Movie Review

Marvel's overstuffed Eternals needs to kick up the superhero kapow

The powers that be in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been masters at making moviegoers care about characters relatively few people know. Once they got past undeniably popular ones like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk, making lower tier characters like Black Widow, Hawkeye, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and more equally as popular was the result of strong marketing and solid storytelling.

Now that we’ve entered Phase 4 of the MCU master plan, though, some cracks are developing under the weight of it all. Black Widow was entertaining enough, but felt like it came too little, too late for Scarlett Johansson’s now-deceased character. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings featured some spectacular set-pieces, but an overabundance of CGI. Now comes Eternals, featuring a group of all-powerful beings with a mission to protect Earth.

That group includes … deep breath … Ajak (Salma Hayek), who has healing powers; Sersi (Gemma Chan), who can change matter with her hands; Ikaris (Richard Madden), who can fly and shoot lasers from his eyes (no, he’s not Superman); Thena (Angelina Jolie), who can create any type of weapon out of thin air; Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), who shoots blasts from his fingers; Sprite (Lia McHugh), who can alter the look of reality; Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), who can conjure any type of machinery; Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), who has super speed; Druig (Barry Keoghan), who can take over people’s minds; and Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-seok), who has super-strong fists.

They were sent to Earth over 7,000 years ago by a Celestial named Arishem to protect humans from the invasive Deviants, a group of shape-shifting creatures. The catch is, that’s their entire mission; no matter what other bad things happen to humans (say, Thanos) or humans try to do to each other (like genocide), the Eternals are forbidden from interfering. The struggle between their mission and their collective conscience is what drives the story of the film.

Written and directed by Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), with writing help from Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo, the film is a sprawling epic with scenes ranging from modern-day to ancient Mesopotamia, with multiple other stops along the way. It attempts to include everything from existential questions about the fate of humanity to individual romances, with varying degrees of success.

When it comes to the personal feelings of the Eternals, the film is stuck between two worlds. Since they are close to immortal, they tend to keep their relations to humans at a distance. But it becomes clear that human feelings are part of who they are, especially the longer they linger on Earth. Zhao and her team do their best to sell the emotions of the group, but it’s sometimes difficult to match up their words with their actions.

Ultimately, it’s just too many characters for an introductory story. Only a few of them truly stand out, and with the film running over two-and-a-half hours, there is too much time for the audience to ponder if certain characters’ powers are all that useful. Combine that with the fact that their individual stories are meted out in drips and drabs, and it’s difficult to empathize or relate to any of them.

Much of the action involves people pointing or conjuring with their hands, things that only look slightly less ridiculous because of the CGI. Few of the fight scenes measure up in any meaningful way to those of previous MCU films. Zhao, who is known for her internal stories, just can’t seem to get across the scope that the big set-pieces deserve.

One nice thing is that the film features a cast that’s diverse in its skin color, gender, and level of fame. Six of the 10 characters are non-white, half are women, and only Hayek and Jolie could be considered stars. Even if we don’t get to know any of the characters that well, due to the overstuffed roster, the diversity allows the filmmakers explore avenues other MCU films haven’t, including a same-sex relationship.

Perhaps Eternals will gain traction the more we get to see what the rest of the MCU’s Phase 4 involves. On its own, though, the story lacks the excitement that audiences have come to expect from Marvel films.

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Eternals opens in theaters on November 5.

Don Lee, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, and Lia McHugh in Eternals.

Don Lee, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, and Lia McHugh in Eternals

Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios

Don Lee, Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, and Lia McHugh in Eternals.

Movie Review

Spanish film La Bola Negra showcases unique slice of gay history

Miguel Bernardeau and Guitarricadelafuente in La Bola Negra

Photo by Carla Oset/Netflix

Miguel Bernardeau and Guitarricadelafuente in La Bola Negra.

For a long time — too long — gay characters in movies tended to appear as either side characters with no real stories or as tragic figures who were usually unable to express their true selves for fear of what the world at large would think. That has changed in recent years, but the remnants of the past can still haunt, as the new film La Bola Negra demonstrates.

The film takes shape in storylines involving three different men: Carlos (Milo Quifes), a young man in Granada, Spain in 1932 who wants to join an exclusive casino (aka social club); Sebastián (Guitarricadelafuente), who unwillingly joins the military during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, only to have desires aroused in him when he’s asked to guard an enemy detainee; and Alberto (Carlos González), an out gay man in 2017 whose inheritance from his recently-deceased grandfather opens up a world he knew nothing about.

The film goes back and forth between each man, detailing how they handle their individual situations and the complications that arise in their individual lives. Along the way their stories are deepened through people they meet who either welcome them with open arms or shun them for various reasons. While tragedy bonds their stories, so too does hope, resistance, and love.

Co-director/co-writers Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, along with co-writer Alberto Conejero, have expanded Conejero’s play, La Piedra Oscura, which was inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca’s unfinished play, La Bola Negra. Lorca, who was killed during the Spanish Civil War, had only finished four pages of the work, his first to feature an openly gay protagonist. It’s clear there’s a desire by the filmmakers to honor the legacy of Lorca as both a playwright and a gay man, and the seriousness of their pursuit is evident throughout the film’s 160 minutes.

Calvo and Ambrossi do little handholding to guide viewers through the three distinct stories, an approach that mostly works but occasionally leads to confusion, especially as more characters are added to the equation. None of the stories are overly complicated, but they take their time with each, making the long film feel even longer. Only Alberto’s story contains any kind of development that might be considered surprising, making it tough to fully engage with the other two.

Where the film does come alive is when it brings in two well-known actors for brief-but-fascinating stints. Penélope Cruz plays Nené Romero, a singer who entertains the troops and further expands Sebastián’s mind. Glenn Close pops up as Isabelle Durand, a scholar of Lorca who helps Alberto with a unique discovery he makes in his inheritance. Both actors bring up the level of the film significantly through their performances.

Quifes, Guitarricadelafuente (the stage name of Spanish singer Álvaro Lafuente Calvo, no relation to Javier), and González all put in good work in their roles, even if none are overly engaging. They are often overshadowed by supporting actors like Cruz and Close, as well as Miguel Bernardeau as Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, the captured soldier; Julio Torres as Alberto’s partner, and Alberto Cortés as Lorca, who brings a symmetry to the film as a whole.

La Bola Negra — which means “the black ball,” represented both literally and figuratively in the film — is an ambitious film that becomes a slight victim of its filmmakers’ aspirations. Although each of the three stories contain interesting elements, a strong emotional connection is lacking overall despite good-to-great performances.

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La Bola Negra is now playing in select theaters; it debuts on Netflix on December 2.

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