The Eternals

In the beginning, beings called the Celestials created the stars and life. Then the Deviants came- horrific monsters who fed on intelligent life. To protect their creation, the Celestials created Eternals- immortal beings with special abilities- to fight and destroy the Deviants. Ten Eternals protect Earth, and eradicated the planet's Deviants long ago . . . or so they believed. When an Eternal is attacked by a Deviant, the band re-forms to counter the threat, and will soon face something far greater. Can they possibly prevail?

Widely considered the worst movie in the ever-growing MCU, I was in no hurry to watch it, but finally plowed through it over two nights to fill in the gap (it was the only MCU flick I hadn't seen). While I'm not sure it was the worst MCU film, it is certainly in the bottom tier. It partly suffers from MCU overload- ten more heroes in a world that now encompasses dozens of films and TV shows. And a completely new story, which begs questions like "where were these people during the Infinity War"? (The movie does address that, to be fair.) There are some plot twists, amusing moments, and interesting themes, but ultimately this fell flat for me for the following reasons:

• It's hard to develop ten new characters in one film. They're one team, and designed to be so, but they each have personalities, beliefs, and strengths impossible to sufficiently explore in such a short time. 
• It felt completely disconnected from the MCU. Not inherently bad; it is a new story, after all. But as the MCU grows, it is increasingly difficult to believe that "oh yeah, yet another horrific threat is happening at the same time" as all the other movies and their crises. It's overload.
• There was not a lot of music in this one. Music plays a big role in films, and its absence was felt. 
• Spoilers in this point. One theme did intrigue me, but it wasn't covered sufficiently (or correctly). It has to do with authority (something MCU films have covered in the past, to be sure), and who is in ultimate control about what happens. The general conclusion seems to be that we (the Eternals, in this case) ultimately decide what is good and bad, and can overrule our creator. In the movie, the creator is neither omniscient nor omnipotent nor (from the Eternals' perspective) inherently good, so they plot against him. In a way, it replays the original human sin- wanting to be in God's place- only here, the message seems to be 'this is entirely justified.' It may be, based on the flawed 'god' the movie shows as creator, but it's a short step from that to concluding that we humans are always in the right and our ways are always correct- and God is flawed. It enshrines secular humanism and justifies the way humans have operated since the fall of man. Certainly not the way things should be or what we should be modeling.

I fought falling asleep both nights I watched this. Some of that was due to exhaustion, perhaps, or maybe it is a reflection of how uncompelling the film was. Either way, there are better MCU flicks out there. Some promising elements fell flat, and the MCU is starting to overload me.

Rating: C-