Marvel’s Eternals has finally hit theatres this weekend, and it’s…all over the place. Moreso than MCU movies typically are, I mean. Critics who saw the film early haven’t really been all that enthused with it, even as they respect that director Chloé Zhao tried her best to keep her Oscar-winning direction while operating within the massive Marvel machinery. Our own review thought that it was a film both incredibly ambitious and also restrained from the fact that it’s another arm of the ever-growing MCU megafranchise. The result has been a movie widely publicized as the lowest rated MCU film yet on Rotten Tomatoes at 48%.
It’s faring better with audiences at 84%, however; or rather, audiences who aren’t just boosting MCU content all the time on Twitter. While viewers also agree that yeah, this is maybe taking some big swings that feel at odds with how Marvel’s operated thus far, it’s got a pretty good cast and is well directed most of the time. The moments where the film excels and all of its pieces come together are equal to the amount of times it frustrates because it isn’t as weird as it could be and features dodgy CG or villains that don’t feel like they need to be here for the movie to succeed.
Time will tell if the Eternals take off the way other MCU newbies like Shang-Chi or Yelena Belova have in terms of financials. There’s no doubt we’ll be seeing these characters again — you don’t have two post-credits scenes if you’re just planning a one and done — but in the form of another film or a Disney+ series remains to be seen.