Eternals review – everlasting comic-book mediocrity

Anyone who hoped that recruiting Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) to the Marvel stable might herald a radical change of direction is likely to be disappointed by Eternals. At its most effective, Zhao’s film-making is delicate and intimate, capturing fragile human connections with warmth and naturalism. Exactly the kind of thing that gets crushed to oblivion by the steamroller action onslaught of a comic-book movie. Certainly in terms of the look of the film, aside from a few wistful magic-hour shots, there’s little to indicate that Zhao’s guiding vision was able to swim against the tide of prevailing genre conventions.

But elsewhere, there are hints of Zhao’s sensibility, not least in the diversity in the writing and casting of the Eternals: a group of immortal humanoids billeted on Earth and tasked with protecting humanity from the destructive appetites of the Deviants (depicted in the film as part lizard, part rage, part high-tensile cable). Leader of the Eternals is Salma Hayek as Ajak; the most powerful is Ikaris (Richard Madden); the most accomplished warrior is Thena (Angelina Jolie), but it’s the empathetic Sersi (Gemma Chan) who is central to the story. Kumail Nanjiani is hammy fun as Kingo, who has hidden out on Earth as a multi-generational Bollywood acting dynasty and insists on saving the planet with his valet in tow. The cast also includes deaf actor Lauren Ridloff as Makkari, and has Brian Tyree Henry playing Marvel’s first openly gay superhero. But for all the effort that has gone into ensuring representation in the casting, the storytelling, with its forced flashbacks and synthetic sentiment, lets the whole thing down.