Category: recommendations

Review: Exit 8

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The concept of the “Exit 8” video game is simple: walk through the same hallway – with posters, service doors, vents and signs – over and over again. If you see some kind of anomaly, then turn back. If you don’t, then continue forward. If you’re correct eight times in a row, you win.

It’s a simple premise, but it can be very challenging to play. Even more challenging is the idea of adapting this story-less concept into a movie adaptation, with character development and a three-act structure. Yet the movie adaptation of “Exit 8” not only manages this, it succeeds wildly at it – creating a sensitive, compelling portrait of a young man struggling with his own fears, with the game’s premise as the catalyst for change.

The Lost Man (Kazunari Ninomiya) is on the subway, heading to his dead-end part-time job, when his ex-girlfriend (Nana Komatsu) calls him with some shocking news: she’s pregnant with his baby. The Lost Man decides to head to the hospital to help her decide what to do next – only to find himself in a strange repeating liminal space, and the only other person he can see is the zombie-like Walking Man (Yamato Kochi), who reappears in every loop but shows no signs of awareness.

The Lost Man soon figures out that some of the loops have “anomalies” – signs that move or are altered, blaring yellow light, doorknobs in the wrong place, strange people/animals, the sound of crying babies, monster rats – and that he has to evaluate the place correctly eight times before he can hopefully escape at Exit 8. There’s even an anomaly that tricks him into admitting his own fears about impending fatherhood, namely that he doesn’t think he has the ability to be a good father.

But that soon becomes more complicated when he encounters what seems like an anomaly – a small boy (Naru Asanuma). But he soon discovers that the child is not an anomaly, but a fellow traveler in this liminal space… and the two of them might be more connected than they appear at first glance. To escape the liminal space, the two of them will have to bond and work together.

“Exit 8” is currently the highest-rated video game adaptation that has ever been made, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a great example of an adaptation that preserves the concept of the original, while expanding it with characters, plot and themes. There’s nothing that undermines the original game, and instead the game is wrapped in a human story that explores what it means to not feel good enough.

In this particular case, the repeating liminal space is given a purpose – to teach those who wander into it to overcome their flaws and gain courage, or be lost forever as a part of it. In the case of the Lost Man (and possibly one other character, who explicitly fails the test), that means realizing that parenthood doesn’t mean that you have to be perfect – it just means putting a child ahead of your own self-interests, and protecting them with all your might.

It’s a very minimalist movie – there’s only one set for 95% of the movie, and a non-extra cast of only five people. It’s also pretty light on the horror aspect, since many of the anomalies are just things like “a black cat” or “yellow light” or a displaced doorknob. But there are some scenes that are genuinely chilling, like dozens of disembodied baby screams coming from lockers, or the entire scene with the slimy, bloody body-part rats. And the biggest horror is the prospect of what happens if you fail the liminal space’s test.

As mentioned before, there are only five characters (not including the mother, baby and screaming man on the train), and none of them are given proper names. In a way, it makes them feel a little more… relatable. Ninomiya has to do a lot of the heavy lifting as a guy who’s pretty ordinary – dead-end part-time job, asthma, low self-esteem and the news of an unexpected pregnancy. The Lost Man’s transformation over the course of the movie is not a drastic one, and thus feels natural and plausible considering what he experiences. Kochi also gives a solid performance as the Walking Man, before and after, and Asanuma gives a slightly awkward but overall good performance as the little boy.

Whether or not you’ve played the game, “Exit 8” is a compelling expansion of the origin video game – and despite the horrors the liminal space contains, strangely heartwarming. Definitely one of the best video game adaptations of all time.

Backrooms – The Most Accessible Horror?

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So, I saw the Backrooms movie on the second day of its release, at about eleven in the morning (which is a weird time to be watching a horror movie). I’m usually a few years behind Internet things that people are into, so it’s pleasant to be there before the Backrooms becomes a mainstream thing.

And it probably will, because… this movie is a hit. A huge hit. As I write this, it has been out five days and has amassed $118 million, which is a pretty good showing for any movie, but is phenomenal for a movie that only cost ten million to make, by a first-time director who isn’t even old enough to drink. It’s so massive a success that McDonald’s just rolled out a Backrooms commercial as the movie premiered, which is kind of a gamble, since nobody knew if this would be successful.

I know that a ten-million-dollar movie isn’t the biggest gamble you can find in Hollywood – that would probably have been something like the original Lord of the Rings trilogy. But it is a gamble in the sense that this is a movie that isn’t based on a TV show, book or video game, but on a series of short videos posted on Youtube full of esoteric details, mystery and cryptic clues… based on a creepypasta. And it isn’t an adaptation so much as an addition to the preexisting webseries. To my knowledge, this doesn’t really have a precedent in the movie industry, so I was genuinely very interested in seeing if this very 21st-century phenomenon would turn out well.

I was especially interested in seeing how it would turn out because Kane Pixels/Parsons, the originator of the Backrooms videos, was directing the movie. Hollywood hasn’t done well with creepypastas and Internet lore before this, as seen by the Slenderman movie. If you haven’t seen it, it was just a standard horror movie with nothing distinctly Slenderman about the title character except his appearance, and was clearly made by people who neither knew nor cared about the preexisting lore.

But back to the Backrooms. Honestly, I wonder if the webseries is part of the reason that the movie is doing as well as it is. Specifically, the fact that it’s so accessible to everyone who has a phone or a computer.

I mean, the bar is so low to getting involved in the Backrooms lore and figuring out whether you will want to see the movie or not. All you have to do is go onto Youtube and type in “Backrooms,” and you’ll immediately find Kane Pixels’ channel. No money is needed, and it isn’t hard to access. All you need to do is watch, and you’ll have a pretty solid idea of whether the movie’s brand of eerie dreamlike horror is something that you’d enjoy watching for a whole feature film.

And likewise, understanding the lore is easy as well. If you try to get into the Backrooms lore and are confused, there are countless videos dissecting Kane Pixels’ videos frame by frame, and exploring all the subtle clues, details, messages and timeline of the Backrooms and A-Sync. Once again, all you have to do is go onto Youtube and check out a Wendigoon video or two – long videos, I should add – and you’ll find that most of the legwork has been done for you. It’s practically the easiest thing to get involved in.

Whatever the reason, it’s fantastic that the Backrooms have become a bona fide hit in movie theaters – not just indie horror, but horror that accurately captures the esoteric nature of the material, and which brings a little of the strangeness and darkness of the Internet into the sanitized, mass-produced realm of Hollywood movies.

Have a nice day, and don’t no-clip through any walls.

Recommendation: The Grandmaster Of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi)

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Despite the general government disapproval of same-sex relationships, China does have some media focusing on such characters. Boys’ love content in China is known as “danmei,” and don’t ask me what that literally means because I know about ten words in Mandarin, and half of them are numbers.

And the most famous example of the breed is probably Mo Dao Zu Shi or The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (alternate unofficial title: “The Founder of Diabolism). This webnovel has an animated adaptation, a live-action adaptation in the form of The Untamed, an audio drama, a stage play, a manhua, and a currently-ongoing manga in Japan. I can testify that all of them are very good (except the stage play, which I haven’t seen), although some of them are censored. The Untamed, for instance, is unable to openly depict the main characters as being romantically involved with one another, so the actors just gaze lovingly at each other a lot.

The story is about Wei Wuxian, who died thirteen years before the events of the series. He was basically considered a supervillain by his entire society, who used a necromantic form of cultivation to control the dead, including a sapient superzombie named Wen Ning. In the present, he’s brought back to life in the body of a mentally ill young man who wants Wei Wuxian to kill his relatives, and after some craziness and several deaths, Wei Wuxian ends up being captured by Lan Wangji, a very morally upright and noble cultivator that he knew in his old life, who seems weirdly determined to keep Wei Wuxian close to him at all times.

The two of them go on a road trip to find the dismembered body parts of a fierce corpse (zombie) that has been scattered across many different cities, which are also the key to finding out who the dead person was and how he died. Without spoiling too much, they get entangled in a conspiracy of political murder and really unpleasant secrets. And at the same time, Wei Wuxian starts discovering that he has romantic feelings for Lan Wangji, but after spending the better part of fifteen years being called a monster, he subconsciously doesn’t believe that they could possibly be returned. He’s a little clueless, because readers will probably have figured out some stuff about Lan Wangji that Wei Wuxian hasn’t.

I’m summing up a lot – there’s a decent-sized cast, some side-plots and a lot of flashbacks spanning several years and a whole war – but that is the basic description of the webnovel. The author, Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (known as MXTX), has written three webnovels and all of them have been really popular. MDZS is arguably the most plot-heavy of the three, and honestly, that is the way I like this sort of story: a heavy dose of plot, with the romance sort of wound through it.

The romance is very much an opposites-attract kind of story – Wei Wuxian is this sort of brilliant, erratic little gremlin who loves to cause trouble, and Lan Wangji is this almost superhumanly cool, elegant and silent figure that only loses his composure around Wei Wuxian. But at the core, they do have a lot in common, like wanting to protect innocent people and doing the right thing even if the world is against them. And the slow burn of them getting together is complicated by a series of misunderstandings, lost memories and the fact that Lan Wangji doesn’t really know how to express his emotions outwardly.

And yes, it’s a slow-burn – things only really coalesce in the climactic (literally, in some cases) part of the story, at which time the stories get much more sexual. Let’s just say that the fandom’s catchphrase “Every day means every day” is earned.

It also earns a lot of attention for the secondary characters, all of whom are pretty vivid… including the dead ones, both animate and not. There’s Wei Wuxian’s estranged martial brother Jiang Cheng, who’s crabby, violent and very emotionally stunted; Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji’s too-agreeable older brother; Wen Qing, a courageous and rather terse doctor that Wei Wuxian befriends; Xue Yang, a charming psychopath who traps the characters in a haunted city; Nie Huaisang, the dweeby ex-classmate Wei Wuxian runs into; and a bunch of lovably naive teenagers who tend to follow the main characters around wherever they go.

So if you’re looking for a romance with a lot of plot and misunderstandings (so many misunderstandings), this one might be something you’d like.

Recommendation: Unpublished Brandon Sanderson

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Every author has a trail of half-finished outlines, ideas or books that just didn’t work out. Books in embryo, which may or may not eventually be finished and released to the public. And apparently Brandon Sanderson is no different… he’s got whole novels that just aren’t published.

I’ve been reading them lately, and honestly, it’s a shame that these books weren’t published and canon to the Cosmere, because they’re pretty good overall. Although I understand why, obviously, Way of Kings Prime isn’t – it’s basically an earlier draft of a now-published novel that is drastically different in form now. It’s interesting as a look into the evolution of the novel we eventually got.

But the other two books are different. One was revised and released as a graphic novel, with some significant changes (such as a supporting character’s gender and family life) and the other just hasn’t been published officially in any form, although as I understand it, the worldbuilding is canon. White Sand takes place on a tidally-locked planet where half of it is in darkness and half in light, and the main character is a very weak sand mage who ends up accidentally becoming the leader of his order. And also they’re on the verge of being disbanded, and most of them have been murdered, and he has to somehow fight with sand-magic without being able to do more than a small amount of it.

The other is Aether of Night, kind of a cross between a Shakespearean comedy and a high-stakes high fantasy. It follows a prince/priest who ends up becoming king when his identical twin brother, who was the actual heir, is killed by mysterious shadow creatures, along with their father and a lot of other people. And those mysterious creatures are constantly invading their country and trying to overwhelm the populace, and they’re associated with a pair of feuding gods.

… and at the same time, there is also this comedic aspect, in that the former-priest-turned-king has to also select a wife from several candidates. They’re from different countries, religions and cultures, with different attitudes towards getting the prize, and some of them have their own agendas, and there are diplomatic repercussions to his choice. So as much as I enjoyed the book, I can see why Sanderson wasn’t really satisfied with the combination of high-fantasy potential apocalypse/Shakespearean comedy. You’re like, the world is potentially ending and over half the population is gonna die… so why are we hearing about some guy trying to figure out which girl he’ll marry?

And I just found out that he has another unpublished book called Dragonsteel, which I do not know anything about and which I now have to read. So stay tuned.

Youtube Recs – Village Cooking Channel

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I don’t understand a word of any language spoken in India.

But somehow, that isn’t really a barrier when watching the Village Cooking Channel, a pretty major channel with 26 MILLION followers. Sure, the only part of the video I can really understand is “always welcome you,” but the content is so much fun and so wholesome that it doesn’t really matter.

The contents of the channel are pretty simple: half a dozen Indian men from a rural village go out into a remote field, start a fire, and cook. They cook a lot. They cook very, very large quantities – sometimes it looks like they’re cooking enough for their entire village. Whole goats filled with biryani, five hundred fried chicken legs, giant whole tuna, dragon fruit milkshakes, the world’s largest popsicles, hundreds of quail, and huge quantities of popcorn.

And some of the dishes are either unusual or unknown to American palates – think chickens cooked inside watermelons, soan papdi, goat brains, chicken in bamboo, stingray, rose cookies, goat feet, kizhi parotta, jelly cake, and so on. It’s a fascinating glimpse into how other cultures eat and the wide variety of foods that have developed in India. And despite the frequent deep-frying, most of it is probably much healthier than the average Western diet.

The guys in it are pretty fun to watch – they’re energetic and shout out the names of the ingredients as they prepare the food. They harvest some of it themselves, and so everything they make is pretty much entirely made out of whole ingredients that practically glow with freshness. Even the water looks delicious in these videos. I don’t know how you make water look delicious, but they’ve managed it.

And the best part? After the men have eaten generous portions of the food they’ve prepared, they always give what they haven’t eaten to elderly poor people living in their community. It’s heartwarming to see, and a reminder of what actual organic community looks like.

Recommendation: Godzilla Singular Point

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I didn’t really expect a series about Godzilla to go into detail about the nature of time.

In fact, the series has a distinct lack of Godzilla about 90% of the time, which my brother found to be its biggest flaw – if you’re going into it to watch kaiju punching each other in the face, you will be sorely disappointed. There are kaiju, sure – there are a bunch of pterodactyl-like Rodans, there’s an Anguillas, there are some sea monsters and giant monster-spiders and so on. But they are more like unstoppable forces of nature whose origins and nature are a mystery, and who scare the pants off us feeble humans.

About 90% of the time, the story is divided between dealing with various non-Godzilla kaiju, and examining nonlinear timestreams, such as receiving information from the future, and particles that can’t be detected, and artificial intelligence. It’s a very intellectual series with Godzilla as the primal draw and the ultimate culmination of everything it’s building towards, so if you just want Godzilla in particular punching monsters you are not going to enjoy it. There’s a lot of talking.

Also red dust. Sooooooo much red dust. It makes sense in context.

The rest of the 90% is divided pretty evenly between trying to unravel the mysteries of time and trying to stop kaiju in creative ways. Especially since there are different people with different motives, and different knowledge, sometimes working together and sometimes kind of undermining one another. The story mostly revolves around a small group of oddballs – a nerdy girl majoring in imaginary creatures (now THERE’S a complete sink for your student loans), a crazy old man building a giant robot to save the world (because Japan), and a young man who seems to have a real knack for figuring out the kaiju and programming artificial intelligence.

It also takes notes from Shin Godzilla by having Godzilla evolve through different forms over the course of the series. In fact, sometimes you can only tell it’s him because of that classic Godzilla musical sting. His final form has a mouth that could eat an entire meatball sub in one bite.

Also: my brother noted that the female lead reminded him of Velma from Scooby-Doo… and I kinda see it. Nerdy, clumsy, chin-length hair and glasses, into weird esoteric stuff… she’s like Velma turned into a cute anime girl, only her interest is insects who are their own grandpa instead of the occult.

I’d say that its biggest flaw, aside from a lack of Godzilla, is that it probably takes a few viewings to understand the theories behind it. The concepts and theories are a bit dense at times, and it sometimes treats viewers as if they are already aware of the science, or the explanations sort of dart by so fast that you might not notice.

If you like thinking-style anime like Steins;Gate and a hefty dose of kaiju chaos, then Godzilla Singular Point is something you might enjoy. Even if you don’t know if you might like those things, it’s worth checking out simply because it is such an unusual beast.

Recommendation: The Untamed

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I will probably write a full-blown review of this TV series sometime in the future, once I figure out how to summarize fifty plot-packed episodes that bounce around the timeline of almost twenty years.

So, quick sum-up: The Untamed is a Chinese xianxia TV show that became a hit on Netflix because… well, people are starved for good TV, and it’s a good TV show. It’s based on the Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation books by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (pseudonym), which recently got published in the United States. The original novels are part of a genre called danmei, which refers to books aimed at the female reading public that focus on a romantic relationship between two men. But because of Chinese censorship laws, the TV show just has the most intense bromance you will ever find.

The bare-bones summary is that it takes place in an ancient-medieval-styled fantasy world where Daoist magic allows people to have superpowers, fly on their swords, manipulate spiritual energy, and so on. A mentally ill man summons the spirit of Wei Wuxian, who was sort of the bogeyman of the cultivation world. Before he died sixteen years ago, he used demonic magic and rebelled against all the various sects, so they regard him as being a sort of low-level Sauron. Wei Wuxian ends up in the body of the mentally-ill man so he can enact revenge against the guy’s family, and ends up tangled in a weird supernatural mystery. He also reconnects with Lan Zhan, who was his best friend in his old life, despite them having opposite personalities.

It’s a little hard to understand what’s going on in the first two episodes, but it quickly flashes back for about thirty episodes to reveal everything that got the main characters to the present day. Basically, refined uptight boy Lan Zhan despised Wei Wuxian at first because Wei Wuxian was a free spirit who regularly flouted the rules, but eventually grew to admire and care about him. At the same time, the various sects have to deal with the Wen clan, who are effectively taking over everything, and Wei Wuxian ends up sacrificing everything to help other people, but is branded a monster for doing so. He’s also being framed by somebody who is only revealed much later on.

After that flashback, it’s a good idea to go watch the first two episodes a second time, now that you know who everybody is and what their history consists of. After that, it follows Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan as they try to figure out who the mastermind behind all this is.

The biggest problem of the story is obviously the censorship. Not just because they had to remove the romantic elements, but because it won’t allow such things as ghosts and zombies… in a story about a necromancer. As a result, there are some scars and stitch marks in the narrative where things had to be excised or drastically changed.

But if you can get past that, it’s a great show. The casting is one of the most perfect ones I’ve seen since Lord of the Rings – every actor is giving a pitch-perfect performance, and some of the roles are pretty difficult. The roles of the two leads are particularly hard. Lan Zhan is a sort of defrosting ice prince who conveys a lot of emotion with very few words and extremely understated facial expressions.

And the actor playing Wei Wuxian is called on to play a mercurial quirky genius. He could have been a very irritating character in a less talented man’s hands, but he’s absolutely charming instead – and it’s worth noting that Wei Wuxian goes through a LOT of development. He suffers a complete mental breakdown, is tormented for months until he’s suffering from PTSD, has a fixation on family relationships, has a crippling fear of dogs, and so on and so forth. He overall grows from a brilliant but cocky youth into a clever and more insightful man, all without losing his mischievous streak or his ADHD.

And there are billions of characters in this drama, and many of them have their own stories and development as well. Hell, a few of them get whole side-stories, such as the psychotic Xue Yang and the pure-hearted Xiao Xingchen.

A few cultural details require explanations to understand, but the backbone of The Untamed is just really good storytelling, excellent acting and a gripping, complex story that will keep you mesmerized right to the end.

Review: Heaven Official’s Blessing: Season 1

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Once upon a time, Xie Lian was the beloved crown prince of a beautiful kingdom, who ascended to godhood in his teens. But then he interfered in mortal affairs, made things worse, and was cast out. He ascended to godhood a second time… and was kicked out again.

And in “Heaven Official’s Blessing: Season 1,” we find out what happens when this unfortunate godling ascends to deityhood for the third time. This donghua series (think anime, but Chinese) based on Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s novels of the same name, is a slow-burn that mingles romance with a uniquely Chinese brand of high fantasy, where the powerful or virtuous can become deities, but the tormented and tragic may become something else.

Upon his third ascension to godhood, Xie Lian discovers that nothing has really changed – he’s deeply in debt, and none of the other gods like or respect him. The usual way to pay off his debt is by receiving merits from the worship of mortals… except people stopped worshiping him eight hundred years ago. But there is another way – he can investigate a certain mysterious problem on a rural mountain, where seventeen brides have been abducted by a mysterious “ghost groom.”

With the assistance of the sulky, combative Fu Yao and Nan Feng, he goes undercover to find out what is abducting the girls – and ends up being escorted up the mountain by a handsome, mysterious stranger dressed all in red, who turns into a swarm of silver butterflies. But that man was NOT the ghost groom – which leaves Xie Lian to uncover the horror that lives atop the mountain. To make matters worse, the locals are also searching for the ghost groom, which only makes things more complicated when things inevitably go pear-shaped.

After that, Xie Lian decides to set up a shrine to himself in an abandoned shack, with the help of a young man named San Lang, who is very obviously not what he pretends to be. But trouble finds Xie Lian again when someone tries to trick him into going to the Half Moon Pass in the Gobi desert, near the dead city-state of Banyue. Even weirder, the other gods seem to avoid talking about this.

Along with San Lang, Fu Yao and Nan Feng, he sets out to the pass to find out what’s going on there, and ends up encountering a sandstorm, a few dozen merchants… and a cave full of scorpion-snakes. But that’s only the beginning of the undying terrors that still dwell in Banyue, killing anyone unlucky enough to pass through. And soon Xie Lian realizes that someone in Banyue has a very strong connection to him.

I personally like my romance stories with a heavy dose of plot, which makes “Heaven Official’s Blessing” perfectly balanced – even if the slow-blooming romance weren’t part of the story, it would still be a solid fantasy-horror series with gods, ghosts, goblins, zombies, and a really freaky undead face in the ground. The ethereal beauty of the lead characters and their sparkling heavens is a stark contrast to the nightmarish creatures that lurk in the mortal world below.

It’s also a fantasy that feels distinct from its anime cousins – its world and cosmology are uniquely Chinese, drawing heavily from Taoism and other Chinese beliefs. The two supernatural mysteries are pretty well-developed, both horrifying and yet tragic, and the stories occasionally slow down a little for either some mild comic relief (Fu Yao and Nan Feng’s constant fighting) or an ethereal romantic moment between Xie Lian and his mysterious red-clad man of the silver butterflies.

The animation is quite lovely for the most part, with some really beautiful moments standing out in the Puqi Temple or when the red-clad man escorts Xie Lian up the mountain. The only area where it falls down is when CGI is inserted, usually where it’s not needed. It’s very clunky.

Xie Lian is an easy character to like – perpetually unlucky and unpopular, yet unfailingly earnest and kind to everyone around him (as long as they don’t beat up girls). Howard Wang gives him a low-key, soothing kind of voice even when he’s upset. The mysterious Hua Cheng (whose identity is blatantly obvious) makes for a solid love interest, and the cast is rounded out by Fu Yao and Nan Feng, a couple of clashing, abrasive young men who actually do care about the disgraced prince.

“Heaven Official’s Blessing: Season 1” is an animated show that perfectly balances out a slow-growing romance, beautiful animation, and solid fantasy/horror. For those seeking an alternative to anime, this might do the trick.

Recommendation: Decker Shado

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Right now this particular reviewer is getting his butt kicked by the Youtube algorithm, probably because he puts out videos devoted to science fiction, Asian cinema, cult movies and horror rather than… well, I don’t know what does well in the Youtube algorithm, because I don’t watch it.

And of course, Godzilla movies. He’s fun, dramatic and has luscious hair, and seems like a very nice person. So please support him in whatever way you can!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsxn3qKFpbnD-8f1d9F5ipA

More about the Eternals and why they’re boring (spoilers)

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No, I haven’t finished it, but something struck me when I was considering the excessive largeness of the cast and how it probably could have been pared down to at least half without losing anything.

In addition to the fact that none of the characters are developed very well, and there are way too many of them, they aren’t interesting to me because… they all have the same backstory. They all come from the same place, with the same mission and goals, and for about six-and-a-half thousand years they pretty much do the same things over and over with each other around. That gives their characters a sameness that just isn’t appealing in an ensemble cast.

Let’s compare them to the Guardians of the Galaxy, a similarly obscure team who was a rousing success and instantly beloved instead of… whatever the Eternals are. Each of the Guardians comes with a different backstory – they each have experiences, tragedies and struggles that are unique and distinct, but which bind them together when they do finally find friends. Rocket’s backstory is wildly different from Drax’s, and his experiences logically affect the way he sees the world and interacts with other people.

That’s why the Guardians feel like such well-rounded characters by comparison – each one is different. With the Eternals, all the differences feel very shallow and surface-level, because there’s not really anything in their histories to make them stand apart from each other.

I mean, imagine if every single character in the MCU was some variation of a rich, talented, arrogant man who is badly injured and humbled, and ends up becoming a nobler version of himself who uses his power and influence for good. That’s fine for Tony Stark. Some people complained that Dr. Strange was too similar, but their wheelhouses are far enough apart that it’s tolerable. But if every character came from the same background and experiences as Strange or Stark, it would be dull and none of them would stand out.

That’s why Ikaris and Sersi’s relationship feels so boring, dull and flat. What do these characters see in each other beyond “I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s do it”? It’s one of the worst romantic relationships I’ve ever seen, because neither one has any actual characteristics that could lead someone to find them attractive beyond the purely physical. Yet we’re supposed to believe they were so in love that they got married and spent over six MILLENNIA together.

And that’s not including the fact that many things about the Eternals that don’t make sense if you think about them for half a second. If they’re basically fleshy androids designed for their mission, why do they feel attraction? Why are they given the capacity to disobey and think for themselves, rather than being designed and programmed to simply do what they were designed to do? Why not just design them so they value the Celestials above all other life, and humans simply won’t matter to them outside of their function for the Celestials? That seems a lot more efficient than constantly tricking them and mind-wiping them so they’ll never find out the truth.

And if you could design a perfect artificial life-form, one indistinguishable from an organic being and possessing immense superpowers… why would you DELIBERATELY give them a handicap like deafness?

This movie is just very poorly-made, poorly-conceived, and very dull. Marvel has a reputation for putting out shiny, competent blockbusters, but they’ve been very shaky lately – Shang-Chi was just okay from what I heard, and Black Widow was a trainwreck. The Eternals just has so many elementary things that should have been fixed in the early stages of screenwriting, long before it went into production.

I mean, this is a movie where Kit Harington is one of the most dynamic and engaging characters. Kit Harington. A man who made a career out of making puppy eyes and sad mouths, and nothing else.

And yes, I’m going to finish it. I promise.

But I probably won’t enjoy it.