Two movie trailers in and it still is difficult to understand what Eternals will be about.  It still looks like a cross between X-Men: Apocalypse, Jupiter’s Legacy and Inhumans.  The final trailer from Marvel Studios for the third movie of Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (on the tail of both Black Widow and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie.  Eternals has a cast of familiar names–the central character fan-favorite actress Gemma Chan, who wowed us in Humans and Shetland, and created a great villain in Raya and the Last Dragon.  She also played a friend turned enemy in Captain Marvel, as the alien Minn-Erva.  And it features actors most wouldn’t think to cast for an MCU movie, like Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, and Kumail Nanjiani.  But the strange takeaway from the first trailer (seen here) and second (and final) trailer is it doesn’t look like any other Marvel movie–there’s no hook, no exciting or funny element to reel in viewers after such a successful Phase III.

Eternals are a strange sort in the comic books, and certainly not A-list superheroes.  So the director, Chloé Zhao, and writers Kaz and Ryan Firpo, have a challenge ahead.  How do you make these characters interesting?  Humor is absent in the trailer, so maybe we’re supposed to assume it’s all being held back for later.  At first Guardians of the Galaxy looked strange, too (but with humor) as did Doctor Strange (but Benedict Cumberbatch was at the height of his popularity and made it work).

What do you think?  Here’s the final trailer for Eternals:

Eternals is scheduled for a release in theaters November 5, 2021.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg