It might be a stretch to call Eternals polarizing, when it’s pretty black-and-white that fans and critics have completely opposing opinions on the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster.
After the first wave of positive reviews, the intergalactic epic quickly began sinking on Rotten Tomatoes, where it’s currently sitting on a 47% score. To put that into perspective, Thor: The Dark World held the previous MCU low at 66%, so it’s been deemed as the weakest installment in the series by far.
However, the audience rating places Eternals on 80%, which means that the general public have ranked it above franchise bedfellows including Iron Man 3, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, Captain America: The First Avenger and other titles that enjoyed a much more positive critical consensus.
Kevin Smith has now offered his measured thoughts on Eternals during the most recent edition of Fatman Beyond, where he praised the positives and highlighted the negatives of Chloe Zhao’s comic book blockbuster.
“Eternals I went to see while I was in Vancouver and you know, that’s one of those movies too that I was like ‘this movie doesn’t have to be as long as it is’. It’s a beautiful movie and Chloe is a far better director than I’ll ever be so this ain’t about that. It’s just it was chunky. Two and a half hours, you know. Bring it in, man. I just don’t understand. As a filmmaker, and not that I’ve ever had this choice, but I would rather give somebody like a non-stop 90-minute movie than a two-and-a-half-hour movie that lets people like, you know, their minds wander or something like that.”
Fans and critics are never going to be in complete agreement all of the time, but it’s nonetheless interesting to see just how wide the chasm is when it comes to Eternals. Given that the movie recently crossed $300 million at the box office, the chances of sequel remain high, and it should in theory be a much tighter operation now that the world-building is out of the way.
