The latest set of superheroes to be added to the Marvel pantheon are aptly godlike. The Eternals – 10 of them for the purpose of the new mo...

The latest set of superheroes to be added to the Marvel pantheon are aptly godlike. The Eternals – 10 of them for the purpose of the new movie and more as promised by the mid-credits and post-credits sequences – have protected humankind for millennia. Babylon, Hiroshima and even the Gupta period: the Eternals have been present through good times and bad, keeping a balance between humankind, their own creators known as the Celestials, and the malevolent aliens known as the Deviants. A crisis forces the Eternals scattered across the world to reunite and reassess their relationship with the Celestials and their adversaries.
Indian viewers may get a kick from the marigold wedding, the Eternal named Kingo (who is apparently some kind of a Hindi movie star, although he can barely hold his own on the dance floor), and Harish Patel as Kingo’s Hindi-spouting “valet” (we would have called him a manager).
There’s also a touch of Bollywood to the family-above-all-else theme. The 155-minute Eternals has been directed by Chloe Zhao, beaming herself into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after an Oscar for the gritty road movie Nomadland. Zhao, who is also among the several writers, can...