...before the six Singularities and the dawn of creation, came the CELESTIALS. Arishem, the Prime Celestial, created the first sun and brought light into the universe. Life began, and thrived. All was in balance.
Until an unnatural species of predator emerged from deep space to feed on intelligent life — They were known as DEVIANTS. The universe was plunged into chaos.
To restore the natural order, Arishem sent ETERNALS — immortal heroes from the planet Olympia — to eliminate the Deviants. Eternals had unyielding faith in Arishem until one mission, led by the Prime Eternal, Ajak, changed everything...
A giant triangle-shaped ship makes orbit above the planet Earth. Within, ten Eternals awaken from Human Popsicle state and prepare to make landfall. In an action opener, they save a village from Deviants:
- Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), who has Super-Speed
- Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), the Technopath
- Thena (Angelina Jolie), the Action Girl with Spontaneous Weapon Creation
- Druig (Barry Keoghan), with the powers of Mass Hypnosis
- Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Power Fist
- Sprite (Lia McHugh), Master of Illusion
- Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), who can Hand Blast
- Ikaris (Richard Madden), Number Two and Superman Substitute
- Ajak (Salma Hayek), The Leader with Healing Hands
- Sersi (Gemma Chan), with the power of Transmutation
7,000 years later, Sersi is a professor at an English school; she arrives late, and the substitute teacher, Dane Whitman (Kit Harington), gratefully yields the floor to her. She teaches her students about biology, particularly the concept of an apex predator. There is an unexplained earthquake, allowing Sersi to demonstrate her power to transform inanimate matter when a giant fossil is jostled off the wall and almost squishes a kid.
That night is Dane's birthday party, and he renews his invitation to his girlfriend, Sersi, that she move in with him. When she declines, he asks if she's secretly a wizard — you know, like Doctor Strange. Additionally, Sprite, who lives with Sersi, has claimed interesting things, like that Sersi's ex-boyfriend can fly and dumped her a century ago.
As they walk home, they are menaced by a Deviant named Kro (voice of Bill Skarsgård). This is confusing to Sersi and Sprite, as they helped defeat the last one 500 years ago and have since been biding time on Earth waiting for orders from Arishem. Sersi and Sprite swing into action, but the Eternals team is a Combat and Support pairing and both of them are distinctly Support Party Members. The Big Damn Heroes of the situation is Ikaris, arriving with his powers of Flight and Eye Beams. The Deviant is driven off... but shows a Healing Factor, something no Deviant has ever displayed before. Sersi looks on as the boyfriend meets the ex.
Sersi explains the Back Story to Dane: the Eternals arriving in 5,000 BCE and witnessing human society ever since. However, there has been a strict Alien Non-Interference Clause: the Eternals have been free to stop Deviants, but not much else for fear of influencing human destiny. This doesn't mean they're not Famed In-Story: Dane draws the connection between Ikaris, the Superman Substitute, and the boy who flew too close to the sun
, with Sersi admitting that Sprite made that story up in classical Athens. The Eternals have Been There, Shaped History — which is why many of their names correspond to those of famous mythological figures. (Sersi herself gave rise to the character from Homer's Odyssey.)
The unprecedented global earthquakes and the return of the Deviants — who are hunting the Eternals now, not the humans they normally prey upon — seems like too much of a coincidence, and Ikaris, Sersi and Sprite decide to go find Ajak, who has made her home in South Dakota, America. Sersi spends the trans-atlantic flight in flashback mode, remembering how Phastos did in fact try to help the humans along (they weren't advanced enough for the steam engine, so he instead taught them how to make a plow), remembering how she and Ikaris fell in love and got married... Remembering Ajak's hesitation over her mission, believing that Humans Are Special. When they get to Ajak's house, all they find is her corpse: the first of the Eternals to perish. A little bauble pops out of Ajak and goes into Sersi: she is now The Leader, in direct contact with Arishem (voice of David Kaye). Arishem leaves only a cryptic communication that it is almost time. The others question whether she actually made contact with Arishem, citing "Mah'd W'yry" — a mental condition specific to Eternals in which their millennia of memories cause psychosis and hallucination. In a flashback, Thena becomes the first to exhibit it, attacking her teammates even as they attempt to track down the very last Deviant amidst the Spanish conquest of Latin America. After their success, Ajak dismisses the team, encouraging them to live their own lives and find their own purposes.
The Eternals travel to India, where they meet Kingo, who has transformed himself into a Bollywood star. His valet, Karun Patel (Harish Patel), accompanies them as they next track down Gilgamesh and Thena, helping to film Kingo's documentary about the Eternals and providing comic relief. Thena has been in the grip of Mah'd W'yry, claiming that all the citizens of Centura 6 are going to die — Gilgamesh describes Centura 6 as a planet which was shaken to bits by earthquakes. Sersi, confused, contacts Arishem, and gets the whole story:
- Arishem: It is a side effect of the Emergence. ... You were sent to Earth to help the birth of the celestial Tiamut. Every billion years, new Celestials must be born. I planted Celestial seeds into host planets across the universe. The planet Earth was chosen to host the celestial Tiamut. In order to grow, Tiamat needs vast amounts of energy from intelligent life forms. The Deviants prevented this by consuming humans... Until the Eternals eliminated them. Now, the human population of this planet has reached the required amount. It is time for the Emergence to begin.
He additionally explains the truth about the cycle: Deviants are also Celestial servants, sent to each planet to clear out whatever predators prey on the sentient life there. Unfortunately, Arishem admits, he lost control over them, creating the Celestials to rectify the problem. As to Mah'd W'yry, it is also an artifact of the cycle: while Sersi, and indeed all the Eternals, believe that their mission to Earth was their first one, the truth is that they are all Artificial Humans who have aided in the Emergences of multiple Celestials each. While Arishem reformats the Eternals' hard drives after every Emergence, Mah'd W'yry is those erased memories nonetheless coming back.
The Eternals confront the truth about themselves: the idea that, since they have been leading Earth towards a (literal) Earth-Shattering Kaboom, they are the bad guys. Stopping the Emergence means stopping the birth of a Celestial, one of the great shepherds of the universe; allowing it to go forward means the destruction of the only home any of them remember. They decide to hunt down Druig, Makkari and Phastos before making their decision.
Druig has taken over a little town in the Amazon rainforest, mind-controlling everyone there. After learning the truth — that he's an Action Bomb sent on a Suicide Mission — he shows very little interest in helping the other Eternals. Meanwhile, Sersi tries to get in touch with Dane (there's no reception out here), while Kingo equates Ikaris to Peter Pan... and Sprite to Tinkerbell, the child with the Unrequited Love for Peter. (Sprite's Facial Dialogue says his analysis is correct.) Meanwhile, the Deviants, led by the main one whose name is Kro, attack the compound. The Eternals kill all but Kro, but Kro kills Gilgamesh... and, afterwards, displays his Power Fist abilities
The remaining Eternals continue to agonize over what to do. Druig does not believe he can take over a Celestial's mind, so they turn to Phastos, who has formed a relationship with a human man and adopted a son. Phastos, who has seen the excesses of mankind's technology (IE Hiroshima and Nagasaki), first exhibits Refusal of the Call, but relents when he's reminded it's the only way to save his husband and son. They retreat to their original triangle-shaped starship, the Domo, where they find that Makkari has been hanging out waiting to go home. (Needless to say, she's a bit perturbed by the knowledge that there is no "home".) Once again, the Eternals split down the middle: Phastos is able to create a device, the "Unimind," which will allow the Eternals to combine their energy and supercharge Druig's mind-control abilities, but Sprite and Kingo show a lack of confidence in Sersi's leadership, believing that Asskicking Leads to Leadership and Ikaris should therefore have the command.
Ikaris, unbeknownst to them all, has already made up his mind. A flashback depicts how he consulted Ajak and, as her Number Two, learned the truth about the Emergence. He insisted that the Eternals complete their mission, while Ajak waffled:
- Ajak: Five years ago, Thanos erased half of the population of the universe. Delayed the Emergence. But the people of this planet brought everyone back with the snap of a finger. ... The cost of Arishem’s design, it’s not worth it.
This is why Ikaris took Ajak to the hiding place where Kro and his remaining Deviants had made a home, let them kill her, let them absorb her healing power, and left her corpse for others to find.
Ikaris turns on the other Eternals. Sprite chooses to go with him, and Kingo, trapped in indecision, simply chooses to Screw This, I'm Outta Here. Makkari locates the exact point of the Emergence, an active volcano in the Indian Ocean, and the Domo heads there to make a play.
While Phastos and Makkari try to hold out against Ikaris, Sersi and Druig try to climb the volcano. Sprite is able to use her powers of illusion to ambush Sersi, stabbing her, but is knocked out by a Tap on the Head from Druig. Phastos's technology subdues Ikaris, while Kro, lingering on the fringes, tries to jump the Eternals but is slain by Thena. Ikaris breaks free and tries to kill Sersi, but his hand is stayed by his love for her. He and Sprite surrender to the Unimind; it's not enough for Druig to put Tiamut back to sleep, but it is enough for Sersi to turn the Celestial into pure marble. Ikaris, in the face of his failure, leaves Earth and flies into the Sun. Sersi, still buzzing with the last of the Unimind's power, is able to transform Sprite from unaging Eternal into pure human, allowing the 7,000-year-old adolescent to finally begin to age.
Thena, Druig and Makkari decide to take the Domo out into space to warn other Eternals of what is going on. There, they meet another Eternal named Eros (Harry Styles), the brother of Thanos, and his herald Pip the Troll (voice of Patton Oswalt). Meanwhile, Sersi, Kingo and Phastos elect to remain on Earth. They are yoinked into space by Arishem, who decides not to punish them — for now — but promises retribution if humans turn out to not be worth it. This takes Sersi right out from under the nose of Dane, who was in the midst of confessing that his family turns out to have some weird secrets. Dane is shown approaching a cursed black sword, clearly a family heirloom, before being startled by an offscreen character (voice of Mahershala Ali), who questions whether Dane is truly ready to wield it...
