Chloe Zhao
Eternals

In the end, it turned out to be neither an auteur film nor a good popcorn product. It's a double failure for Chloé Zhao, recent award winner with Nomadland and here tasked with revitalizing and rejuvenating the Marvel universe. On one hand, she infuses the film with a politically correct and fashionable inclusivity that can only comfort the so-called enlightened souls, those who think that putting a gay kiss in a film that talks about anything else is a result of civilization (nothing against it, to be clear), those who get offended if there aren’t enough people of color, Asians, women, and disabled people among the protagonists.

If we look elsewhere for the film's auteur credentials, we are equally disappointed. The supposed complexity of the characters is all apparent because merely adding a bit of complexity does not make them deep. They are two-dimensional cutouts not even supported by charismatic actors. Worse, they are faded copies of other more convincing heroes circulating here and there. I think of The Patriot from The Boys, just to name one. Here we have many faces, much variety, but very little charisma (the lead actors do not warm hearts, they are mono-expressive) and, above all, characters that work very little because they are fundamentally lacking in their goals and the existential motivations that drive them.

The flaw lies in their being divine, or thereabouts. They're essentially boring because the mistakes they make are always secondary to the mission: even heroes, especially heroes, need that dose of selfishness that makes us feel close to them. Everyone needs a story, traumas, original wounds. Instead, here we are faced with ten beautiful perfect statuettes that barely find something to occupy themselves with during these seven thousand years spent hunting the beasts that infest the planet, the Deviants.

Now let's talk about the film's more canonically flawed aspects. The slow pace, the digressions of dubious effectiveness (the meta-narrative play of the takes, like a kind of reality inside the events, might at most elicit a smile; the love story is pale, to be kind; Thena's tantrums are merely tickling), the flashbacks (numerous and stretched beyond necessity), and the "call to arms" path of the heroes imply a basic narrative mechanics that seems decidedly unbalanced.

The half-hours pass, and it seems decidedly strange that the enemies of these Eternals are such obtuse and bestial monsters. There's a scent of plot twist, and it duly arrives, but in fact, it's a twist that renders all previous parts superfluous and I would say stupid. I avoid plot spoiling, but out of two and a half hours of film, using at least half of it to explore and embellish lateral issues on a millennia-old clash that then reveals itself to be only a cover or worse, a deceit... well, it's not great. Or rather, it could even be if the deceit were sensational and astonishing, instead here it reveals itself as a cover that holds up poorly (and it's no coincidence that in the first part, one wonders: but what's the point of all this?). Moreover, the explanations given later do not fully convince, they sound a bit forced and unnatural. In short, the ambitions of depth and authorship stumble over a classic screenplay that leaks everywhere.

There remains the dichotomy between freedom and orthodoxy according to the impositions of a god. And it's not clear if that god is malevolent because, after all, he remains a creator of worlds who in turn suspends judgment regarding the rebellion of his champions. There's certainly a more intelligent vein compared to the pure clash between good and evil, but then one could have thought of trimming so many useless digressions to focus on the moral dilemma, instead, the script wanders widely on what later reveals itself to be flawed and illusory. This is because the purely auteur pacing had to compromise with the mere entertainment setup of the parent company.

Thus, what would like to be traits of originality and freshness, like the absence of a true enemy and the unpredictability of the factions in play, function more as brakes to the normal unfolding of genre dynamics than as truly effective and significant innovations. Because this remains a genre film, and if you take away its strengths from the established pattern, you risk weakening it without gaining benefits elsewhere. I honestly do not feel enriched by Zhao's thematic ideas, it's nothing new that someone wants to save humanity from the destructive aims of an insensitive god; these remain themes for children or just a little more. I appreciated the part where it explains why these Eternals do not protect humanity, except from the Deviants, but ultimately we return to the cartoon morality: "There's good in human beings, they deserve to be saved."

In the general downsizing that this type of cinema deserves, I would choose any day a romp with the Guardians of the Galaxy, a dive off skyscrapers with Spiderman, or a real problematization of the heroes, as in The Boys. Here there's a lack of courage to change truly, resulting in displeasing everyone.