Dog’s Movie House: “Eternals” A Well-Acted Marvel Film That Stays Human While Going Cosmic!

“Eternals” takes place mostly in the modern day, but spends a great deal of time in flashbacks over the last 7000 years. The Eternals have been sent to Earth by a cosmic Celestial to help rid the planet of a vicious race of creatures known as Deviants. After centuries of fighting and finally achieving victory, the Eternals go their separate ways and live amongst the people they are charged with protecting. Things are fine until the Deviants return and the Eternals are forced to come together to fight a new and terrifying threat.

That’s all I’m going to tell you about the plot which is admittedly a little (okay, a lot) twistier than that. What you have here is more than your standard hero/villain dynamic and the conflict often resides within the Eternals themselves, a uniquely novel and dramatically satisfying approach to the material. The Eternals are led by Ajax (Salma Hayek) and her right hand man Ikaris (Richard Madden). Ikaris is super strong, can fly and shoots lasers from his eyes. Other members of the team include Thena (Angelina Jolie) a fierce warrior who suffers from a cosmic memory disease, Sersi (Gemma Chan) who can transmute matter and is closer to the human race than any of the others, Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), who traded war for becoming a Bollywood star, Sprite (Lia McHugh), a perpetual adolescent with a penchant for illusion, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) a master of technology, Makkari (Lauren Ridloff) a speedster who just happens to be deaf, Druig (Barry Keoghan) a brooding Eternal with the power to control human minds, and Gilgamesh (Don Lee) a powerhouse who just happens to love to cook and brew homemade beer. Sersi is so close to the humans that she’s dating a professor named Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) who has some secrets of his own. The return of The Deviants heralds a change in what it means to be an Eternal and whether or not humanity has earned the right to exist.

The cast is uniformly excellent with Madden, Chan, Henry, Jolie and especially Nanjiani serving as the standouts. Much has been made of Henry’s Phastos being gay but the Zhao handles his family and his sexuality with such a deft touch that Phastos’ arc seems natural. Jolie’s Theena starts off as an ice princess but Jolie manages to peel back the layers of her character giving a portrait of a woman battling against herself. Madden is terrific as the conflicted Ikaris, a being who has to choose between the mission and his friends, an Chan is wonderful as a woman caught between two worlds. Nanjiani’s Kingo, aside from being a badass, gives “Eternals” most of of the films humor yet he manages to be so much more than comic relief. All of the actors have an easy and believable chemistry that makes the audience feel the weight of their time spent on Earth and the desire to live what they believe constitutes a normal life. As super-powered as these individuals are, the Eternals may be some of the most relatable heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Zhao’s penchant for humanizing her characters serves her well here and the audience will find the time in between the action sequences just as interesting and the special effects and derring-do.

The aforementioned actions setpieces are very well choreographed and the effects are, for the most part, awesome. Jolie and Madden in particular are good at making with the heroic fighting with the Deviants, which for the most part resembled creepy tentacled creatures with lots and lots of teeth. There is one super Deviant called Kro (voice by Pennywise himself, Bill Skarsgard) but he doesn’t make much of an impression, primarily because the story uses the Deviants in an unusual manner. The overall story works quite well, but at the expense of making Kro a memorable villain.

Overall “Eternals” is a refreshing spin on the comic book film that takes the Marvel Cinematic Universe in bold new directions while still adhering to the overall story arc Marvel is known for. Like “Guardians Of The Galaxy” Marvel Studios has taken a somewhat obscure comic property and made them into heroes and, more importantly, people we can root for. 4 1/2 Out Of 5 On Kendog’s Barkometer! So Sayeth The Kendog!

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