Blu Tuesday: “Eternals” and More

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping.

Pick of the Week: “Eternals”

After Chloé Zhao took home the Best Director prize at last year’s Academy Awards, Marvel fans were excited to see what she could bring to the MCU with her unique directorial style. Unfortunately, the final product is an incredibly mixed bag that doesn’t bode well for the future of the titular characters within the larger cinematic universe. While it boasts an undeniably great cast, none of the Eternals are particularly well defined. Angelina Jolie gets surprisingly little to do considering she’s the biggest name on the call sheet; Richard Madden is painfully dull as the film’s leading man; and although Gemma Chan turns in good work as Sersei, her character arc isn’t very interesting. Kumail Nanjiani and Harish Patel add some nice comic relief, but it’s simply not enough to make up for the largely uninspired action sequences (save for the final showdown) and a messy, convoluted plot that doesn’t really connect to the greater MCU in any meaningful way. “Eternals” isn’t nearly as bad as its reputation suggests — in fact, there’s plenty of good to be found within its bloated 157-minute runtime — but it’s without a doubt one of the weaker Marvel films to date.

Extras include an audio commentary by Zhao and visual effects supervisors Stephane Ceretti and Mårten Larsson, as well as a behind-the-scenes featurette, cast interviews, deleted scenes and a gag reel. FINAL VERDICT: RENT

Also Out This Week:

“Heels: The Complete First Season” — A television drama about the pro wrestling industry has been long overdue, but this Starz series about a struggling, family-owned wrestling promotion in small-town Georgia is a bit of a dud. The stakes are far too low and the characters are far too one-dimensional to truly care about anything that happens over the course of the first season. This is a show that wants you to believe that some rinky-dink wrestling league is eating up hours and hours of its main character’s life when the scripts that he’s meticulously crafting sound like something that a teenager could write while on the toilet. Additionally, the central relationship between Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig’s rival brothers is even more hackneyed than the typical pro wrestling narrative, while the show’s slow-burn pacing doesn’t have much of a payoff. Though there’s reason to believe that “Heels” could improve further down the line, it’s not worth the investment to get there. FINAL VERDICT: SKIP

Disclosure: Bullz-Eye was provided a copy of the above titles for review purposes.