Wednesday
May262021
Yes No Maybe So: "The Eternals"
Wednesday, May 26, 2021 at 12:20PM by Nathaniel R
Gemma Chan gets top billing (!!!) in "The Eternals"We had a full year off of the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to COVID-19. But they're about to kick off their next long run towards, presumably, another epic decade-in-the-making event like "Avengers: Endgame". We don't yet know which narratives will be instrumental in that build-up but we do know that the MCU is taking a turn towards the magical, the mutant, and the outerspace, with a lot of sorcerers and aliens and outer space adventures upcoming. The Eternals aren't exactly aliens, but close enough, as they are otherworldly in their powers and temperament and have been living undetected amongst humans for centuries.
Let's Yes No and Maybe So ™ the new trailer after the jump...
YES
- "The End of the World" song to open and close the trailer it nicely moody and unexpected... like more vintage / contemplative than we'd usually see in a superhero movie.
- Love Gemma Chan (so great on Humans and so gorg in Crazy Rich Asians) and her romantic pairing here with Richard Madden is just beauty x beauty. Yum. It's fun that she's top billed too (it's not in alphabetical order) indicating that she's actually the focal point.
- Angelina Jolie, who has rarely seemed entirely human but always oversized like a cartoon (mostly in a very good way), feels like ideal casting for a genetically experimented upon immortal human-like entity. Since she's not first billed (as per usual) she's last with the honorable "and Angelina Jolie"
- The visual fx work looks pleasingly subtle
- The cast diversity in nationality and race is a great look (though they don't have much diversity in terms of superpowers so this isn't The Avengers. In the comics most have them have energy powers, super strength, can fly and teleport, and are immortal hence the name.)
If you aren't familiar with The Eternals (and who is really without research since they aren't "A" list characters) they go like so with a few of them flipped from male-to-female for better gender parity...
from left to right:
- "Kingo" (Oscar & Emmy nominee Kumail Nanjiani) This character gives Marvel their first opportunity to have a big musical number. Will they take it? Or is what you see in the trailer the only peek at that we'll get (In the comics this character was a Japanese film star and he's adjusted here to be a Bollywood film star)
- "Makkari" (Tony nominee Lauren Ridloff) - Marvel's first deaf superhero. The character was originally male and in a relationship with Sersi
- "Gilgamesh" (Korean movie star Ma Dong-Seok... who is apparently going to credited as "Don Lee" as he moves into English language pictures) - One of South Korea's best character actors. If you haven't seen him in The Gangster The Cop The Devil or Train to Busan you must!
- "Thena" (Oscar winner/superstar Angelina Jolie)
- "Ikaris" (Richard Madden)
- "Ajak" (Oscar nominee Salma Hayek)
- "Sersi" (Gemma Chan)
- "Sprite" (Lia McHugh)
- "Phastos" (Tony & Emmy nominee Brian Tyree Henry) Marvel's first gay hero. His boyfriend will be played by out gay actor Haaz Sleiman (of Nurse Jackie and The Visitor fame) but more on this in the "maybe so" column.
- "Druig" (BAFTA nominee Barry Keoghan)
NO
- That last stinger when they laugh about the notion of Ikaris (Richard Madden) leading the Avengers in Steve Rogers absence is a cringey tonal shift... like it's grafted on per corporated mandate. This makes us worry about what we've always worried about with this movie. How do you make a giant corporate superhero franchise with a brilliant but intimate auteur, who seems like the last person (at least up until know) who'd want to be making big budget sequels all the time.
- True story: we're not big Superman fans and so we weren't that excited about bringing Captain Marvel into the MCU because the more powerful superheroes get the harder it is to build tension around whether or not they can 'beat the bad guy'. This is even a next step up from Captain Marvel's insane "i can blow up an entire space armada without any effort whatsoever just by flying around" power by having a whole team of godlike aliens. What's more even when they die they're simply reborn. How do you build stakes around that? Zzzz
MAYBE SO
- Even if it's a creative failure it'll be interesting to see what Zhao can do with it.
- How far will Marvel really take their new diversity initiative? Supposedly we have our first onscreen gay superhero with Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) but we've all seen over and over again what that means for giant corporations: lip service at best and usually in a way that's utterly inconsequential and blink-and-youll-miss-it with a minor character so that the "offending" scene can be edited out for homophobic countries.
- There are a lot of characters in this film. In addition to the 10 Eternals that we see in the lineup... we also get fine actors like Haaz Sleiman, Kit Harrington, Gil Birmingham and even little Zain Al Rafeea who was so smashing leading the Oscar nominated Capernaum a couple of years ago. That's a lot of people to juggle in one film.
- We'll have to see these visuals in context but even though the internet is raving and it does look like a Zhao picture --or an imitation of one if you're feeling ungenerous -- it also looks curiously flat and even less rich in color than, like, The Rider or Nomadland, which is a pity given that it's a superhero film. Diluted color needs to end as a way to denote seriousness. It's dull! A lot of technicolor films had plenty on their minds.
- We dont get any plot in this trailer so we don't know what this is about but like any group The Eternals have some internal conflicts and also, like any super group, they have evil counterparts, The Deviants. It's possible that Barry Keoghan's character is one of the villains since The Eternals given the trailer's narration beat when he has a closeup. They have a genetic predisposition to go insane at some point. (no really)
- If we don't get a full Bollywood musical number courtesy of Kingo/Nanjiani, we're going to be pissed.
So where are you on this one? High on seeing what Chloe Zhao can do in this most-mainstream-of-mainstream environments or depressed that this is what it's come to or somewhere inbetween?
Reader Comments (36)
I am a maybe so. Like you, I think there are a lot of characters to juggle, which will make it almost impossible to fully develop any of them.
I'm a Yes, although the last time I enjoyed Angelina Jolie in an action movie was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
NO. Big yawn. The movies seem to be about violence, mainly; one superhero beating another or some bad guy. Each time they make a movie, I wait to see which previously esteemed movie actor sells out. She may have already, but I think for The Eternals it's Salma Hayek.
I absolutely can't stand this shit.
Is it weird to be distracted by the fact that Skeeter Davis' "The End of the World" was also prominent in "Girl, Interrupted"? They're building on the Jolie Cinematic Universe.
Love that is in black and white.
Just Eternals. The "the" has been canceled (thank God).
@ J
I very much enjoyed her in Wanted and Salt tbh.
Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek and Angelina Jolie? It's the perfect cast to make every woman feel insecure about her looks.
This trailer was uninteresting. I feel this might be the first Marvel film since 2010 that'll have mediocre to bad reviews.
I wish the slow, agonizing death of all stupid superhero movies.
But until audiences stop going to them, we’re stuck with them. *sigh*
Never been a MCU fan - so this movie has no appeal whatsoever to me -
but I'm sure lots of other fans will eat this up with a spoon.
No. Why hire Chloe Zhao if you're going to force her to work with Marvel's in-house cinematographer instead of Joshua James Richards?
It depresses me that Zhao and Fennell are both doing superhero films.
YES, YES, YES.
On the "no"...
Stakes? Eternals maybe powerful but they're facing the Celestials, if I am correct, which are extremely more powerful, each one of them, than all Eternals combined. We're talking beings that Thanos (without the Gauntlet) or Captain Marvel or Scarlet Witch can't be compared with any other comparison than ants and humans in terms of size and power (Celestials were having "cameos" in Guardians of the Galaxy)
I'm a yes, but I agree with everything that was said in the article. It looks more like a Chloe Zhao film than I expected, which is weirdly both good and bad.
We'll see.
Better Chloe take the money and run.
I’m always here for Gemma Chan, so yes!
OH HELL YEAH!!!!! And for all of you jabronies that don't like it. Go watch your stupid Oscar-bait bullshit movies with the rest of the morons.
I’m a yes. I was a huge fan of the avengers comics in the 90s, especially Sersi & the Black Knight romance & Gatherers storyline. I even used to fan cast the story with friends for fun. I think the cast is great - Looking forward to Gemma, Angelina & Salma particularly. With this &
House of Gucci (& the ugh but probably popular Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) could this be the year of Salma?
I feel like this is going to be one of those 2021 noble failures, "SO NOBLE THAT HOW DARE YOU CALL IT A FAILURE," a la Captain Marvel. A million thinkpieces, but will the movie be any good? Zzz...
I trust Chloé Zhao, so so far it’s a YES
Yes!
The only other Marvel thing that can actually intrigue me other than this is Wandavision.
Gemma getting top billing, Game of Thrones reunion between Kit and Richard, Don Lee being my sexy daddy!!!
Wait a minute! This opens in November and they're already torturing us?
I'm a YES WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL NOVEMBER.
Zhao *pitched* herself to Marvel for this, didn't she? I can't wait to see what she brings.
a lot of actors i like in a movie i'll never see
and the two withs on the poster is annoying the hell out of me
It really saddens me that now that it's trendy to be a female director, the way the industry rewards them is this. Not getting to pitch their own ideas, but superhero franchises.
Fennell and Zhao's talents will probably go to waste with their picture deals but I at least hope they have fun making them, cash big checks and get free from their contracts soon so they can go back to sharing their vision with us.
With the recent "Poder Prieto" as trend I hope most projects with multirracial casts includes dark skin color actors to play the "latin person" instead of choose just one of the few latinamerican actors that Hollywood knows.
I could imagine the goddess Maya Zapata in a superhero movie or Stephanie Sigman among many, many others.
Generic.
funniest part of all that sneer at this film because it is MCU will continue if the film earns over 90% at RT and over 80 at MC and the same people will divide between the "oh, I am suddenly curious" and the "probably they paid the critics". And if it goes to be a Best Picture nominee, things are going to be stupidly ridiculous...
honestly the closest that MCU has delivered to an actual bad film, were the mediocres "Age of Utron" and "The Incredibe Hulk" (both ended with the collaboration of their directors with Marvel, just saying). So far, Marvel has a poker of almost masterpieces of blockbuster cinema with Winter Soldier, Ranarok, Infinity War and Endgame.
Infinity War has one of the very best endings in film history... in case you didn't notice.
"No. Why hire Chloe Zhao if you're going to force her to work with Marvel's in-house cinematographer instead of Joshua James Richards?"
Actually, based on reports, it was Joshua James Richards' choice not to DP "Eternals" because he felt he wasn't yet ready for it. He's still working on it as a camera operator.
I'm in the cautiously Yes column. I do enjoy the MCU and I love Chloe Zhao's work.
Maybe so. I'm intrigued to see what Zhao did with it but this is Marvel so how much of her is there really.
YES: I’m always ready for a new Angelina movie. This one seems to have a great cast, great director, and looks like fun.
MAYBE: It reminds me of “The Old Guard” with Charlize Theron, which I liked. One of the things I liked about that film was its’ small cast, so I can understand the hesitancy of wrangling a large cast with perhaps diminished character depth.
NO: It’s still going to be months before my second vaccine, so I can’t get too excited about things I’m not going to get to see.
Am I tired of superhero movies?
Yes, a certain kind of them. Big casts of men and endless set pieces of things being blown up and destroyed. And the fate of the universe....omg. And smarmy male leads like Guardians of the Galaxy, never going to watch another one of those.
No: Still interested in smaller casts with lead women. I loved “Captain Marvel” and saw it in the theatre 3 times. Good times....
funniest part of all that sneer at this film because it is MCU will continue if the film earns over 90% at RT and over 80 at MC and the same people will divide between the "oh, I am suddenly curious" and the "probably they paid the critics".
Nope, still won't care. We're all aware by now that critics grade these movies on a curve.
I'm with V. I'm curious to see what Chloé Zhao brings to Marvel, but also concerned her very unique voice will get stifled by the Marvel machine.
I get people's frustrations with auteurs doing superhero movies, but in the end, it's a high paying job and one that might give them enough clout in the industry to pursue other, more personal projects. If this project goes well and with an Oscar on her shelf, maybe Zhao can do her own Tree of Life (it's apparent Malick is a big influence on her work).
Looks bad.
No