Marvel's ETERNALS Movie Review *Spoiler Free*

 ETERNALS

Director:  Chloé Zhao
Studio:  Marvel Studios
Release Date: November 5, 2021
Rating:  PG-13: fantasy violence and action, some language and brief sexuality.

Official Website: https://www.marvel.com/movies/eternals

Following the events of AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019), an unexpected tragedy forces the Eternals, ancient aliens who have been living on Earth in secret for thousands of years, out of the shadows to reunite against mankind's most ancient enemy, the Deviants.

Review: "Based on the Marvel Comics by Jack Kirby"

It's been a long time coming to get that singular attribution on an MCU film! That gave me the feels when the credits rolled.

As the first 45 minutes of exposition and wooden acting plodded along, I thought the critics might be right in their negative reviews.  But then....our first scene in the modern day with Kumail Nanjiani as Kingo happens.  And from here on out, the film picks up speed and moves forward.  It felt almost like that's where the movie itself actually starts and the first 45 minutes was just prologue or something.  Which maybe explains the 2 hours and 37 minute runtime.

One of the first things people mentioned coming out of the previews was that ETERNALS is unlike any other MCU movie and the marketing has claimed ETERNALS changes the MCU forever.
Both are correct.

In fact, it not only doesn't feel like any Marvel movie so far, it actually feels very much like Marvel Studios doing their own version of DC's Justice League.  For those who've complained about Henry Cavill's dour version of Superman, Richard Madden as Ikaris (the Superman analogue here) makes Cavill's Superman seem downright cheery and bubbly.  Angelina Jolie as Thena (the Wonder Woman analogue) is an extremely necessary jolt of star power that helps balance the others who don't quite have her level of screen charisma. 

The actual comics history and purpose of The Eternals is substantively changed to fit within the MCU paramaters and for the most part, I think it works quite well.  In the end, not only does The Eternals add to the history of Earth in the MCU, it makes a dramatic change to the landscape that is about on par with the "blip" and Loki's introduction of timeline variations and multiversal implications.  I'm sure these will be plot points referenced in other films and shows going forward.  Not the least of which is the future of Dane Whitman and his family's legacy.

On the cosmic level of the MCU, The Eternals has reset the power structure on the space/time chess board and I'm intrigued by the vast possibilities of where this story can go in the future.  
The mid-credits sequence is the most "Marvel" moment of the entire film, and it will also elicit fanboy squeals of delight by old school Marvel kids from the 70s and 80s who are now grumpy too-old-for-comics fans. 😃  The after-credits sequence is an excellent and intriguing after dinner dessert tease.

I enjoyed it immensely.  For a longtime Kirby Eternals fan, I was suprised by so many thematic and conceptual elements that were retained but also suprised by the new ideas and expansions logically brought into the mix.  A few head-scratchers in terms of wondering why some particular choices were made (such as no Zuras at all and Ikaris's hair color change) but taken as a whole, it all pretty much worked for me.

NO FANTASTIC FOUR IN MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE.....OR MAYBE THERE IS?

In an alternate reality somewhere in the vast multiverse, Friday, June 9, 2017 saw 20th Century Fox (Fox) releasing FANTASTIC FOUR 2, their announced sequel to Josh Trank's interminably awful 2015 disaster on digital celluloid FANTASTIC FOUR.   Thankfully, for our reality, Fox's plans for a sequel have not only not materialized, by all accounts, they have not even been discussed much if at all.   But back in 2015, Fox sure did have some plans and they made sure we all knew about it!

That 2-year silence has led some comics fans, myself included (I even facetiously proposed a #OcuppyFF movement), wonder aloud whether Marvel Studios might be negotiating behind-the-scenes some sort of shared ownership of the FANTASTIC FOUR (FF) film license that would allow the FF characters to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

Perhaps it was some sort of karmic harmonic confluence of some kind, but on the heels of this historic date passing us by like a failed prophesy date-setting for the Apocalypse, I noticed an influx of several clickbait-ey type posts online making the social media rounds declaring that MCU head, Kevin Feige, has made it explicitly clear that the FANTASTIC FOUR are not headed to the MCU from Fox—along the lines of a deal similar to that made with Sony that allowed SPIDER-MAN to have his "Homecoming" as a full-fledged member of the MCU after repeated film missteps in the Sonyverse.

Newsarama, a website devoted to comics industry news and commentary, posted the following report on June 13, 2017 with the bold headline "No FANTASTIC FOUR In MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, Says KEVIN FEIGE"—

 According to Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, not only does Marvel have no plans to incorporate the Fantstic Four into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the conversation isn't even on the table.

"[We have] no plans with the Fantastic Four right now," Feige told AlloCiné in a Facebook video. "No discussions about it."

Feige's comments come after a fan-submmited question echoed persistent rumors that the FF could appear in the MCU in a deal similar to the one Marvel struck with Sony to allow Spider-Man: Homecoming to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. . .

And so, the string of shares and comments on social media of comic book fans both cheering and lamenting began.  Either cheering because they hate the Fantastic Four characters or lamenting because their last, best hopes held out that "Phase 4" of the MCU might include the first family of the Marvel Universe finally "done right" on film seem utterly dashed by Feige's statement.

However, might I suggest that this is following a very familiar politician-like pattern as what went down when Marvel was quietly negotiating with Sony to get them to allow Spider-Man to appear in the MCU.  Fifteen months before it became "official" that Spider-Man was jumping from the Sonyverse to the MCU, Feige was dismissing the very idea, but as we all know, a multi-million (billion?) dollar negotiation like requires months, if not years, of lawyer haggling to get both sides to sign off. Note the similarity in Feige's words in this report from October 2013 when asked about the idea of Spider-Man joining the MCU:

Over at the French website Reviewer.fr, a new interview with Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige has gone live. Appreciating that Feige is on the publicity rounds at the moment, and that interviews with him aren't in short supply, this nonetheless had one or two interesting bits in it that are worth pulling out.

Firstly, for instance, Feige confirms that there was a conversation about inserting Oscorp Tower into Joss Whedon's The Avengers film, which would have crossed the Spider-Man cinematic world (which is owned by Sony) with what Marvel is up to. Feige said in the end though that "the deal was never close to happening".

He also confirmed that there are no plans to bring Spider-Man into a future Marvel film. "They have movies they want to make, we have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Thor stories, and Cap stories, and Avengers stories", adding that "it would be cool to happen sometime. But I don't know when that would be"

The bottom line is just to say that when Feige says that there are "no plans with the Fantastic Four right now", that is the same turn of phrase as FBI Director Comey saying there are "currently no open investigations into the president."  "[N]o plans . . . right now" does not at all mean "no plans . . . ever."

So, until Fox craps out another FF movie to preserve their license, there's always hope that the next "Homecoming" will be Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben—THE FANTASTIC FOUR!

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER Film Review

 

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Somebody just turned the volume up to 11.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (CA: TWS) just grabbed THE AVENGERS and leapfrogged right past them to catapult himself right to the top of the super-hero movie pyramid. This is a fully realized synthesis of everything that has come before in the Marvel Comics Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe perfectly distilled into a taut action epic that never once loses sight of the character or... the world he exists in.
The tagline that has been tossed around with this movie is a classic comics tag: “Everything changes,” only this time it is true.

The first Cap film, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER served as both an origin story for Cap but also a prologue for THE AVENGERS film. CA: TWS explores Cap’s loss of innocence in a world where the villains are not so easy to identify as it was when they wore swastikas on their sleeves. Where IRON MAN 3 served as an epilogue to THE AVENGERS, it falls to a Captain America film to be the prologue once again for an AVENGERS film (the currently filming AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON). However, CA: TWS is also a true sequel picking up on story threads from the first Cap film.

This film is securely Cap’s film, but it strongly builds up his supporting cast without ever feeling like it takes away from Cap’s story. This is an ensemble film that revolves around Steve Rogers, man out of time and the world’s greatest soldier. In the first film, set mostly in the middle of World War 2, we saw Steve, an intrinsically good man, given the strength and power to accomplish great things and not become corrupted. A natural leader, he demonstrated that rare quality of charismatic and confident command with an intuitive sense of when “just following orders” was not a proper option. As a result, he earned the trust of everyone he came into contact with. His arch nemesis, The Red Skull, functioned as the contrasting distorted mirror version of Captain America demonstrating how the same power could absolutely corrupt someone who is already bad.

 

There were other character stories in the first film including Red Skull’s top scientist in his Hydra organization, Arnim Zola. You will remember that he was eventually captured by the Americans. Steve’s best friend from childhood, Bucky Barnes, was the only soldier in Cap’s “Howling Commandos” team to lose his life in the war when he fell to his death off a speeding train in the mountains. Steve’s guilt and pain was magnified as he was there with Bucky and was unable to save him when he fell. And then there’s “Agent Peggy Carter” who was/is Steve’s first and only love but his duties in the war kept preventing them from pursuing anything more than the purest of platonic love.

 

Without spoiling the movie, let me just say that CA: TWS follows through directly on those characters and their current impact on Steve and his personal journey. It also delivers incredibly effective and important journeys for Col. Nick Fury and Natasha Romanoff (The Black Widow). Somehow, the writers and directors of this film also found time to introduce 2 major characters into the mix, Sam Wilson (The Falcon) and the mysterious assassin, The Winter Soldier. By doing this they combined two different eras of the Captain America comic books, the 1970s and the 2000s, into something new and original that knocked my socks off.

As a child, my introduction to the character of Captain America was during the phase in which the title of the book was actually “Captain America and The Falcon.” So I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the character of Sam Wilson. I was both excited to learn they were introducing him into the film but I was also slightly hesitant because I was afraid his character would bear little resemblance to the character as I remembered him. I should not have worried. The casting of the roundly likeable and earnestly charismatic Anthony Mackie is what sells it. They changed up a little bit of Sam’s personal background, but for the most part, this is the guy I already knew. It was like my first experience watching Chris Evans as Cap. I felt that I already knew him. It wasn’t someone performing, this was actually the Captain America I “knew” from my childhood. Sam is also a good man. He and Steve bond instantly with mutual respect and it completely makes sense that they are drawn together through the events of the film brought about by the appearance of The Winter Soldier in an incredible action sequence in Washington D.C.

 

Actually there are a couple of incredible car-based action sequences that are in and of themselves worth the price of admission. The action in this movie is ramped up, violent, and impressive. It weaves in and out of mass destruction-type action and personal combat expertly – very “BOURNE-like” in that way.

 

Part of why it is fitting to include The Falcon in this story is that the ‘70s era of Captain America comics, following the Watergate controversy and the fall of President Nixon, dealt with a loss of innocence in Steve as he had to face the inroads of corrupt government. This film deals solidly with issues of over-reaching government and the politics of the day – especially how far should the people allow their governments to go under the guise of “protecting” them? The film also solidly addresses the importance of the free flow of information. The themes explored in CA: TWS are strongly relevant and I believe that it will only increase in relevance as time passes.

 

Oh yeah, I almost forgot something. For the hardcore Cap fans who maybe thought there was no way to ever incorporate “Batroc ze Leaper” (a mostly absurd French stereotype villain whose super-power is super-jumping) into the more grounded Cinematic Universe, well… worry no more.

 Bottom line is….GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

★★★★★ out of ★★★★★

#captainamericathewintersoldier #wintersoldier #captainamerica