One of the most ballsy moves by the multibillion-dollar franchise that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe was greenlighting Eternals, a truly unknown comic book series. The film didn’t perform spectacularly, but fans are still wound up by its poor reception.
Released to a middling 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the poorest reviewed film of the entire MCU, Eternals has struggled for recognition within its own universe, let alone from critics or fans. Despite definitely having some good ideas, it’s fair to say the average theatergoer didn’t get much out of it.
Fans are wondering why, with many taking up arms to defend the film on the Marvel Studios subreddit.
Some of the defenders do seem to preface their defenses by saying “it wasn’t amazing” but “good enough”. Curiously, one commenter believes the flip-flop reception is because Chloe Zhao’s involvement is not being sold correctly to audiences. Calling Eternals “too artsy” is rather humorous though.
On the other side though, critics of the film have boldly said that just because something is different, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Bit of an essay here, but well articulated. Comparing it to Batman v Superman though, that’s a ballsy thing to say.
Others are still utterly baffled by Harry Styles showing up in the film as Thanos’s brother, but somehow not being purple. Something has gone very wrong there.
Eternals wasn’t without good ideas though, and fans do appeeciate the new ideas, albeit not everything sticks. Ten characters being introduced in the film perhaps wasn’t the cleanest idea. Did people seriously understand all the Eternals and their personalities by the end of the film?
Eternals is currently available to stream on Disney Plus.