🕷️ Crawler Inspector

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Raw Queries and Responses

1. Shard Calculation

Query:

Response:

Calculated Shard: 97 (from laksa191)

2. Crawled Status Check

Query:

curl -X POST \
  'http://laksa097.int.ahrefs:8124/' \
  -H 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  -H 'X-ClickHouse-Database: crawler3' \
  -H 'Authorization: Basic YXBpOg==' \
  -d 'SELECT getAhrefsURLFromUnparsed(src_unparsed) AS found_url, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(download_stamp), 0) AS crawl_time, ifNull(toUnixTimestamp(props_url_first_seen), 0) AS first_indexed_time, download_http_code AS http_code, src_unparsed AS src_unparsed, src_root_hash AS src_root_hash, history_drop_reason AS history_drop_reason, meta_title AS meta_title, meta_descriptions AS meta_descriptions, attrs_boilerpipe_text AS attrs_boilerpipe_text, attrs_markdown AS attrs_markdown, attrs_readable_markdown AS attrs_readable_markdown, meta_canonical AS meta_canonical FROM crawler3.page_info_local FINAL PREWHERE (src_root_hash, src_unparsed) IN ((getAhrefsRootHashFromUnparsed(getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eternals-movie-review-2021\')), getAhrefsUnparsedNoserviceFromURL(\'https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eternals-movie-review-2021\'))) FORMAT JSONEachRow'

Response:

{"found_url":"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/eternals-movie-review-2021","crawl_time":1776222989,"first_indexed_time":1635860263,"http_code":200,"src_unparsed":"com,rogerebert!www,\/reviews\/eternals-movie-review-2021 s443","src_root_hash":"7554834309041482497","history_drop_reason":null,"meta_title":"Eternals movie review & film summary","meta_descriptions":["A blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle."],"attrs_boilerpipe_text":"Director\nChloé Zhao\napplies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle.\nIt is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care.\nZhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “\nNomadland\n,” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer\nBen Davis\n, who also shot “\nGuardians of the Galaxy\n,” “\nDoctor Strange\n,” and “\nCaptain Marvel\n,” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning.\nUnfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed.\nZhao and her fellow screenwriters\nPatrick Burleigh\nand\nRyan Firpo\n&\nKaz Firpo\nlurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of\nSalma Hayek\n’s Ajak and\nGemma Chan\n’s Sersi to\nBrian Tyree Henry\nand\nHaaz Sleiman\nas a gay couple with a young son to\nLauren Ridloff\n’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless.\nAngelina Jolie\n’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely,\nLia McHugh\nlivens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite.\nPerhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.”  \nThere is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or\nJack Kirby\n’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “\nAvengers: Infinity War\n,” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too.\nChan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and\nRichard Madden\n’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with\nKit Harington\nas her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way.\nA newly buff\nKumail Nanjiani\noffers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star,\nDon Lee\nprovides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and\nBarry Keoghan\nmerely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs.\nOnly in theaters on November 5th.","attrs_markdown":"[![Roger Ebert Logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/roger-ebert-logo.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/)   [![Search Icon](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/search-thin.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/search)   [Signup](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/prime)\n\n- [Movie Reviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews)\n- [Great Movies](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/great-movies)\n- [TV\/Streaming](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/streaming)\n- [Interviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/interviews)\n- [Collections](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/collections)\n- [Festivals & Awards](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/festivals-and-awards)\n- [Contributors](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors)\n\n[Reviews](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews)\n\n# Eternals\n![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)\n\n[Action](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/genre\/action)\n\n157 minutes  ‧ PG-13  ‧ 2021\n\n[Christy Lemire](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors\/christy-lemire)\n\nNovember 5, 2021\n\n5 min read\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Eternals.jpg)\n\nDirector [Chloé Zhao](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/chlo%C3%A9-zhao) applies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle.\n\nIt is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care.\n\nZhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “[Nomadland](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/nomadland-movie-review-2020),” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer [Ben Davis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ben-davis), who also shot “[Guardians of the Galaxy](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014),” “[Doctor Strange](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/doctor-strange-2016),” and “[Captain Marvel](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/captain-marvel-2019),” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning.\n\nUnfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed.\n\nZhao and her fellow screenwriters [Patrick Burleigh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/patrick-burleigh) and [Ryan Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-firpo) & [Kaz Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kaz-firpo) lurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of [Salma Hayek](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/salma-hayek)’s Ajak and [Gemma Chan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/gemma-chan)’s Sersi to [Brian Tyree Henry](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brian-tyree-henry) and [Haaz Sleiman](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/haaz-sleiman) as a gay couple with a young son to [Lauren Ridloff](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lauren-ridloff)’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless. [Angelina Jolie](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/angelina-jolie)’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely, [Lia McHugh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lia-mchugh) livens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite.\n\nPerhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.”\n\nThere is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or [Jack Kirby](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/jack-kirby)’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “[Avengers: Infinity War](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/avengers-infinity-war-2018),” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too.\n\nChan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and [Richard Madden](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/richard-madden)’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with [Kit Harington](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kit-harington) as her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way.\n\nA newly buff [Kumail Nanjiani](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kumail-nanjiani) offers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star, [Don Lee](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/don-lee) provides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and [Barry Keoghan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/barry-keoghan) merely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs.\n\n*Only in theaters on November 5th.*\n\nNow streaming on:\n\n[Powered by ![JustWatch](https:\/\/widget.justwatch.com\/assets\/JW_logo_black_10px.svg)](https:\/\/www.justwatch.com\/)\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Christy-Lemire.jpg)\n\n##### [Christy Lemire](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors\/christy-lemire)\nChristy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire [here](http:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/balder-and-dash\/meet-the-writers-christy-lemire).\n\n#### Eternals\n[Action](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/genre\/action)\n\n![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/stars.svg)\n\n157 minutes  ‧ PG-13  ‧ 2021\n\n![](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Eternals-jpeg.webp)\n\n#### Cast\n- [Gemma Chan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/gemma-chan) as Sersi\n- [Richard Madden](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/richard-madden) as Ikaris\n- [Angelina Jolie](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/angelina-jolie) as Thena\n- [Kumail Nanjiani](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kumail-nanjiani) as Kingo\n- [Lia McHugh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lia-mchugh) as Sprite\n- [Brian Tyree Henry](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brian-tyree-henry) as Phastos\n- [Lauren Ridloff](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lauren-ridloff) as Makkari\n- [Barry Keoghan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/barry-keoghan) as Druig\n- [Ma Dong-Seok](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ma-dong-seok) as Gilgamesh\n- [Salma Hayek](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/salma-hayek) as Ajak\n- [Kit Harington](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kit-harington) as Dane Whitman\n- [Bill Skarsgård](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/bill-skarsgard-2) as Kro (voice)\n- [Harish Patel](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/harish-patel) as Karun\n\n- #### Cinematographer\n  - [Ben Davis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ben-davis)\n- #### Director\n  - [Chloé Zhao](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/chloe-zhao)\n- #### Writer\n  - [Chloé Zhao](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/chloe-zhao)\n- #### Editor\n  - [Craig Wood](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/craig-wood)\n  - [Dylan Tichenor](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/dylan-tichenor)\n- #### Writer (based on the Marvel comics by)\n  - [Jack Kirby](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/jack-kirby)\n- #### Writer (story by)\n  - [Kaz Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kaz-firpo)\n  - [Ryan Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-firpo)\n- #### Writer\n  - [Kaz Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kaz-firpo)\n  - [Patrick Burleigh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/patrick-burleigh)\n  - [Ryan Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-firpo)\n- #### Composer\n  - [Rawin Djawadi](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/rawin-djawadi)\n\n#### Leave a comment\nPlease enable JavaScript to view the  [comments powered by 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[Features](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/category\/features)\n- [TV\/Streaming](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/category\/streaming)\n- [Roger Ebert](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/category\/roger-ebert)\n- [Festivals & Awards](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/category\/festivals)\n\nEbert Co.\n\n- [About the site](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/about)\n- [Contact us](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contact-us)\n- [Advertise with us](mailto:advertising@ebertdigital.com)\n- [Contributors](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/contributors)\n\n[![Facebook logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/facebook.svg)](https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RogerEbert)   [![YouTube logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/youtube.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/eternals-movie-review-2021)   [![Twitter (X) logo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/x-icon.svg)](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/eternals-movie-review-2021)\n\n“Roger Ebert Loved Movies” [In Memoriam 1942 - 2013](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/memoriam)\n\n![Photo of Roger Ebert In Memoriam](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/wp-content\/themes\/roger-ebert\/source\/images\/roger-pic.png)\n\nEbert Digital LLC © Copyright 2026\n\n- [Terms of use](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/terms-of-use)\n- [Privacy Policy](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/privacy-policy)","attrs_readable_markdown":"Director [Chloé Zhao](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/chlo%C3%A9-zhao) applies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle.\n\nIt is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care.\n\nZhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “[Nomadland](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/nomadland-movie-review-2020),” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer [Ben Davis](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ben-davis), who also shot “[Guardians of the Galaxy](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014),” “[Doctor Strange](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/doctor-strange-2016),” and “[Captain Marvel](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/captain-marvel-2019),” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning.\n\nUnfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed.\n\nZhao and her fellow screenwriters [Patrick Burleigh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/patrick-burleigh) and [Ryan Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/ryan-firpo) & [Kaz Firpo](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kaz-firpo) lurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of [Salma Hayek](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/salma-hayek)’s Ajak and [Gemma Chan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/gemma-chan)’s Sersi to [Brian Tyree Henry](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/brian-tyree-henry) and [Haaz Sleiman](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/haaz-sleiman) as a gay couple with a young son to [Lauren Ridloff](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lauren-ridloff)’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless. [Angelina Jolie](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/angelina-jolie)’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely, [Lia McHugh](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/lia-mchugh) livens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite.\n\nPerhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.”\n\nThere is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or [Jack Kirby](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/jack-kirby)’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “[Avengers: Infinity War](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/avengers-infinity-war-2018),” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too.\n\nChan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and [Richard Madden](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/richard-madden)’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with [Kit Harington](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kit-harington) as her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way.\n\nA newly buff [Kumail Nanjiani](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/kumail-nanjiani) offers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star, [Don Lee](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/don-lee) provides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and [Barry Keoghan](https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/cast-and-crew\/barry-keoghan) merely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs.\n\n*Only in theaters on November 5th.*","meta_canonical":null}

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Boilerpipe Text	Director Chloé Zhao applies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle. It is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care. Zhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “ Nomadland ,” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer Ben Davis , who also shot “ Guardians of the Galaxy ,” “ Doctor Strange ,” and “ Captain Marvel ,” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning. Unfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed. Zhao and her fellow screenwriters Patrick Burleigh and Ryan Firpo & Kaz Firpo lurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of Salma Hayek ’s Ajak and Gemma Chan ’s Sersi to Brian Tyree Henry and Haaz Sleiman as a gay couple with a young son to Lauren Ridloff ’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless. Angelina Jolie ’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely, Lia McHugh livens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite. Perhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.” There is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or Jack Kirby ’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “ Avengers: Infinity War ,” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too. Chan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and Richard Madden ’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with Kit Harington as her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way. A newly buff Kumail Nanjiani offers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star, Don Lee provides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and Barry Keoghan merely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs. Only in theaters on November 5th.
Markdown	[![Roger Ebert Logo](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/roger-ebert-logo.svg)](https://www.rogerebert.com/) [![Search Icon](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/search-thin.svg)](https://www.rogerebert.com/search) [Signup](https://www.rogerebert.com/prime) - [Movie Reviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews) - [Great Movies](https://www.rogerebert.com/great-movies) - [TV/Streaming](https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming) - [Interviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews) - [Collections](https://www.rogerebert.com/collections) - [Festivals & Awards](https://www.rogerebert.com/festivals-and-awards) - [Contributors](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors) [Reviews](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews) # Eternals ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars.svg) [Action](https://www.rogerebert.com/genre/action) 157 minutes ‧ PG-13 ‧ 2021 [Christy Lemire](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors/christy-lemire) November 5, 2021 5 min read ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Eternals.jpg) Director [Chloé Zhao](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/chlo%C3%A9-zhao) applies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle. It is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care. Zhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “[Nomadland](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nomadland-movie-review-2020),” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer [Ben Davis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ben-davis), who also shot “[Guardians of the Galaxy](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014),” “[Doctor Strange](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/doctor-strange-2016),” and “[Captain Marvel](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/captain-marvel-2019),” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning. Unfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed. Zhao and her fellow screenwriters [Patrick Burleigh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/patrick-burleigh) and [Ryan Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-firpo) & [Kaz Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kaz-firpo) lurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of [Salma Hayek](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/salma-hayek)’s Ajak and [Gemma Chan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/gemma-chan)’s Sersi to [Brian Tyree Henry](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brian-tyree-henry) and [Haaz Sleiman](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/haaz-sleiman) as a gay couple with a young son to [Lauren Ridloff](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lauren-ridloff)’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless. [Angelina Jolie](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/angelina-jolie)’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely, [Lia McHugh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lia-mchugh) livens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite. Perhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.” There is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or [Jack Kirby](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/jack-kirby)’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “[Avengers: Infinity War](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/avengers-infinity-war-2018),” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too. Chan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and [Richard Madden](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/richard-madden)’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with [Kit Harington](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kit-harington) as her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way. A newly buff [Kumail Nanjiani](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kumail-nanjiani) offers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star, [Don Lee](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/don-lee) provides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and [Barry Keoghan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/barry-keoghan) merely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs. Only in theaters on November 5th. Now streaming on: [Powered by ![JustWatch](https://widget.justwatch.com/assets/JW_logo_black_10px.svg)](https://www.justwatch.com/) ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Christy-Lemire.jpg) ##### [Christy Lemire](https://www.rogerebert.com/contributors/christy-lemire) Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series “Ebert Presents At the Movies” opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire [here](http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/meet-the-writers-christy-lemire). #### Eternals [Action](https://www.rogerebert.com/genre/action) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars-fill.svg) ![star rating](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/themes/roger-ebert/source/images/stars.svg) 157 minutes ‧ PG-13 ‧ 2021 ![](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Eternals-jpeg.webp) #### Cast - [Gemma Chan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/gemma-chan) as Sersi - [Richard Madden](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/richard-madden) as Ikaris - [Angelina Jolie](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/angelina-jolie) as Thena - [Kumail Nanjiani](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kumail-nanjiani) as Kingo - [Lia McHugh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lia-mchugh) as Sprite - [Brian Tyree Henry](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brian-tyree-henry) as Phastos - [Lauren Ridloff](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lauren-ridloff) as Makkari - [Barry Keoghan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/barry-keoghan) as Druig - [Ma Dong-Seok](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ma-dong-seok) as Gilgamesh - [Salma Hayek](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/salma-hayek) as Ajak - [Kit Harington](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kit-harington) as Dane Whitman - [Bill Skarsgård](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/bill-skarsgard-2) as Kro (voice) - [Harish Patel](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/harish-patel) as Karun - #### Cinematographer - [Ben Davis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ben-davis) - #### Director - [Chloé Zhao](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/chloe-zhao) - #### Writer - [Chloé Zhao](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/chloe-zhao) - #### Editor - [Craig Wood](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/craig-wood) - [Dylan Tichenor](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/dylan-tichenor) - #### Writer (based on the Marvel comics by) - [Jack Kirby](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/jack-kirby) - #### Writer (story by) - [Kaz Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kaz-firpo) - [Ryan Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-firpo) - #### Writer - [Kaz Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kaz-firpo) - [Patrick Burleigh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/patrick-burleigh) - [Ryan Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-firpo) - #### Composer - [Rawin Djawadi](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/rawin-djawadi) #### Leave a comment Please enable JavaScript to view the [comments powered by Disqus.](https://disqus.com/?ref_noscript) * #### Now playing [![Mother Mary](https://www.rogerebert.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Teaser-Poster-256x380.jpg) Mother Mary Brian Tallerico ![star 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Readable Markdown	Director [Chloé Zhao](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/chlo%C3%A9-zhao) applies her distinctive aesthetic imprint to “Eternals,” but she can only do so much to bend the Marvel Cinematic Universe to her will. The result is a blockbuster of unusual gentle beauty that also strains to fulfill the gargantuan requirements of a massive action spectacle. It is, in short, a bit of a mess. It is also—and I cannot stress this enough—2 hours and 37 minutes long. And yet because the talented, eclectic cast is so enormous and so much world-building must occur, “Eternals” ultimately feels rushed and unsatisfying. The mythology here is both dense and frequently silly, with the movie grinding to a halt around the one-hour mark for an extensive information dump. By the end, you may still be unclear as to what’s going on, but you also may not care. Zhao, the newly minted Academy Award winner for Best Picture and Director for the spare and intimate “[Nomadland](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/nomadland-movie-review-2020),” does offer a great deal of her signature style, though. For those of you who found the choice of Zhao a fascinating one and wondered what her version of the MCU might look like, you’ll be happy to learn she manages to find magic hour wherever she goes, from a breezy sunset on the shores of ancient Babylon to ominous storm clouds gathering on the plains of present-day South Dakota. Working with cinematographer [Ben Davis](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ben-davis), who also shot “[Guardians of the Galaxy](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/guardians-of-the-galaxy-2014),” “[Doctor Strange](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/doctor-strange-2016),” and “[Captain Marvel](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/captain-marvel-2019),” she consistently provides opportunities to let us slow down, take a breath, and enjoy a moment of naturalism and stillness. You can feel the sunbaked heat of the windy Australian outback. An action scene set in a torch-lit forest at night is especially stunning. Unfortunately, they don’t last long. Because there is a big, noisy comic book beast to feed. Zhao and her fellow screenwriters [Patrick Burleigh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/patrick-burleigh) and [Ryan Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/ryan-firpo) & [Kaz Firpo](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kaz-firpo) lurch around in time in an ungainly fashion to tell the story of a group of immortal beings living secretly on Earth. Each has his or her own specific abilities but, collectively, they share the quippy humor that’s become so typical in Marvel movies. The casting and characteristics on display here are revolutionary and, at first, cause for inspiration that we might be in for something totally different. There’s a natural diversity at work in ways we haven’t seen from the Avengers, for example. From the leadership of [Salma Hayek](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/salma-hayek)’s Ajak and [Gemma Chan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/gemma-chan)’s Sersi to [Brian Tyree Henry](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/brian-tyree-henry) and [Haaz Sleiman](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/haaz-sleiman) as a gay couple with a young son to [Lauren Ridloff](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lauren-ridloff)’s Makkari, whose hearing impairment is her superpower—the inclusive nature of “Eternals” feels both exciting and effortless. [Angelina Jolie](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/angelina-jolie)’s Thena is a ferocious warrior who also suffers from mental illness, which the film handles sensitively. Conversely, [Lia McHugh](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/lia-mchugh) livens things up as the androgynous, forever-young Sprite. Perhaps most striking of all, two characters have actual sex, which is unprecedented and long overdue in a cinematic world where everyone is super-hot and muscular and dressed in form-fitting costumes. The scene is brief, but it accomplishes so much to indicate a deeper and more vulnerable sense of humanity in these comic book figures. Tony Stark and Pepper Potts probably did it. Clint Barton definitely did because he had kids. But most other romantic relationships have featured benign flirting at most, so to see these characters behaving like grown people in this manner is yet another example of the potential lurking within “Eternals.” There is also a plot, however, which will escape your mind as quickly as it entered. Briefly, the Eternals have scattered across the globe in the centuries since they arrived on Earth in a spaceship that resembles a behemoth, black marble Dorito. All along, they’ve been stealthily guiding humanity and fighting ravenous, sinewy monsters known as Deviants. But a potentially cataclysmic event forces them to leave the comfortable lives they’ve forged for themselves, reassemble (if you’ll forgive the word choice) and use their combined superpowers to stop what is essentially the apocalypse. Again! You don’t need to be deeply steeped in Marvel lore in general or [Jack Kirby](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/jack-kirby)’s trippy comic series specifically to follow “Eternals”; aside from a brief reference to Thanos, and why these heroes didn’t step in to stop the events of “[Avengers: Infinity War](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/avengers-infinity-war-2018),” this feels more like a standalone film than most in the MCU. Having said that, of course you’ll get more out of the movie if you’re a fan, and the obligatory end-credit sequences will mean more to you, too. Chan’s Sersi, with her transmutational abilities, and [Richard Madden](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/richard-madden)’s Ikaris, a versatile, Superman-type figure prominently as centuries-old, on-and-off-again lovers. Charismatic as Madden is, though, Chan enjoys greater sparks with [Kit Harington](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kit-harington) as her mortal, London-based boyfriend, Dane Whitman, who shares Sersi’s interest in archaeology. Whatever emotional stakes may exist between any of these characters eventually take a back seat to flying around and zapping monsters with eye lasers. You can feel the struggle in trying to juggle it all. And the climactic action extravaganza is so glossy and cacophonous, it could have been plucked out of any number of soulless, sci-fi spectacles over the past decade, smothering all the smaller charms we’d enjoyed along the way. A newly buff [Kumail Nanjiani](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/kumail-nanjiani) offers some laughs as a pompous Bollywood star, [Don Lee](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/don-lee) provides a kind presence despite his hulking power, and [Barry Keoghan](https://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/barry-keoghan) merely has to show up to make us feel his unnerving vibe. All of these actors prove they’re up for the challenge of trying to establish complicated characters within the frenzy of the MCU machinery. Frustratingly, they—and Zhao—can only serve as cogs. Only in theaters on November 5th.
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