BEFORE: OK, one 12-hour shift at the Tribeca Film Festival down, several more to go. But only one more before we drive to Atlantic City for a couple of days, starting Sunday. Very excited because we haven't been there in nearly THREE years, and who knows, the place may have changed a bit since we were last there. Anyway, if I can get through tomorrow and find time to pack, I can relax for a bit, have a little more time to watch some streaming shows after playing the slots and hitting the buffets.
But it's tough when I get off of a 12-hour shift and look forward to getting home to watch a movie, only to find that movie is OVER two and a half hours long. Any movie that long needs to be about World War II or the Titanic sinking - if not, then it probably needs more editing. Am I right?
Salma Hayek carries over from "The Hummingbird Project". And this is CATCHING UP WITH MARVEL MOVIES, Part 2.
THE PLOT: The saga of the Eternals, a race of immortal beings who lived on Earth and shaped its history and civilizations.
AFTER: OK, there's a big problem with The Eternals as a movie. Actually, a few big problems, and the first is that I don't read this particular Marvel comic book, never have. I've picked up some info about their characters when they've guested in my regular books, but for the most part, I'm not familiar, and I've never been invested in their particular story arc. Jack Kirby created these characters a LONG time ago, and he basically ripped off the pantheon of Greek Gods, like Ikaris is based on Apollo and Thena was based on Athena, Phastos on Hephaestus, and so on. Makkari sounds a bit like Mercury, and I know it's not a solid one-for-one, like not every Eternal has a Greek counterpart or vice versa, but the connection is obviously THERE. Sersi is perhaps based on the witch Circe, a minor Greek myth character who was a sorceress in "The Odyssey", Ikaris's name may come from Icarus, the human who flew too close to the sun, and so on.
I'm not sure why Jack Kirby didn't just write about Zeus, Apollo, Hermes/Mercury, Poseidon, Hades and such, those characters are non-copyrightable, so they pop up now in "Percy Jackson" books and other adaptations, they're FREE and just sitting there, so why not? The problem with Marvel Comics, though, is that some other writers DID use the Greek Gods, especially in the stories featuring Hercules, who spent time on the Avengers. So then in the Marvel Universe there was a bunch of Greek Gods sitting in the sky, or Mount Olympus or whatever, and also a bunch of copycat Eternals, many of whom were based on those Greek Gods, there was a fair amount of overlap. Then on top of THAT there were the Asgardian Gods, because Thor needed a back story, so that means Odin, Loki, Freya, Balder and such get thrown into the mix, but just how many Gods ARE there in that universe? Polytheism refers to the worship of many gods, but what's the word for many SETS of Gods? Polypantheonism? And then all of these Gods claimed to have created the universe, right? They can't ALL be telling the truth - so most likely NONE of them are being completely honest, and maybe the Marvel Universe began like the real one, probably without God's help. Sorry.
Also, I can't be a practicing agnostic in my real life while reading comics about Asgardian gods and Greek Gods and also Eternals, can I? That kind of makes me a hypocrite where God is concerned. So yeah, I have to call B.S. on all of it, and there's a lot of it going around, that's for sure. For the record, it seems all Gods are welcome in the comic-book universe, because there are also the Hindu Gods, the Native American Gods, the Egyptian Gods, probably the Celtic and Mesopotamian ones as well, and then you've got the Celestials, the Elders of the Universe, the cosmic entities (like order & chaos), and then all the powerful beings from other dimensions that Dr. Strange fights, some of them might be deities as well. Where the hell does this end, and why aren't the Christian groups losing their shit over all of this?
The MCU movies seem to have adopted the tactic, perhaps across the board, that none of these gods are really Gods, with a capital G, they're all most likely space aliens who just have different powers. So the Eternals are just that, long-lived space aliens, who have functioned kind of like the monolith from "2001", they're here to make sure that humans advance as a species and get inspired to create technology to improve society. Yeah, I'm getting less interested by the minute, here. OK, so they protect humans from "Deviants", what are those? Just nasty looking fibrous beings, really, more aliens only they're not as nice. Big whoop.
Plus, it's this whole big multi-culti thing that is SO blatant, SO transparent in the attempt to represent as many races, colors and sexual orientations that I want to support this, but then I just feel they've gone too far. Know what I mean? There was a situation on "Survivor" this season, which as a show has bent over backwards to get more representation of People of Color, but then to the extent where I wonder if that's even fair now. In one tribal council the POC's had something of a revelation, that their votes should take the years of racism into account, to the point where they couldn't POSSIBLY see themselves casting a vote to kick another person of color out of the tribe. Well, then by default they were essentially saying "I'm going to vote out the white people," and then they're doing the exact same form of discrimination that they're trying to combat, just in reverse. I don't know what the answer is to solving systemic racism, but I'm pretty sure it's not "Let's vote out the white people."
Does it even make SENSE here for the Eternals to, collectively, look like all the races of the world? Remember, they're not even humans, they just happen to look like humans, and ones that are Asian, Arabic, black, Latino, and those races didn't even EXIST when they were born, or created, or whatever. So, like, WTF? It's like those holiday for department stores at Christmas time that have to feature a multi-racial and/or gay couple somewhere in every ad, you can just imagine a diversity officer in some advertising agency just ticking off the boxes, because they believe that will financially benefit them somehow in the long run. This is pandering of the highest order, as if the more races get featured in this superhero group, the more asses - and diverse asses at that - will end up in theater seats. Sure, make one deaf, and make one look like a trans person, or someone of indeterminate gender, that can only open up new audiences for the Marvel brand, that's the engine that's running storytelling these days, apparently. And now I'm probably the "bad guy" for pointing this out.
And I stand by my assertion that this did NOT need to be over two and a half hours long, this could easily have been 90 minutes or less - just cut out a few of the arguments the Eternals had over the best way to proceed, and that would have been a solid start towards cutting it down. What even HAPPENS in this movie, besides fighting a few Deviants? I'm not even sure. Who's the villain? They kind of fell into the same trap as the first "Suicide Squad" movie, that's all I'll say about it - but without a clear villain, then the whole conflict thing is extremely muddled, to say the least. What's the goal, what's the point, the object of the quest? Unclear.
The Eternals find out that their Celestial commander/deity, Arishem, sent seeds into planets all over the galaxy, and the Earth is really some kind of egg for hatching a giant celestial being, which feeds off the energy of intelligence life on the surface of the planet, so the Eternals needed to protect humanity while the Celestial fetus was developing inside the Earth egg, and keep humanity safe and smart so that the Celestial could feed. What a crock, plus, good luck falling asleep tonight, kids, knowing that one day soon, the Earth is going to crack open like an egg, and we're all going to die!
NITPICK POINT: Sersi mentions that she and Ikarus were in a relationship together for 5,000 years, but then when we start seeing flashbacks of the Eternals living in various civilizations throughout the course of human history, they seem to get together as a couple in the year 575 B.C., which was not 5,000 years ago, plus in modern times they'd been separated for five centuries, so they were apparently together for 2,000 years, not 5,000 - they can't even keep their own back stories straight!
I'm glad to see the characters introduced in the closing scenes and mid-credits scenes, they're all welcome additions to the MCU, unlike the Eternals. For me, of course, maybe there are fans out there of the Eternals, but I'm just not one of them, I wish Marvel could make five more "Guardians of the Galaxy" films before a sequel to "Eternals". Black Knight is a great addition to the mix, and so is the unseen "mystery" character - I guess Marvel won't stop making movies until every single character gets either a film or a Disney Plus series.
Also starring Gemma Chan (last seen in "Mary Queen of Scots"), Richard Madden (last seen in "The Take"), Angelina Jolie (last heard in "The One and Only Ivan"), Kit Harington (last seen in "Seventh Son"), Kumail Nanjiani (last heard in "Dolittle"), Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry (last heard in "Vivo"), Lauren Ridloff (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Barry Keoghan (last heard in "The Batman"), Ma Dong-Seok/Don Lee, Harish Patel. (last seen in "Run Fatboy Run"), Haaz Sleiman (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Esai Daniel Cross, Harry Styles (last seen in "Dunkirk"), Alan Scott, Hannah Dodd, Adria Escudero, Sebastian Capitan Viveros (last seen in "Spider-Man: Far From Home"), Nikkita Chadha, Zain Al Rafeea, with the voices of Bill Skarsgard (last seen in "The Devil All the Time"), David Kaye, Patton Oswalt (last seen in "Please Stand By"), Mahershala Ali (last seen in "Green Book").
RATING: 4 out of 10 Bollywood dancers
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