UPDATE: “Eternals” is now officially the worst-reviewed Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever. What a disaster for Chloe Zhao, whose intentions were no doubt admirable, but who got sucked into the Marvel/Disney vacuum with this one.
Based on all the footage I had seen, I wasn’t expecting Chloe Zhao’s “Eternals” to be as bad as it was. Coming off her “Nomadland” Oscar triumph, expectations were sky high in the hopes that it could go down as one of the better MCU movies.
However, I reported last Monday a not particularly enthusiastic reaction, having seen the film at an early press screening and bored to tears with it:
“A certain upcoming Marvel movie was screened for press this morning. There is currently an embargo on this film, which is directed by a recent Oscar winner and is a whopping 157 minutes in length. I had the misfortune of attending said press screening. I am no MCU fanatic, and not at all part of the targeted demographic for this one, but I’ve liked quite a few Marvel movies over the years. This one, well, it didn’t work at all for me. It’s a stinker. Then again, I’d be shocked if critics weren’t, at the very least, polite in their reviews for this one, for a variety of reasons. I just can’t see them bashing it, no matter how bad it may be. And, trust me, it is bad.”
Now that the embargo has lifted, it turns out that the film’s reviews are mixed-to-negative. “Eternals” has a 55 score on Metacritic, this places it slightly ahead of the worst reviewed MCU movies; “Thor: Dark World,” (52) “Iron Man 2,” (53) “Thor” (57). Meanwhile, over at Rotten Tomatoes “Eternals” (63%) is the second worst-reviewed MCU movie ever after “Thor: Dark World” (66%).
This has got to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year.