Why Eternals' Early Reviews Are So Mixed

Early reviews of Marvel’s Eternals have been mixed so far, with the film ending up just a few points shy of a Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and garnering similar reception elsewhere. The latest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe tells the story of the titular Eternals, a group of immortal, superpowered beings who have guided humanity in secret for millennia and must come out of hiding to protect the world from evil alien lifeforms known as Deviants. The basic premise makes for a potentially great film, but not all critics have been in agreement about that.

Delays in production and release aside, the MCU’s Phase 4 movies have received good critical reception so far with both Black Widow (79%) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (92%). Eternals doesn’t have a negative reception by any means, but with a score of 71% at the time of writing, it stands out as the only MCU film to not be Certified Fresh since Thor: The Dark World (66%) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (76%), two films that are still largely regarded as two of the weakest films of the MCU. That’s not the best comparison for a film such as this one to draw.

While reception to Marvel's new superhero film Eternals hasn’t been overwhelmingly positive, it hasn’t been overwhelmingly negative, either, and critics have found a lot to praise it for. For many people, Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao was able to create a beautiful film with an endearing cast — and a notably diverse one, at that — that adds something completely new to the MCU. Here are a few positives people had about Eternals:

Screen Rant:

“Overall, the film was given the monumental task of introducing ten completely new characters to the MCU and developing them enough to ensure audiences would root for them all - and Zhao deftly pulls it off… It's a Marvel movie unlike anything the MCU has seen thus far.”

The Wrap:

“The performances do their jobs, too, especially when, outside the regulation superhero pantomiming. Zhao’s compassionate gaze requires something extra, for love, destiny, the planet, everything… But what makes “Eternals” feel special is that, for once, the director genuinely cares as much about the character within that spectacle, as the spectacle itself.”

Nerdist:

“With the magnificent Eternals, Zhao joins Ryan Coogler and Taika Waititi in the realm of MCU directors who have managed to bring something new to the bombastic superhero world. In Zhao’s case, she’s created a truly international roster of heroes, each and every one a joy. But she’s also taken Kirby’s expansive and experimental sci-fi concepts and brought them to the screen in a way we’ve never seen. If the MCU can foster the weirdness and beauty that Zhao has worked so hard to bring, we’ll be lucky.”

Observer:

“This is a film that asks on a grand scale questions we grapple with every day. How do we navigate and understand difference? Why do we value humanity so much when humans often do not seem to value each other?”

The Hollywood Reporter:

“It was probably unrealistic to expect Chloé Zhao, independent film’s foremost spiritual chronicler of the American West and an Oscar winner for Nomadland, to completely reinvent the superhero movie. Nevertheless, Eternals does bend the ubiquitous fantasy genre to some degree to fit the director’s customary vein of humanistic intimacy measured against an expansive natural-world canvas. The attention to character, group dynamics and emotional texture makes the film often feel more alive in its quieter moments than its fairly routine CG action clashes. But the depth of feeling helps counter the choppy storytelling in this new tangent in the MCU narrative.”

Zhao’s Eternals was able to win people over with a combination of visual spectacle, a highly-developed and well-written cast, and a story that takes the MCU to places previous entries hadn’t dared to approach. In that regard, watching the film means that a person gets everything that would be expected from the director of Best Picture winner Nomadland, and then some. That being said, it’s undeniable that there was a fair amount of mixed to negative reviews of the film, and this is what some of them had to say:

CBR:

“Eternals has too many balls in the air for any director to catch them all; although, Zhao's work with cinematographer Ben Davis makes it a sight to behold while they try. The cast members are all welcomed additions to the grand tapestry of the MCU. It's just a shame it couldn't find a way to trim just a bit of the fat from the story. It could have been a stone-cold classic instead of a heady standout that lands like an unwieldy entry in the superhero genre.”

Los Angeles Times:

“The longer it goes on, however, and the more it explains itself, the less these free-will-obsessed characters seem to evince any agency of their own… You walk out in the depressing realization that you’ve just seen one of the more interesting movies Marvel will ever make, and hopefully the least interesting one Chloé Zhao will ever make.”

USA Today:

“Zhao’s included so many Marvel firsts and important diversity elements – a sexual encounter (albeit PG-rated), Makkari's inclusion as a deaf superhero, a gay family being an important part of Phastos’ story – yet each only gets so much screen time before the story moves on to something else.”

Guardian:

“It’s not exactly boring – there’s always something new to behold – but nor it is particularly exciting, and it lacks the breezy wit of Marvel’s best movies.”

Daily Telegraph:

“It’s constantly engaged in a kind of grit-toothed authenticity theatre, going out of its way to show you it’s doing all the things proper cinema does, even though none of them bring any discernible benefit whatsoever to the film at hand.”

Based on all of this, it appears that the grand scale and scope of the film ended up becoming a double-edged sword of sorts. It’s great to see an MCU film go so far with its story and characters, but at the same time, it ends up dragging things out to the point of becoming a slog to sit through, and in the film’s attempt at adding so many new elements and ideas to the MCU, it ends up not giving a lot of them enough time to be fully developed. That sort of result isn’t unexpected when one considers its Eternals' lengthy runtime of nearly three hours, but it’s still disappointing, to say the least.

All in all, Eternals is proving itself to be a divisive entry into the MCU. Critics have sung its praises for its diverse and well-written cast and the grand scale of the story, but they’ve also admonished it for not doing enough with said cast and for both dragging out said story for too long and not doing enough with it - which is not the most ideal dichotomy of opinions for a film such as this to have.

More: MCU Recap: Which Marvel Movies To Watch To Understand Eternals