Undoubtedly, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a testament to moviemaking all throughout the global industry, It is a comprehensive and interconnected universe with characters from all walks of life. Now, the MCU is pushing the envelope on all of their established tropes with their latest release. Eternals boasts a diverse cast of characters who are supposed to be autonomous robots created by the Celestials to eradicate the deviants. We saw the movie and we think that it was ground-breaking in terms of the things that Zhao is trying to achieve and yet the Critic reviews of this movie are horrible. Here is why the critics are wrong about Eternals.
Eternals is not your average MCU movie. Up until now, Marvel Studios has followed the simple formula laid out by Disney where they don’t deal with heavy-handed topics such as physical intimacy and the LGBTQ+ movement. But this approach has changed in recent years, most notably after the release of Black Widow. Marvel gave us the first movie with a female protagonist and now they have given us something new. They have given us our first openly gay superhero in Phastos, the on-screen representation of Dementia with Thena, and the first deaf superhero with Makkari.
The Fans appreciate this representation but it seems that the critics cannot take it. They have instead, chosen to review bomb Eternals. Review bomb is the practice of giving negative reviews to a movie in bulk before its release. This is done to discourage the audiences from watching the movie and to discourage the filmmakers from making such films. But there is more to this review bomb than meets the eye. Let us break it down for you.
The Critics are Wrong About Eternals
There are a ton of 1-star reviews for Eternals online. But the most interesting part of these one-star reviews is that almost all of them mention the gay kiss. After getting this news Kumail Nanjiani tweeted, “Looks like we’re upsetting the right people.” That is correct Kunal, it seems that the critics do not want to make fresh content. It seems like they want the same old formula rehashed again and again without much change. But the audiences are much more intelligent than the critics give us credit for.
Just look at the audience score on rotten tomatoes if you don’t believe us. While the critic’s score is 51%, the audience score is 85%+ which means that the movie is certified fresh. This is despite the review bomb. It also signifies that audiences have long since forgotten the bad reviews and want to make up their own minds about the movie. The reason for the review bo,b seems to be the new things that Eternals is doing. We admit the main problem with Eternals is that the movie is not paced for typical MCU viewers. The reason for this is that Zhao is not your typical MCU director.
The movie is not supposed to be fun or jittery like the guardians of the galaxy. It isn’t even supposed to be funny, although the script does shoehorn some unnecessary jokes. The movie is supposed to be about character exploration. It may have some pacing issues when you try to look at like like a fluff piece because the movie has no fluff. In all honesty, it is an exercise in character development and that has been pulled off beautifully by Zhao. Even though the movie has 10 Eternals to showcase there is a clear three-act separation between their actions.
The Subtle Art
Even with someone like Phastos who has the least screentime in the movie you can identify the transition from naivety to cold indifference to redemption. That is the beauty of Eternals, it is not a sequence of jokes, neither it is inconsequential. It is not even dramatic. This is a movie where we only know the characters and we know their motivations, the rest of the story just naturally happens. It is truly inspiring to see such a movie in the MCU.
We only hope that future directors in the MCU will take a page from Zhao’s book and try to weave in complex narratives into their storylines. The Critics are wrong about Eternals because they seem to be incapable of looking at the big picture. We are sad to see that this is the case. What do you think about the Eternals review bomb? Let us know in the comments below.
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