Eternals Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

4. The Disappointingly Dull Action Sequences

It's always a roll of the dice when an indie filmmaker inexperienced in huge-scale action joins the MCU - sometimes we get James Gunn's gloriously colourful and exciting set-pieces in Guardians of the Galaxy, and other times we end up with the anonymous, forgettable action of Cate Shortland's Black Widow.

Eternals director Chloé Zhao is an especially interesting case given that her prior three films are not only extremely low-budget but also meditative mood and character pieces - almost the exact opposite of what's expected in an MCU movie.

Sadly Zhao doesn't bring much to the table for the action sequences, which lack any sort of distinct aesthetic personality and instead feel more like they were pumped out by a committee at Marvel Studios.

The superhero fisticuffs with the Deviants and others are bafflingly lacking in imagination, sometimes evoking the overly glossy, floaty vibe of a mediocre video game cutscene, or in one of its final set-pieces the blurry muddiness of Zack Snyder's worst fight scenes.

There's not a single action scene here that can hold a handle to the first few from Shang-Chi, for instance. Despite having so many super-powered individuals at its disposal, the fantasy carnage here feels totally boilerplate.