The Best Characters In Eternals Ranked

The primary tenet of Blake Snyder's "Save the Cat," a book about writing successful movies, is "give me the same thing ... only different." Stan Lee, co-creator of many of Marvel's most popular characters, also believed this implicitly. He claimed that the secret to Marvel's success was its "illusion of change," the feeling that events were altering a comic book character irrevocably, but actually weren't. Now, Marvel makes the most successful and impactful Hollywood blockbusters, and "the same thing ... only different" and "the illusion of change" are the MCU's bread and butter.

By contrast, the discourse surrounding Chloe Zhao's "Eternals" has centered on how different it feels from other Marvel films. The irony of that is that many of the Eternals are "same but different" versions of both mythological characters and their comic book counterparts. To confront them as realized in Zhao's film is to reckon with continuity-shifting changes to characters who are cultural building blocks.

But, as the fresh takes on the characters in "Eternals" are introduced to audiences worldwide, Zhao has the chance to tell new stories that resonate with millennia's worth of history — and there's nothing the same about that. Here, then, are the best characters in "Eternals," ranked.

Note: The rest of this article contains major spoilers for "Eternals."

Arishem is dull by design. That's a bizarre sentence to write about a galaxy-sized, crimson Celestial with six burning furnaces for eyes. But one of the core themes of "Eternals" is the potential pitfalls of unwavering worship, and Arishem and his interests are mere MacGuffins. We are made to understand that Arishem is awe-worthy, a phantasmagorical space god whose purpose is nothing less than preserving sentient life in the universe. What Arishem winds up being — with a purposefully less than satisfactory explanation– is a pro-life judge who sends the Eternals to Earth as freshly-brainwashed doulas. 

When Arishem's true designs are revealed, we see a team of 7,000-year-old beings struggle with both the reason why they were made and what they should do with that knowledge. This inter-group tug-of-war transforms "Eternals" into, happily, the largest-budgeted pro-choice blockbuster ever filmed. It also renders Arishem boring. He is an elder Celestial who uses power as an argument to justify his grand plan. That makes him terrifically and totally uninteresting.

It is not necessary that the Eternals of Chloe Zhao's film be cut-and-dry extensions of their mythological counterparts. That said, they must be in concert with them. If a man named Michael Jordan happens to be a pretty good accountant, at some point someone will, maybe without meaning to, equate his solid number-crunching with the Michael Jordan's brilliance in the paint. There doesn't need to be an explicit connection between the two. They share a name. Connections are going to be drawn anyway.

Given that, Gilgamesh in "Eternals" suffers simply because "The Epic of Gilgamesh" is pretty darn extraordinary. If you've never read the Sumerian tales that make up the legend's literary exploits, Gilgamesh may be higher on your ranking than on mine, because you'll be less disappointed that he becomes the squad's proverbial Agent Coulson before developing much as a character. 

Gilgamesh's passing brings the Eternals together. Unfortunately, it also means that a legend's time on screen is cut short. It's a nice riff, but one too brief to yield a truly great character.

One question plagued every press junket or article preceding the release of "Eternals": How would the movie handle the Thanos of it all? It's a reasonable question when the continuation of your massive, multi-platform storytelling franchise becomes incumbent on the introduction of new characters and a handful of all-powerful robot gods that didn't stop The Mad Titan (or war, disease, and suffering in general).

Thankfully, Druig (Barry Keoghan) is the Eternal who asks these questions of himself during Zhao's film. Druig is often shown preventing (or instigating) violence throughout "Eternals." He possesses the humans in order to swiftly enact his will. During the fall of Pompei, Druig briefly takes over warring armies to an effort to halt the city's destruction. That he is held in check by Ajax (Salma Hayek) foreshadows both the truth of the team's mission and also why Druig parts with them.

Sadly, in the effort to introduce so many new characters, Druig's post-exile life is less compelling than it could be. In comics lore, he works for the KGB. He is referred to as the Devil himself. In "Eternals," Druig is a brooding misdirection, one brought to life by Keoghan, but with little help from the film he appears in. Like so many other enigmatic mid-tier MCU characters, Druig will benefit from expanded time on screen. For now, he's little more than a necessary, compelling conduit for the audience's most pressing questions.

Sersi has a Captain Marvel problem.

Sersi, like Captain Marvel, is an unequivocal force. Her mind is elastic. Her powers have no easily identifiable limit. She proves herself the correct choice to lead the team in its abortion of Tiamut, and has the capacity to forgive Sprite and Ikaris for their misgivings in its wake. Sersi is incredible.

Unfortunately, "Eternals" renders her less incredible in practice than she is on paper. Like Captain Marvel, Sersi is an amnesiac whose lost memories hide dark, dangerous secrets. Until she discovers them, she's ostensibly a cipher torn between the strapping, Superman-like Icarus and the charming, Clark Kent-ish Dane. After the truth about Sersi is revealed, she becomes the engine driving the movie towards its finish, more beholden to plot machinations than character development. The same thing happened to Carol Danvers. Sersi and Carol are both tremendous (and have made strong, lasting impressions on younger viewers), but they land less strongly than they ought to.

There is strong reason to believe Captain Marvel will achieve higher liftoff as a character in Nia DeCosta's "The Marvels." The same can be said of Sersi, whenever the Eternals return. But, as a character observed in a vacuum, Sersi struggles to find gravity despite being at the center of the film. I wish I could have placed her higher.

In Angelica Jade Bastein's searing, thoughtful appraisal of "Eternals" for Vulture, she laments that the film's actors "strain to find a way to stand out and add the touching foibles that make a superhero character memorable." I understand where she's coming from. On the one hand, it's sensible to argue that "Eternals" doesn't utilize, say, all-time A-tier movie star Angelina Jolie effectively enough. Jolie mostly comes off the proverbial bench to anchor a touching subplot about mental illness and the casual abuses of those who work for omnipresent forces ("Nomadland," anyone?). For my money, though, it's the fact that Jolie almost entirely relegates herself to supporting work that makes her effective.

At this point in time, a Marvel movie will always function as a treatise on movie stardom. Audiences expect the films to do one of two things: mint new stars, or reignite the careers of older ones. Jolie fits neither of these bills. Instead, "Eternals" sees one of the most vibrant screen presences of the last 30 years fall from grace mid-movie, and spend the rest of its runtime vacillating between being broken, capable, and absolutely butt-kicking. Jolie highlights Thena's speedy swings between assuredness and madness, maintaining grace even as her body falls apart. Thena speaks between the film's lines, and Jolie makes it easy for us to read what's written there. Thena is memorable, just not in a mighty Marvel way.

An audience favorite emerges from every Marvel movie. Early internet buzz pegged Kumali Nanjiani's Kango as the winner; trailer reactions hinted that Brian Tyree Henry had a shot as Phastos. But, as several viral tweets made it clear over release weekend, the breakout star of "Eternals" is Makkari. This is her moment.

When ranking these characters, it's difficult to separate the performance from the character as written. So, let's get this out of the way: There is zero doubt that actress Lauren Ridloff speeds away with this movie. Her performance is laced with personality and spunk, the equivalent of exploding a 1,000-watt bulb on screen so that the filament can burn unencumbered. It's sterling work.

As a character? That's a little more complicated. Makkari in "Eternals" is nothing like her large, blonde comic book counterpart. That's great! But it ostensibly makes Ridloff the character, one who's main defining traits are a gorgeously spare but specific intimacy with Druig and the choice to abandon humanity (there appears to have been more to this that met the eye, in fact). These are both lovely, wonderful touches, but they're rendered more wonderful by Ridloff's work than the script itself. Still, she lingers in the heart and mind long after the final credits roll, an ever-rewarding testament to the power of representation on screen.

"Eternals" works as a critique of institutions and systems that employ others to spread their gospels under false pretenses; one of these institutions is Marvel itself. Many sites, including this one, have offered exhaustive looks into Marvel's relationship with the U.S. military, and whether the films they release function as propaganda. Zhao is keenly aware of this, and reveals the complex conversation she's had with herself through Kingo's valet, the exuberant, camera-wielding Karun.

A valet is a position of servitude. Karun serves Kingo, an Eternal who has come to double as the largest Bollywood star of multiple generations. He is the smallest cog in a machine that powers a commercial empire that he will never see the fruits of, and that he may labor for indefinitely. It's possible that Karun never actually shows the audience how he feels about his position. What he does do, however, is film the Eternals' exploits with genuine joy.

Through the eyes (and lens) of Karun, we are reminded how and why big superhero movies matter. This is shown by a character who could be forced into the woodwork, but isn't thanks to his resourcefulness (seriously, where do all those cameras come from?) and the strength of his personality. We are given a common man who single-handedly reminds the Eternals why life is worth fighting for. Karun is the heart of "Eternals." Simply put, he rules.