Marvel’s Eternals Has Hit A Disappointing Record For Marvel Movies
Ouch. Marvel's Eternals has set an unfortunate record.
This article is more than 2 years old
The Rotten Tomatoes critic reviews are in for Eternals. Unfortunately, they aren’t very good. With a score of only 64%, Marvel’s ambitious Phase Four project has hit a disappointing record as the lowest-rated Marvel movie on the platform so far, falling just below 2013’s Thor: The Dark World and its 66% rating.
In general, the reviews are all over the place with most agreeing that Eternals is a massive swing for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Some folks think that there’s a lot going on in the story. Others feel like it might lose the audience as it tries to explain the extensive backstory. However, reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are often just a reference point for fans and rarely affect the wider success of a movie.
In 2018, Venom earned a horrific critic rating of just 30% but was revived by an 81% audience rating. It was also a massive success at the global box office, so Marvel fans shouldn’t be too dissuaded about going to see Eternals. Chloe Zhao isn’t worried about any scores on her movie. She told the story that she wanted to tell and there will probably be a sequel at some point.
In an interview with The Playlist, the Eternals director said the best part about making this movie is its close ties to the origin of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So as it stands this story is going to have a big impact on the MCU going forward. “We got to play and do whatever we wanted to make a strong standalone film and leave everything on the table,” Zhao told the publication. The director also said she’d be back in a second working with the team at Marvel for sure for a sequel.
Eternals will be the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was directed by Chloé Zhao who wrote the screenplay with Patrick Burleigh, Ryan Firpo, and Kaz Firpo. The film stars an ensemble cast including Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie.
The story is set when the return of half the population in Avengers: Endgame ignites “the emergence”. This means, the Eternals – an immortal alien race created by the Celestials who have secretly lived on Earth for over 7,000 years – have to reunite to protect humanity from their evil counterparts, the Deviants. For anyone not familiar with comic book lore, the movie fits right in with the original story. The only difference is the gender-swapped characters (like Salma Hayek’s Ajak) which will have no bearing on the plot.
Created by Jack Kirby, The Eternals made their Marvel comics debut in 1976’s The Eternals #1. The story follows a fictional race of humanoids, described as an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth. The original instigators of this process, the alien Celestials, wanted the Eternals to be the defenders of Earth. This leads to the inevitability of war against their destructive counterparts.
Marvel’s Eternals will hit theaters worldwide on November 5th.
