[review] Eternals: just one more story about how the world was created

When you thought that nothing more can surprise you, you definitely never have been a true fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After finishing with the last part of Avengers and shocking for most of the fans, the death of Tony Stark, it seemed like the end of Marvel was certain as well.

Yet, fall 2021 has come and so with it the new part of Eternals directed by Chloe Zhao, Golden Globes laureate for Nomadland. This time, instead of four great Avengers, we got nine new superheroes at once. Based on comics created by Jack Kirby in 1976, Eternals already became the third (and not last) movie released this year by MCU.

Surprisingly, in the first scene, instead of New York, we are in Mesopotamia and then in Babilonia. Through beautifully and extremely authentically animated cities we watch Eternals come to the Earth 7000 years B.C, as if they were ancient demigods sent to help people in need. In fact, we are not that far from the truth as their names are similar to gods from Greek mythology. There are Phastos, Thena, Eros and Ikaris. Parallel goes even further when we find out that they are the ones who protected people and helped them to evolve through milleniums. They showed them how to build and gave them tools as mythical Prometheus did with fire. Nevertheless, they stay still and not interfere with humanity's great wars. It wouldn’t be that fascinating if it wasn’t thanks to a great and talented cast. We see the return of Lara Croft, yet kind of broken, played by one and only Angelina Jolie, a funny and protective mom played by Salma Hayek or mysterious and probably the most intriguing character - Barry Keoghan.

Apart from the story based on Greek mythology, we could see references to Avengers, Superman and… Game of Thrones. Not waiting too long, in the first scenes we see an amusing encounter between two Stark brothers. Kit Harrington playing professor Dane Whitman and Richard Madden, playing one of the Eternals - Ikaris, meet again in the streets of London looking in the eyes and with slow scenes introducing each other. Later they end up fighting for the heart of a girl called Sersi, whose name is indisputably similar to Cersei - the queen from House of Lannisters. At the same time the girl itself, opposite to Cersei, is presented as the one who always believed and loved in people the most from all the Eternals. Moreover, music for movie was composed by Ramin Djawadi, the same one who made it for Game of Thrones. The format of a joke and parody which was intentionally or not created in the movie made many watchers laugh.

Not only through the power of characters and enormous production, Marvel has shown everyone that they can, but also through modernity, progression and open attitude. This time producers have decided to give (almost) every different kind of superhero so different people can associate themselves and see how beautiful, colorful and at the same time completely the same we are and always have been. So that in the team there is: Latino-Spanish, Indian, Asian, Black, Gay, Teenage and Deaf superhero. It is worth remembering that some coutries rejected playing Eternals in the cinemas because of the one gay kiss scene. Yet, the MCU has decided to not remove it from the movie.

For one more time MCU has proved that they know how to produce superhero movies in a way to not overdo and still have this thing in itself. Perhaps it will be difficult for them to rebuild such an interest in new crew after legendary squad of Avengers but Eternals have potential to do it and surely everyone should watch it, even if you are not big fan of the MCU, you would be able to laugh, relax and maybe sing Watermelon Sugar a little at the end…

Eternals from 5th of November in the cinemas

C.