First Take: Eternals - are Marvel moving away from ‘fully family-friendly’ movies?

SYNOPSIS: The saga of the Eternals, a race of immortal beings who lived on Earth and shaped its history and civilizations.

The MCU has always had some big hits, a few middle of the ground films, and the occasional dud- and while Phase 4 has got off to a very strong start, this unfortunately feels like Marvel is having a minor identity crisis as we go through the early stages of plotbuilding for the next 23 or so films.

This isn’t a knock on Chloe Zhao, who takes her unique talent for natural cinema and puts her own mark on the Marvel formula; this sadly means that the 2 hour 36 minute runtime is a bit excessive, and it’s obvious where the rewrites were added, as Zhao’s script (crafted along with Patrick Burleigh and the combination of Ryan and Kaz Firpo) showcases a lot of promise in terms of what it tries to do, but ultimately gets bogged down with a lot of unnecessary exposition, and at times, edgier content compared to what we’ve seen in prior Marvel Studios films - this is a 12a for very good reason, so leave the kids at home for this one. It is shot brilliantly by Ben Davis, taking the natural style that Zhao has used on her previous work and applying it to a blockbuster, and as ever Ramin Djwadi provides a decent score, but the starpower is what holds the film together.

With the cast, it is lead admirably by Gemma Chan and Richard Madden, two very likable talents, one of whom is currently running the risk of being typecast- to say more would be a spoiler unfortunately, and supporting them is Kumail Nanjiani, Angelina Jolie, Barry Keoghan, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, along with Kit Harington, Lia McHugh, and one more name who I can only reveal when the film goes on Disney+, but they all obviously had a lot of fun making this film. While it hasn’t been the most strongly regarded MCU film, it’s obvious to see where Phase 4 is heading, and much in the same way the Harry Potter films did with Goblet of Fire onwards, we’re going in a much darker direction for the next era. Whether Spider-Man can cement this new storyline later on in the year though remains to be seen.

THE VERDICT

Eternals is an entertaining MCU film. But it has a bit of an identity crisis at its core, which does impact on the overall quality- sure, the two post-credits scenes have some big ramifications for Phase 4, but it just doesn’t hit the highs other films have reached.

RATING: 3.5/5