(no subject)

[pedanther]

I've been having an irritating evening. In possibly related news, I've now seen Eternals.

It's a very uneven film, and I can see how different people could have quite different opinions of it depending on their priorities. I ended up feeling that my time hadn't been wasted, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's a good movie. There's a lot of infodumping, it was quite a way through the movie before I cared about most of the large cast, and many of the comic relief moments struck me as being awkward and unfunny. I'm also one of the people who liked it most in the parts where it worked as a stand-alone story and disliked nearly every reminder that it's technically part of the MCU; my opinion of it dropped quite a bit during the last few scenes, in which the story comes quite close to achieving a suitable sense of resolution before taking a sudden left turn into the Land of Obligatory Sequel Hooks.

Also, once a certain fact had been revealed, I spent the rest of the movie waiting in vain for somebody to ask what I thought was the obvious follow-up question. The answer would almost certainly have been "No", but I would have felt better if one of the main characters had thought to ask the question.

One character I did warm to immediately was the side character played by Kit Harington, an actor whose work I might have to pay more attention to. He enlivened every scene he was in, and I regretted that he wasn't in it more -- although that may have been his good fortune, since being sidelined for most of the story meant that he wasn't burdened with Grave Importance like the main characters. (I felt the same way about James Purefoy in John Carter, a movie with many of the same strengths and weaknesses as Eternals.) I have mixed feelings about the fact that one of the Obligatory Sequel Hooks appears to be promising a more central role for him in future.

Comments

[igenlode]

I've definitely come across Kit Harington in something... oh, he was in "War Horse", playing opposite the scene-stealing horse puppet ;-)
And playing WW1 again as the love-interest in "Testament of Youth", where I remember arguing about the number of Rs he had in his surname afterwards -- so we did notice him! (An oddly Elizabethan name.)

[thisbluespirit]

One character I did warm to immediately was the side character played by Kit Harington, an actor whose work I might have to pay more attention to.

Having seen him in the Spooks film and GoT, that is quite hard to imagine! But maybe I am unfair, GoT has such an amazing cast around him, and in Spooks, he just, like, ought to be Tom or something, and he's just an unwanted angsty newbie, as useless as all the other angsty newbies!

I hope you feel less irritated now!

[pedanther]

I do, thanks.

In Eternals, he isn't angsty at all -- in fact, that's probably a significant factor in how quickly I warmed to him, that he's one of the few characters who isn't angsty or weighed down by secret sorrows or any of that sort of thing.

[thisbluespirit]

Ah, yes, whereas I am not even certain I have seen him smile properly! (But it was GoT and Spooks, tbf, few people were having fun.)

[leecetheartist]

I really liked Kit Harington's character too. I thought they also missed opportunities with a villain. The connection to the rest of the MCU stuf I kept waving off like an annoying gadfly.

This, along with Legend of Ten Rings I just watched as big fun action movies.