Filmmaker Chloe Zhao made history last April when she became the first woman from a minority background ever to win an Oscar. She earned the honor for directing Nomadland, a drama following a woman who lives in her car and works part-time jobs. It was a well-deserved achievement; I gave the film a glowing review in these pages back in the spring.
What made Nomadland work was its subtlety. A subdued script that featured many real nomads playing fictionalized versions of themselves paired with a cinema verite approach to its cinematography produced a film that introduced you to America’s nomad community without ever beating you over the head with its message.
That’s why it’s such a disappointment to see Zhao throw out her playbook and trade it in for superhero schlock in Eternals, the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe film.
The title refers to a group of 10 superheroes who are Eternals sent to Earth in the year 5000 B.C. by Arishem, a cosmic being, to protect it from Deviants, monstrous predators that would make quick work of humanity without the Eternals’ protection. While the Avengers make no appearances in this film — although, in classic MCU fashion, they are referenced — the 10 Eternals serve as stand-ins. They include Sersi (played by Gemma Chan), who can transmutate matter, and Ajak (Salma Hayek), who can regenerate and heal others.
The film jumps back and forth between the Eternals’ travails through history and present day, where, surprise, they have to avert the end of the world. Much as other MCU films present their characters as having outsize influence on world events, we learn that the Eternals were present at everything from the dawn of early civilization in Babylon to the aftermath of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima. Yet despite watching these characters develop over what’s supposed to be 7,000 years, it feels as if we barely know them when the credits roll. Although the MCU films have never been seen as high art — Martin Scorsese touched off a firestorm by publicly acknowledging what everybody knows — they have on occasion been known to build strong characters to whom audiences can relate.
Part of the appeal of watching 2012’s Avengers for the first time was getting to see superheroes whom we had grown accustomed to through previous Marvel films finally team up. The iconic shot of Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Widow, Captain America, and Hawkeye was an awesome moment for fans of the series because of the emotional payoff.
No such payoff can be found in this film. We see every hero in the first sequence of the film, and things don’t get any less rushed from then on. Despite the film’s 157-minute run time, it feels like we barely scratch the surface of most of the Eternals’ personalities and motivations.
It doesn’t help that the writers of the film seem to fill in the lack of characterization with poorly constructed archetypes. Kingo (played by Kumail Nanjiani), for example, is an Eternal who can shoot cosmic energy from his hands. It’s not clear why Nanjiani had to buff up for the role given that the powers he has in the movie appear to have nothing to do with physical strength.
He’s given little to do during the flashbacks to the past, something the script tries to rectify by making him a gaudy Bollywood star in the present day. Kingo is reintroduced to us as part of a dance sequence he’s filming; his plucky assistant, Karun (Harish Patel) carries around a camcorder everywhere to film a documentary about Kingo’s exploits as an Eternal.
In an interview given before the release of the film, Nanjiani remarked that he wanted to “make a character who’s the exact opposite of the way a lot of American pop culture see people from Pakistan or the Middle East,” noting that they’re often cast as nerds or terrorists. But jumping from one superficial stereotype to another is hardly an improvement.
Leaving aside the fact that Nanjiani is a Pakistani American and Bollywood is located in neither the Middle East or Pakistan, it’s remarkable that the filmmakers didn’t have any better ideas for giving any depth to his character other than making a supernatural being who had been on the planet for thousands of years decide to play up a tacky South Asian stereotype. We know the MCU can create nuanced multicultural plotlines; this year’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings did it wonderfully. This time, they phoned it in.
But the thinly written characters who stand in as our protagonists might as well be Shakespearean creations next to the villains. Without spoiling anything about where the plot of the movie goes, it’s not clear what makes the Deviants attractive foils for the Eternals. Most of them can’t even talk. They’re big lumbering beasts.
Those make for fine villains in, say, Edge of Tomorrow. It was cool watching Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt gun down those kinds of bad guys by the thousands. But they’re an odd match for superheroes whose powers range from optical illusions to laser eyes. It would be like tasking the X-Men to fight the creatures in Starship Troopers. It just isn’t that fun to watch.
That’s the problem with Eternals. If nothing else, the MCU is known to provide entertaining action sequences, witty banter, and memorable characters. Eternals provides none of the above. The action is poorly shot, the dialogue is cringeworthy, and the characters are forgettable.
None of this should be seen as an indictment of Zhao. In her previous films, she was able to cast a spotlight on parts of the country many Americans have never seen, backed by a small fraction of the $200 million Eternals reportedly cost to produce. At 39 years old, she is one of America’s best directors, and she has decades ahead of her to continue to produce some of the best work that has ever hit the silver screen.
But going forward, she should consider refocusing her talents on the down-to-earth subjects and nuanced storytelling that made Nomadland such a moving film to watch.
Zaid Jilani is a freelance journalist.
