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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.
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.