'Eternals' SPOILER Review — The Daily Goat

After long wait, Eternals is finally here and while it’s generated a lot of mixed reviews from critics, fans seem to agree that it’s a very nice addition to the MCU. Nothing is ever perfect, and Eternals does have it’s down moments, but all in all I’d say it was a really good film. What I was not expecting was for 2-3 members of the team to die, especially Ikaris as it seemed like as he, “flew too close to the sun.”

Which leads me into my biggest complaint of the film… Ikaris. Richard Madden did a phenomenal job at bringing this broken character to life, don’t get me wrong. Him mirroring the character’s inner demons from the comics was really well done, and his line between hero and villain. Ikaris is a hero in the comics, no question about that. But he has anger management, and always questioned himself, if what he was doing was worth it. So making the character into basically being a villain in the MCU, let alone seemingly killing him off, wasn’t it for me. I did like how he had a change of heart by the end and helped to put the Celestial to sleep. Who knows, maybe he’s still alive, but killing off Marvel’s Superman for good… Would be a huge letdown to me.

The Deviants were just a huge missed opportunity all together. Their ties to Thanos were never mentioned, their leader Kro (voiced by Bill Skarsgård) was barely in the film, Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman was just, there, and the end credits scene for anyone who hasn’t read a comic, was probably pretty confusing. I liked how Sersi told Dane to reconcile with his uncle (one of the Black Knights in the comics whose a villain and a part of the Masters of Evil), but it would’ve been nice to have seen more of him. More teases to his eventual donning of the Black Knight armor and wielding the Ebony Blade more so than an end credits scene. When Sersi, Sprite and Ikaris were leaving to meet up with the other Eternals after around 500 years of being apart, Dane saying something like “I want to fight and help,” would’ve been a nice nod to his eventual rise to superhero stardom.

Other than that, I really enjoyed what Chloé Zhao, Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso and Nate Moore, amongst others, gave us here. It was unlike any Marvel movie before it and was a new, fresh model of what the MCU could be. Largely unknown characters in the comics making their way to the big screen in a movie that is more about character development and character interactions than the usual superhero non-stop action. The cast was phenomenal, and Lia McHugh’s Sprite was one of the stars of the film and a huge surprise to me. Her journey to becoming human after looking like a child for 7,000+ years was done perfectly. I’m not sure if we’ll see her again, but McHugh’s got a bright career as an actress.

Now let’s get to Arishem and the Celestials. I want to make something clear, they’re essentially Gods. They’re the creators of life and the universe itself and have their own dark secrets, as seen with Arishem the Judge for millions of years destroying a planet to birth a new Celestial, and to create more planets in the process. Really makes you wonder if he’s actually all that evil. The setup in the end where he tells Sersi that he’ll judge from her memories if humans are worth it, and this might lead to him to sending Fantastic Four villain Galactus, the consumer of worlds, to earth to well, consume it. Time will tell, but that was a huge scene that will inevitably play-out in the possible sequel.

I’m interested to see where the Celestials go from here, we’ve now seen Ego and Arishem who didn’t turn out to be all that good, but some of the Celestials and Arishem are still around, and at the end of the day… They’re “gods” in a way. The Celestials have ties to the Watchers, who were introduced in What If…? with Uatu the most notable Watcher. In opposition to the Celestials' apparent agenda were the Watchers. Having sworn an oath of non-interference in species younger than themselves, the Watchers found the Celestials' genetic engineering of such species to be the antithesis of what they believed in. Thus, the Watchers and the Celestials were in a non-confrontational conflict for billions of years.

As Watchers do not act, while the Celestials do act, seeing some sort of conflict between the two, maybe when Arishem comes back to earth or possibly sends Galactus to do his dirty work, we’ll see a Watcher or two interfere and warn either the Eternals or some other heroes… Or, everyone for a new Avengers film or just an MCU event in general.

All of the members of the Eternals were really great: Phastos wanting to live a normal life and to protect his family was a nice plot point. Kingo was hilarious and his whole story is just really interesting. Thena and Gilgamesh were the power couple that I was rooting for. GIlgamesh dying at the hands of Kro was something that I was not expecting at all. Druig was one of my favorite characters in the film, and it will be fascinating to see if Marvel Studios intends on making him into a villain at some point, since he’s the Eternals arch enemy in the comics at least.

Makkari I feel like was extremely overhyped. Yes… She’s really fast and is in love with Druig. What else was her role in the film besides barely being in it, and falling under the classic movie trope of “woman whose in love with a broken man and keeps him sane.” Maybe I missed something, but I’m not on that hype train. Last but not least we have Sersi and I was really impressed with Gemma Chan’s work here. She’s a phenomenal actress and her leading a superhero movie intrigued me, and she did a masterful job as becoming the new leader of the Eternals, and I can’t wait to see where her character goes in the future.

The mid-credits scene was a huge one, in it we meet Pip the Troll voiced by Patton Oswalt whose introduces Sersi, Druig, Thena and Makari to Eros, also known as Starfox and the brother of Thanos, played by Harry Styles. He’s a fellow Eternal in a way, I’m not sure how the MCU will handle that especially since Pip says that Eros is the, “heir to the throne of Titan.” Him and Pip are basically Zapp Brannigan and Kif from Futurama. Eros is pretty full of himself, funny, and slightly arrogant, while Pip is an alcoholic Troll whose basically Eros’ sidekick. Seeing them again is something that I truly can’t wait for, and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later!

The post-credits scene was honestly one of my favorite scenes of the whole film. In it we see Dane Whitman in an unknown location, possibly his uncle Nathan Garrett’s castle? Dane is looking really nervous as he’s looking at a sword, which is the Ebony Blade which was forged by Merlin and Sir Percy of the Knight’s of the Roundtable. As he’s about the touch the blade it starts to move and reacts to his fingers as they get closer, but before Dane can touch the blade, an unknown voice says, “are you sure you’re ready for that Mr. Whitman?”

Director Chloé Zhao has since revealed that the voice was none other than Mahershala Ali’s Blade, whose set to star in his own movie in 2023. This arose a lot of questions to me such as, will Blade and Dane Whitman (Black Knight) form a relationship that could possibly lead to a team-up with Moon Knight, Ghost Rider, Werewolf By Night, and maybe Yelene Belova with the Midnight Sons or Hearts of Darkness? I guess time will tell, but it’s nice to see that Blade might mentor Dane into becoming Black Knight and teaching him more about the curse of the Ebony Blade… It absorbs the souls of its victims and adds onto the wielder’s life force, slowly driving them crazy and drunk with power!

You can see Eternals now, only theaters!