Eternals

The premiss here is quite fun - 7,000 years ago a diverse race of immortals arrive on Earth to protect the population from a monstrous race of "Deviants" who are bent on eating us all up. Their "Prime Directive", if you will, is that they must not interfere in human conflict, so once they have cleared away the beasties, they split up and lead separate lives. That is, until "Sersi" (Gemma Chan), her pal "Sprite" (Lia McHugh) and her beau "Dane" (Kit Harrington) are set upon in London by a newly empowered creature only to be rescued by "Ikaris" (Richard Madden) - and that incident forces them all to reassemble. Pretty soon they discover the body of their erstwhile leader "Ajak" (Selma Hayek) and must now combine their forces to thwart their ever strengthening enemy and learn why they have resurfaced. Unfortunately, what now follows is a stunning looking, but really pretty dull series of set-piece scenarios that rather clunkily combine mythology and melodrama, romance and action. The camera loves Madden, but as an actor - even clad in blue leather - he is little better than a handsome man. Kumail Nanjiani ("KIngo") has a soupçon of charisma, but the rest of the cast including the really out of place Angelina Jolie ("Thena") and Harish Patel ("Karun") who is intent on videoing everthing at considerable risk to himself, really offer little by way of characterisation and the attempts at humour misfire most of the time. The story has some great effects, but so what? That's what we expect from the most mediocre of productions nowadays. What was needed here were far fewer actors and a much more robust story - and, yes, it could probably have lost the half an hour spent justifying the enormous budget in far-lung locations (real and imaginary). There's a final scene midway through the credits that really does not bode well for the sequel either. I was really pretty bored with this film and though undoubtedly a colourful, action-packed big screen experience, it is an entirely forgettable film to watch.