Eternals does not stick the landing.

Marvel’s newest entry in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe adds to the lore of the universe with a story that follows a group of aliens throughout Earth’s history up to the present day MCU, and introduces the audience to many cosmic elements. The Eternals were beings sent to earth by a species of cosmic entities known as Celestials in order to protect it from creatures known as Deviants.      

Directed by Chloe Zhao, this movie certainly has an impressive visual scale and style that shows off the vibrant and varying colors of the Earth and its many cultures, and shows off the size and scope of cosmic entities throughout the movie. After a brief introduction set in the past, the story follows The Eternals living immortal lives among humans in the present, after they supposedly had defeated the last Deviant and are awaiting orders from their commanding Celestial, Arishem (David Kaye).      

Sersi (Gemma Chan) has been living as a professor, teaching at a museum in London with her human boyfriend Dane Whitman (Kit Harington). After reuniting with her fellow Eternal Sprite (Lia McHugh), they are attacked by a new and more powerful Deviant than the ones they supposedly defeated in the past. The trio is saved by Ikaris (Richard Madden), the most powerful Eternal who informs them of a threat that will take all of them to stop. Now on a quest to reunite their family in preparation for the coming conflict, they travel the globe to see what each of them is up to in the present day, all while seeing flashbacks of their presence and actions throughout human history.      

They first search for Ajak (Salma Hayek), a healer and the leader chosen by Arishem for their mission on earth, who is simply living in solitary as a recluse. They then travel to find Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), a strong but goofy being who has become fascinated by the film industry and has been making and starring in Bollywood movies and is now working with his human friend Karun (Harish Patel). Next they travel to Australia to meet Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-Seuk) a strong fighter, and Thena (Angelina Jolie) who was been renowned for her prowess as a warrior throughout history. The two of them have been in isolation after Thena lost control of herself centuries ago, and required monitoring and attention in order to heal to become a little better in the present day.      

After traveling to the Amazon to meet Druig (Barry Keoghan). the most troubling member, who never liked the fact that Arishem ordered them not to interfere with human wars and conflicts, they come up with a plan to stop the threat that requires the talent of their lead scientific mind, Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) who has been living with his new human family as a normal person. Having gathered the most of them together, they travel to Iraq where the spaceship that brought them to Earth on was hidden, and meet the final Eternal Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), a deaf Eternal gifted with incredible speed.      

Despite its large and noteworthy cast, who do have a few great and entertaining performances between them, the Eternals‘ writing left a lot to be desired. Its’ pacing felt awkward at times switching between past and present story events with no fluidity. There is quite a lot of exposition, and it felt like they were trying to hammer in as much lore as they could to help the audience understand who these new characters are, and what their role in the MCU was and is to become going forward. And even with an exposition-filled movie (the second longest MCU film to date), it still felt the need to have a Star Wars-esque title crawl of text providing even more exposition to the audience at the beginning of the movie.      

The movie also handles the villains quite oddly, which resulted in the movie not feeling too sure as to which of its two main plot points was more important. That lead to both falling flat, and an added plot twist did not land well in execution.

Eternals also feels like it actually suffers from the few times it attempts to tie-in with elements from the MCU, with references being made feeling more forced and awkward than other would be independent entries in the MCU such as Marvel’s previous movie, Shang-Chi. Instead of natural-feeling connecting lore, or a minor important reference executed well, Eternals feels like it was truly supposed to be its own unique story, but then they remembered they needed to tie it back in to the larger MCU.      

At the end of the day, Eternals is a film with great direction, a good score, some great fight choreography and visual effects, but that unfortunately is not enough to elevate it out of the hole the plot dug itself into. While some characters are entertaining and there is a semblance of an interesting story of self-discovery, it simply does not execute or deliver its ideas in a comfortable-to-digest manner.

It is potentially quite important for the future of the MCU, especially with its two post credits scenes connecting with previous stories and a new one, but how important all these factors are is up to the future entries in the MCU canon. It is up to the next entry, Spider-Man: No Way Home to put Phase Four back on track.