

 

The negatives were there but not a big deal for me. They criminally underutilized Deviant Kro portrayed by Bill Skarsgard. He was a sort of McGuffin/Red Herring, and the fact that he’s killed by the end of the film makes me wonder why they even included the absorbing Deviant in the movie. Just throw in a few more Deviants and save the intelligent Deviant for a sequel. And I really wasn’t a fan off Kingo not being in the finale. He just kind bounce and that felt… weird. The film was also a little on the long side. I’m not sure if they could have found anything to trim down to make it work, but I still felt like I had to draw attention to it.  

 

I really enjoyed this movie. I think a B+ is a fair grade for this one. I like speculative fiction and am also a fan of Jack Kirby’s near obsession with showing stories of advanced aliens that are or basically gods. The effects, scale, and twist on Ikaris more than make up for the movie’s length and a few underutilized characters. Despite having ten major characters, I still felt like I got a solid understanding of each of them, and each of their relationships. Cerci loves Ikaris but doesn’t want to get hurt by him again, Ikaris loves her, Kingo respects him, Sprite also loves him but can’t be with him due to the whole looking like a kid thing, that sort of thing. I hope we’ll see more of the Eternals some time soon. Next time, episode 5 of the Wheel of Time.  

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/59355749

Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero