Eternals
Ten Second Review: Not the best addition to the MCU but far from the worst. It’s certainly an intriguing moment for the larger narrative.
There is a question to be asked about what reviews are actually for. As much as this is a review of a film, I feel it is a perfect door to open and discuss reviews, review aggregators and what their actual function is for an audience.
Eternals tells the story of a group of off world beings sent by the Celestials to help, protect and develop mankind. They are not to stop their wars and only ever to nudge technology forward. When they discover something evil is returning, they must reunite and decide together how to face this inevitable challenge…
The review of the film is ultimately what you might expect from a Marvel film; generally good acting with some exceptions, fairly standard writing and well made action scenes. As is increasingly true of the MCU, it is a better film if you have kept up with series, but it is certainly not wholly unenjoyable if you haven’t.
It also gets some added notes from some of its departures from the form. There is a focus on the relationships this team have made outside of the featured characters. Previously we have only really seen this with Antman, Hawkeye and briefly Iron Man. There is often nods to these types of relationships but we get some nice actual representations here.
It was also a very diverse cast. This does not inherently effect the overall resultant movie, but it was nice to have another MCU film not to be helmed by a white guy named Chris. It features the first deaf superhero and while this may not seemingly affect many, I can imagine it having a huge effect on some people. Seeing representation of your own disability, or disability more widely, is likely to help normalise your image of your self and to the world around you. The indirect effects of this are likely something that will take years to fully realise. It also, unlike some recent Disney films (link), features an LGBT character in a clear but also actively positive way. For this alone I was glad to see this film.
It is however these notes to the film that seem to have skewed the film’s ratings somewhat. When something similar happened to Captain Marvel a few years ago it was clear that there was an undercurrent of sexism that had contributed to its poor rating (you’d have to be actively ignoring it not to have seen it online at the time), but it was also categorically flawed as a film. It lacked good storytelling and it really wasn’t that engaging for a few key reasons namely its structure and poor character development. Critics of Eternals can’t really say the same here making this an even more clear example of the same issue. The occasional bad casting and some clunky story beats wouldn’t and haven’t been picked apart so harshly in a variety of other Marvel properties.
What this opens discussion about is what reviews are actually for. Reviews are rarely an arbitrary and unbiased account of the quality of a film. Think for a moment what that would look like. A brutally descriptive plot summary followed by a discussion of the quality of lighting, effects and blocking. I’m exaggerating, but you get how boring and ultimately useless that type of review would be! When a person reviews a film they carry with them their own preferences, references and their own taste in what constitutes a “good” movie. People go to certain reviewers who they “trust” but what this often (not always, but often) amounts to, is that that reviewer agrees with you. Sometimes you read a review before seeing a film and it informs your view. Sometimes you read a review after that reinforces your opinions. This information loop will then inform the next review and so on and so on.
When a film comes out that actively decentralises at least 57% of its reviewers and large portions of its audience from feeling like the main character, some will revolt. If you are used to playing first violin and getting the solo, playing somewhere else in the orchestra is likely to ruffle your feathers. This is not an excuse for this behaviour, nor a justification (I think it represents a disappointing but not surprising reaction to change and progress). What it does highlight is the fragility of any review system. When you hit like or dislike, you are not always commenting on the quality of what you’ve seen, but often just saying whether you liked it and telling other people in the hopes they agree and either do or do not see it accordingly.
In some respects Eternals is just fine, in some respects it’s a well made film, but most importantly, I liked it.
