(This article is absolutely spoiler free!)
A disclaimer before we dive in: I am not a Marvel fan and I’m not up in arms about it either. I’ve found it difficult to get into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) craze despite most of my friends being ardent fans. The predominant presence of the white, male saviour or superhero was iffy from the very start and I’d already distanced myself from it before the Captain Marvels and Black Widows rolled in.
However, an Asian female director, and as Oscar-winning one at that, coupled with Angelina Jolie, and a healthy dash of diversity in Eternals was enough to drag me back to theatres after Black Panther.
I sat through the entire film, nay, clung to my seat hooting with the crowd feeling like an imposter among the fans, only to remember that the film is being touted as the ‘Worst MCU film ever’ with a really low Rotten Tomatoes score (at least for Marvel) of 46%. I simply disagree, on several counts.
On The Take by Variety, the hosts seemed to come upon the conclusion, “Anytime a woman takes on the action genre, which has been made typically for men to helm people come down harder on that filmmaker.”
Maybe that’s true. There’s no way to prove it but Birds of Prey directed by Cathy Yan saw some enraged because of its inclusion of a female audience. Captain Marvel, MCU’s first female-led superhero film, faced a targeted campaign to tank the reviews, especially because of a misogynist one-sided feud with Brie Larson.
But something about Eternals is slightly different. The audience seemed to love the film more than the critics did and that might be because of extremes. The Marvel loyalists might argue that the film didn’t have the essence of an MCU film while Zhao enthusiasts might have felt like the successful director might have put herself in a box with the film.
The simple argument here is that sometimes a film is made to fill theatres with an audience. Eternals is still arguably very much a Chloe Zhao film with a humanity reflective of Nomadland and Songs My Brother Taught Me. The humanity is evident in the raw sentimentality in the film and the diversity that is so excellently blended into the plot that it doesn’t seem tokenistic. The film is not without its flaws—some scenes seem to go on for a while—but that isn’t enough to write off Eternals.
Is it an MCU film? Gathering from the ones I’ve watched, the light-hearted jokes were familiar. The high scale action sequences? All Marvel. Maybe this middle ground is strange for some, especially for those who went into the film looking for either Marvel or Zhao but were met with a honest mix of both.
The film explored a queer relationship with sensitivity that is all Zhao and the inclusion of a deaf superhero and continued the conversation around mental illness. Arguably, introducing and fleshing out 10 new superheroes would be a daunting task for anybody but since Zhao brings her touch to the film, it makes the flow palatable.
An ensemble cast with stalwarts like Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, and others also poses a danger—who shines the most? That was left entirely up to them, since the plot gives each of them a fighting shot to be the best (my bias for Angelina Jolie as Thena set aside).
Add to that the fact that even if you can’t start rooting for 10 new superheroes, you can at least root for the familiar faces.
With my indifference to Marvel, I’ve dozed off to many a Marvel film. It just wasn’t for me. But Eternals got me invested in a Universe I barely cared about. The elaborate, and frankly mesmerizing sets, credit to Marvel’s scope and Zhao’s vision, were some of the best I’ve seen.
The characters of Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) are so awe-inspiring that you leave your inhibitions about a superhero film handling a deaf or gay character in the backseat.
Was it the best Marvel film? I’d have to watch each one to know, but is it the worst? Not even close.
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