Better late than never, I suppose…

In case I haven’t shared it before, or if you’re just new to the party, I am a science-fiction movie, comic book geek! I’ve been a fan of both the Marvel and DC comic book universes since I was a child; but I’ve been really hard-core into them since the late 1980s. that is really kind of irrelevant now, because in the last 10 years or so, the Marvel cinematic universe has become very much main stream. It’s nothing to know ask the average Joe on the street Who is Ant Man or Who is Thanos? Because they’ve become a part of our every day conversation in popular culture.

Like so many other people, I am a fan of the marvel cinematic universe, and I always look forward to the theatrical releases of the latest marvel movies. However, with COVID-19 upon us and “the new normal” well into affect, The way we watch movies has changed, albeit temporarily.

For a time, it seemed that streaming movies on the go or from home would eventually surpass the theatrical movie going experience. Now that some of the hysteria regarding COVID-19 has subsided, the film industry is slowly returning to normal with movies making their first released in theaters.

I must admit I wasn’t exactly crazy excited about seeing Eternals. While I knew the gist of their story., they were a group of characters that never really captured or demanded my attention. I think this could be a problem for the MCU going forward.

Disney/Marvel has told so many great stories with their A-List (and B-List) characters that they need to ranch out and try new things with different characters. For that reason, we are starting to get movies about characters like Captain Marvel, Shang Chi and the Eternals. As a lifelong comic book fan, I can tell you that I never imagined I would see two let alone three Ant-man movies ever being made.

But it will be appraised producer Kevin Feige for what he’s doing now with the MCU. He promised us that we would see things we have never seen before in the MCU and he is delivering. He’s stepping outside of the “comfort zone“ of the very predictable, but very successful, marvel movie and gives us something like the eternal‘s.

Without giving away too much of the story, the Eternals are a group of heroes who were sent to earth thousands of years ago in order to defend the earth from the Deviants, A group of monsters whose origins tie into the Eternals themselves. As the story goes, the Eternals have actually been living on earth for the past 7000 years. I have witnessed key points in history.

This, of course, begs the question “where were these guys when Thanos was wiping out half the universe?“ This is addressed very early on in the movie. The Eternals, it turns out are for bidden by their bosses, the celestial‘s, from interfering in human affairs. Their sole purpose on earth is to stop any deviance where when and if they appear.

The movie serves to introduce another, larger aspect of the MCU: the celestial‘s, a group of extraordinarily powerful persons who play a larger role in the overall marvel universe. In fact, the celestials appear in the original “infinity gauntlet“ comic book storyline and fight Thanos there once he assembles the gauntlet.

As a comic book fan boy, I will tell you that the infinity war and endgame could’ve been better served if the celestials had appeared in those movies. However, for the average film goer, both the infinity war and endgame had an awful lot to digest already. and the manner in which the celestial‘s, the eternal‘s, and the deviance are introduced fits nicely into the MCU.

Eternals does a great job of introducing roughly a dozen new characters in a relatively short amount of time. The movie is able to introduce the characters, their dynamic with the Celestials, their conflict with the Deviants all at the same time.

This wasn’t my favorite Marvel movie, but it was far from the worst. In fact, I believe that this movie is more of a “table setter“ than anything else. I think in time, as phase 4 of the MCU continues to unfold, fans will appreciate the Eternals more as a movie.

I would have liked to see more with Kit Harington‘s character, Dane Whitman. In the comics, Whitman eventually becomes the Black knight, an Avengers mainstay for several years. but again, his placement in the movie feels like table setting, for movies down the road. Furthermore, without really knowing the characters, I automatically assumed Angelina Jolie’s Thena would have played a more prominent role; just by virtue of the fact that she’s arguably the biggest name in the cast.

Overall, I enjoyed Eternals . I found it highly entertaining, and worth my time. At the same time, it is not one that I regret having missed in theaters. As a marvel movie fan, I’m sure he won’t want to miss it. Marvel studios has proven over the last decade of that all of the Easter eggs, all of the table setting they do ultimately pays off. Wherever the story goes involving these characters, you will want to say that you were there from the beginning.