Right from its announcement, we knew that Eternals was going to be a very different flavour for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s Marvel’s first new super-gang since the Guardians Of The Galaxy. It delves deep into the weird, cosmic end of the comics, spanning huge swathes of time and space. And it’s come from extraordinary filmmaker Chloé Zhao – more typically found making gorgeous low-key dramas like The Rider and the Oscar-winning Nomadland. And if the first Eternals trailer showed that we may be in for an MCU film that plays more like 2001: A Space Odyssey, the second teaser delivers glimpses of massive action sequences too – with some mind-blowing Jack Kirby imagery. Hold onto your butts, people.
Blimey. There’s a lot of exposition going on in this trailer – namely, that the Eternals have been on Earth for 7000 years, and are feeling some guilt about not interfering with, y’know, the whole Thanos thing. But they were primarily dispatched here to battle Deviants – big snarly monsters with wings and snapping jaws – and told not to interfere elsewhere. And the entities behind those instructions? The whacking great Celestials – that stunning shot of a gigantic blazing red one in the depths of space is a real jaw-dropper. Along with establishing all the necessary lore, the trailer also tells us why this film is happening now: the energy of Tony Stark’s Endgame snap sparked something called the Emergence, which sounds suitably threatening.
Zhao has assembled an incredible cast for this one – Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Kit Harington, Richard Madden, Gemma Chan, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry and more – blessed with swirly gold powers. But most excitingly? It was partially filmed just down the road from Empire HQ, and we get to see a bit of Camden’s reckoning in the trailer – with a TfL bus being transformed into a flurry of red petals. What does that mean for everyone’s Oyster card fares? We’ll be on the edge of our seats waiting to find out.
Jokes aside, this looks stunning – ethereal, ambitious, weird, and pretty damn wonderful. We’ll find out if it lives up to that promise when Eternals comes to cinemas on 5 November.