Eternals – A Bold New Chapter in the MCU's Cosmic Lore

🌌 Introduction

This review is part of the MCU Watch Order – explore all Marvel movies and shows in timeline order!

After Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel Cinematic Universe needed new directions. Eternals takes that challenge head-on. Directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, this film introduces a brand-new team of immortal beings, rich lore, and celestial mysteries that stretch back thousands of years. It’s not your typical Marvel movie – and that’s exactly the point.

Ad

Eternals (4K Ultra HD) (opens in a new tab)

Marvel's epic cosmic saga in 4K.

---

🧩 Plot Overview

The Eternals are ancient beings sent by the Celestial Arishem to Earth thousands of years ago to protect humanity from monstrous creatures called Deviants. For centuries, they’ve guided civilization without interfering too directly.

When the Deviants re-emerge, the scattered team must reunite to face a new existential threat. But as secrets unravel, they begin to question their purpose, the nature of their creators, and whether humanity is truly worth saving.

It’s a deeply philosophical narrative that challenges the black-and-white morality often found in superhero stories.

---

🌍 Worldbuilding & Lore

Where previous Marvel films hinted at cosmic elements, Eternals dives straight in:

• The Celestials are introduced as godlike creators of life and worlds.
• The concept of Emergence adds new stakes to the universe’s balance.
• The film spans ancient Babylon to present-day London, offering a truly global scope.

Ad

Eternals (Blu-ray) (opens in a new tab)

The ancient heroes unite on Blu-ray.

It’s dense and mythology-heavy, but rewarding for those who appreciate deeper sci-fi storytelling. The visuals – from towering Celestials to natural landscapes – are among the MCU’s most beautiful.

---

🎭 Characters & Cast

The cast is incredibly diverse, both in representation and personality:

• Sersi (Gemma Chan) leads with empathy and curiosity.
• Ikaris (Richard Madden) embodies power, duty, and inner conflict.
• Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) brings levity and pop culture flair.
• Thena (Angelina Jolie) struggles with trauma in a powerful arc.
• Phastos, Makkari, Druig, and others each offer unique perspectives.

Ad

Watch Eternals on Disney+ (opens in a new tab)

Stream the visually stunning adventure on Disney+.

The ensemble nature makes it harder to go deep on every character, but the core emotional beats – particularly around loss, identity, and belief – land effectively.

---

⚔️ Action & Themes

Though less action-heavy than traditional MCU entries, Eternals delivers stylish battles when it counts. Each Eternal has distinct powers, leading to creatively choreographed fights.

But more than punches and powers, the film explores themes of:

• Free will vs. cosmic duty
• Loyalty vs. personal growth
• The weight of immortality

It’s a thoughtful take on heroism – less about saving the day, more about defining what “saving” really means.

---

👨‍👧‍👦 Our Experience & Recommendation

As a Marvel dad, Eternals was a surprising delight. It prompted more conversation than any recent MCU film – about gods, purpose, and sacrifice. While younger kids might find it slow or confusing, teens and adults will appreciate its ambition and heart.

It’s not a crowd-pleasing action fest, but a reflective experience that stays with you.

🎬 The Chloé Zhao Experiment

The single most important thing to understand about Eternals is that Marvel handed the keys to Chloé Zhao, fresh off her Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for Nomadland — a tiny, meditative drama about as far from a superhero blockbuster as cinema gets. The result is the most visually distinctive film in the entire MCU. Zhao shoots on real locations in natural “magic hour” light, favours wide landscapes over green-screen voids, and lets scenes breathe. There’s a tactile, earthbound beauty here you simply don’t find anywhere else in the franchise.

That auteur stamp is genuinely admirable. After a dozen films assembled to a house style, Eternals looks and feels like the work of an actual filmmaker with a point of view — and for that alone it’s worth seeing. It’s also the MCU at its most grown-up: it features the franchise’s first openly gay lead in a loving family, its first deaf hero with sign-language action beats, and frank conversations about faith, free will, and whether creation has the right to destroy what it made.

⚖️ The Honest Take: Ambition Outruns Execution

Now the caveat, because we won’t pretend otherwise: Eternals is the lowest-rated MCU film critically, and the reasons are real. Introducing ten new immortal heroes in a single film is simply too many — several Eternals barely register, and the ensemble never gets the room the cast deserves. The deliberate, contemplative pacing that makes Zhao’s indie work sing can feel ponderous at blockbuster length, and the trademark Marvel humor is mostly absent, which leaves some stretches feeling airless.

So why an 8 from us rather than a middling score? Because we’d rather a film swing big and miss than play it safe and forgettable, and Eternals swings enormous. It asks questions most superhero films won’t — about whether humanity is worth saving, about duty versus conscience — and it looks gorgeous doing it. It’s a noble, fascinating near-miss, and a far more interesting failure than many of the franchise’s competent-but-disposable entries. Go in expecting a slow, mythic meditation rather than a quippy action romp and it rewards you.

🌌 The Lore and Where It Sits

For all its flaws, Eternals did real heavy lifting for the MCU’s cosmic future. It introduces the Celestials as towering, planet-sized gods, the concept of the Emergence, and a scale of cosmic stakes the franchise had only hinted at. The two post-credits scenes are pure setup: Harry Styles arrives as Eros/Starfox (Thanos’s brother), and a disembodied voice — Mahershala Ali’s Blade — teases the supernatural corner of the universe via Kit Harington’s Black Knight.

The honest wrinkle is that the film sits oddly within the wider saga. Years on, its threads remain among the least followed-up in the MCU, leaving Eternals feeling a little orphaned. For a timeline-order watch it’s still worthwhile for the cosmic context, but temper expectations on how much it currently connects to.

🔁 Rewatch Value & Home Viewing

Eternals genuinely improves on a second watch — freed from the pressure of tracking ten new characters at once, you can settle into its rhythm and appreciate the visual craft and the ideas underneath. It’s the rare MCU film that plays better slow and attentive than as background noise, so it rewards a patient evening rather than a casual one.

For the shelf, the 4K Ultra HD release is the standout reason to own it: Zhao’s natural-light photography, the towering Celestials, and the global landscapes are arguably the most beautiful images in the MCU, and HDR does them real justice. It streams on Disney+ too, but few Marvel films benefit more from a reference-grade presentation than this one.

Bottom line: Eternals is the MCU’s most fascinating misfire — a gorgeous, ambitious, grown-up swing that bites off more than any single film could chew, but earns real respect for trying. Too many heroes and too slow a pace keep it from greatness, yet Chloé Zhao’s craft and the sheer scope of its ideas make it stand apart from the franchise’s safer fare. If you go in expecting a contemplative cosmic meditation rather than a quippy romp, there’s a unique, rewarding film here — flaws and all.

Ad

Eternals (4K Ultra HD) (opens in a new tab)

Marvel's epic cosmic saga in 4K.

---

📺 Movie night sorted: thousands of films and shows are streaming on Prime Video — free for 30 days. Worth a look before you buy the disc.

📌 FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Celestials in *Eternals*?

Celestials are ancient cosmic beings who created the Eternals and shape life across the universe. Arishem, the Prime Celestial, sends the Eternals to protect planets as part of a grand design.

Who is the voice in the first post-credit scene?

The voice speaking to Dane Whitman (Kit Harington) is Blade, played by Mahershala Ali. It hints at future supernatural storylines involving the Black Knight.

What does the second post-credit scene mean?

The second scene introduces Eros, aka Starfox, played by Harry Styles. He’s the brother of Thanos and a fellow Eternal, suggesting future cosmic stories.

Is *Eternals* connected to the rest of the MCU?

Yes, though indirectly. The events occur after Endgame, and references to the Snap and the Avengers appear throughout. It sets up new cosmic threads for future phases.

Why is Eternals so divisive among fans and critics?

It’s the lowest-rated MCU film critically, mainly because it introduces ten new heroes at once (too many to develop), has slow, contemplative pacing, and little of Marvel’s usual humor. Admirers value its ambition, gorgeous visuals, and grown-up themes; detractors find it ponderous and emotionally distant.

Who directed Eternals, and why does it look so different?

Chloé Zhao, fresh off Oscar wins for Nomadland, directed it. She shot on real locations in natural light with wide, landscape-driven framing, giving Eternals the most distinctive, earthbound visual style in the entire MCU.