And it’s directed by Chloe Zhao, who won two Oscars earlier this year for a film that couldn’t be less like a Marvel movie.
One, director Chloe Zhao has not lost the eye for rugged landscapes and Oscar-worthy sunrises that she brought to “Nomadland” last year.
MONDELLO: Folks who fly or zip or wield magical spears, who turn things to dust, create energy grenades from dust, are good with mind control, wound healing, holograms – I mean, there are 10 of these superfolks.
None of them seems ideally suited to battling a rope-asaurus , but who am I to question Marvel’s deploying of superprotectors? I am, though, qualified to talk about storytelling.
One of the film’s niftier conceits, actually, is that the battlefield exploits of superfolks named Ikaris, Sersi, and Gilgamesh might have inspired the legends humans passed down of gods and sorcerers with those names.
MONDELLO: That said, the reason “Eternals” is compelling has less to do with its planet-shattering conflicts than with the cosmic off-screen conflict it represents – indie art house director versus Marvel franchise machine.
The film looks terrific and is multicultural in ways you wish everything could be – superheroes sufficiently varied that there’s room not just for different skin colors but for one to exclusively use sign language, another to be gay, a third to have mental health issues.
MONDELLO: “Eternals” is far from perfect.
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