DJariya

Running Time: 2 Hours, 37 Minutes

Rotten Tomatoes: 53% with 200 reviews as of 11/4/21

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/eternals

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Planning to see it tonight in IMAX

dex14

Eternals has two credits scenes, with one mid-credits and the other post-credits.

dex14

Man… I did not care for this one much at all.

Boring plot, dull characters, some pretty sketchy looking CG. The first time I can remember walking out of a Marvel movie and not wanting more. “Eternals will return…” No thanks.

This story feels more like it would’ve been serviced better as a series.

at Kit Harrington’s role. I know he’ll eventually be Black Knight… but just a lame introduction.

Harry Styles.

TGM

MCU getting cocky thinking they can make every fringe character a mega hit movie.

I have little interest in this... will eventually watch it, maybe on Disney +, but I wouldn't be crushed if it bombs, and some of these other movies bomb which forces the MCU brass to eventually bring back some of the major characters... I'm looking at you Tony Stark.

ddrknghtrtns

Ouch!

dex14

I appreciate that they are willing to try something different. Sometimes it works well... like WandaVision... sometimes it doesn't. To me, this did not need to be a $200mil feature film. It is a dense story and I think it would've been more digestible as a 6 episode series where the characters could've been more fleshed out and it also could've shown them more in the past.

TomOpus

And I was thinking of seeing this tomorrow. Guess not.

GoldenJCJ

Agreed. I’ve made it known that I’m fairly burned out on the MCU but I’m all for them at least trying something new. Maybe it will hit, maybe it won’t but at least it’ll be something a little different. The MCU has played it safe over the last few years, so much so that the cookie cutter movies have become extremely forgettable.

My only concern if this bombs is that Marvel will want to play it safe again and in turn we’ll get more dispensable mediocrity like Captain Marvel.

Dr. DVD

Caught this tonight and it's....mostly boring and lifeless. It started out with lots of promise and a pretty interesting story involving immortals living amongst people throughout history, but the back and forth stuff got old quick. While they were obviously trying to be different, it felt as though Zhao was making one movie and then the Marvel brass came to her with the usual MCU film checklist (shout out to other entries, CGI battle in third act, tease future movies) and she had to make changes, resulting in a mess of a movie. Also, the movie looked really dark and dreary. Reminded me a lot of a DCU film in that regard.

What's amusing is that almost all of the positive reviews on Twitter contain the phrase "F#$k the critics!". I guess showing support for a $200 million movie financed by a huge corporate entity is now a way of sticking it to the man?

The Questyen

I've never been more baffled by a critical response to a Marvel movie than this one. This is a top-tier Marvel movie and the best directed of any of the MCU films so far.

DJariya

Just got out of a near full IMAX showing. I liked it. . This isn't really a super hero movie. It's more like mythology driven cosmic science fiction. I personally didn't think it was boring and the audience I was with seemed pretty engaged. There was a good mix of humor as well. The ensemble cast was good, especially Gemma Chan who was really the lead of it. I was a little surprised by the heel turn of Madden's character Ikarus. I did think it was weird and cowardly that he just decided to commit suicide flying into the sun.

If I had to critique something I didn't particularly like the CG Deviant characters. They just looked too much like animated characters.

Overall I gave it 4 out of 5. But I know not everyone is going to like this. It's very different from the usual MCU stuff we're used to. I don't know who that character was in the first post credit scene.

The end said The Eternals will return and considering how it ended I guess they hope for a sequel.

Mondo Kane

This.

Especially during the fight-scene in The Amazon. Almost total darkness there.

I bought Icarus' loyalty to Arishem, but I thought Sprite's turn was awfully odd. Maybe there were ideas to originally mirror a Magento/Mystique alliance like in the end of First Class, but it sure didn't work here at all.
I also wasn't expecting Brian Tyree Henry to be the surprise winner in the cast. Loved the character & performance. Another thing I loved: Floyd's "TIME" on the Marvel logo. That one isn't going to be topped anytime soon.

On a nostalgic note, one of the first comics that got me into loving Marvel was Spidey #270 and what a trip it is to have 2 characters from this cover make their debut in this film!

Perkinsun Dzees

F' the critics!

Yeah, this is no Wonder Woman 1984. Chloe Zhao knows what she's doing and she does it well. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I don't get all the criticism about the overload of exposition and the lack of action and appealing characters. Aside from the opening crawl and the big exposition dump when Arishem explains everything to Sersi about the Eternals and Deviants (and yeh, Arishem was a little hard to understand at times), I thought that the background info about the story and characters was parceled out in an unobtrusive manner that didn't cause scenes to grind to a halt. The characters and their personalities were effectively differentiated from one another and it was made clear as the movie went on that they each had different powers and what those powers were. They were some great action sequences that were smartly placed at intervals when the pacing was starting to drag. The only drawback was that a couple of them took place in awfully dark settings where it was a little too hard to make out was happening.

Yes, the movie is overly long and does fall victim to some of the usual comic book movie cliches. The final buildup to the climactic battle was stretched out to the breaking point and the denouement took its dear sweet time, but I didn't mind all the jumping back and forth between time periods as Zhao managed to keep the plot moving forward without dwelling too much in the past. The visuals were outstanding, the performances were all very solid to excellent and there was some real emotional depth to the storyline that most MCU movies usually struggle with.

This actually reminded me a bit of Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen - another epic time-jumping fantasy about bringing the old gang back together for one last great battle. Eternals is obviously far more serous-minded than Gilliam's comedic movie, but both projects share the same type of wildly ambitious approach to genre filmmaking that may feel bloated and unwieldy at times, but more often than not is a welcome respite to the cookie-cutter formula of so many Hollywood blockbusters.

Perkinsun Dzees

I suppose he was just carrying out his destiny, as the Icarus of mythology died when he flew too close to the sun.

ViewAskewbian

Count me as one of the people who don't quite get what the critics are on about. This movie was fantastic. Visually stunning, for starters, and entrenched in a deeper mythology then we've seen so far. The acting was fantastic and the action set pieces great. But, to me, it was about the myth and backstory being created. And, yeah, I loved it because it was different. Still a MARVEL movie, sure, but not the run of the mill origin story even if they did work in a quirky sidekick character

I also loved the diversity in the film.

I'm interested in what this might be setting up and hope MARVEL doesn't backpedal because of bad reviews. Most of what I saw on TWITTER on my way home were people who enjoyed the film as well.

As for the post credits, I didn't get them save for PIP (Patton Oswalt in the MCU!). I had to look up the Thanos brother backstory as well as the guy with the sword but, hey, more new characters to expand upon.

The most shocking things about the film were:
-the sex scene (saw some parents in the theatre squirm)
and
-the name dropping of Batman and Superman

dex14

People seem to think the voice calling out to Dane (Black Knight) is Mahershala Ali as Blade.

But no squirming at the gay couple? How far we've come, America!

DJariya

I know homosexuality is basically a taboo topic in the Middle East. But, I don't see anything to be outraged about here causing the movie to be banned there. Yes, Phastos was in a same sex relationship, but all he did was kiss his partner in a goodbye scene when he went off with Ikaris and Sersi. I don't know why that whole aspect deserved a banning in that region?

ViewAskewbian

To be honest, I didn't look around during the kiss. It was quick and I certainly have no issue with same sex couple representation. The sex scene went on longer preceded by a long kiss and, frankly, it was the thrusting that had me see others reactions. Again, I have no issue with this but was just more than a MARVEL/Disney movie has shown....until Deadpool 3?

ViewAskewbian

I also founding it jarring every time Kit Harrington said Cersei

ViewAskewbian

Another thing I enjoyed about the film was how they established that these characters were not safe in killing some off. I didn't expect that and figured the entire team would remain in tact.

My question, with characters THIS powerful (like more so then Captain Marvel and Thor), what could they possible bring in as an overall Thanos type threat to the MCU?

Galactus? Multiple Celestials?

Dr. DVD

I think this may have been a bit better if they had just straight up done a movie in its own universe instead of trying to throw in MCU references. The mood just didn't fit the mold and while I can admire that, it felt weird when they tried to cram in the normal MCU stuff towards the end. I don't see why people are saying this had great FX. It was good, but typical CGI you see everywhere nowadays, especially the "Deviants" who looked below average IMO. I also felt it kind of worked against the movie that they had so many actors already established in other properties. Harrington and Madden both sharing a scene was pretty hard to not find distracting, Jolie seemed bored and just collecting a paycheck, and Kamail was doing his normal comedian schtick for the most part.

Perkinsun Dzees

One thing I found rather refreshing and unexpected in the finale was that after Kingo bailed on the group, he didn't 'magically' reappear during the end battle sequence to save somebody's life in the nick of time and join the battle. We've seen in so many movies before the cliche scene where a character bails on his buddies just before the end fight takes place and then just as things are getting desperate for the heroes, he suddenly reappears to heroically save the day. Since Kingo doesn't have the power of flight, it makes sense that he couldn't magically show up at the battle at the end. Once he left, he was gone.

ViewAskewbian

Yeah, I totally thought they were setting up a Han Solo moment there and was happy they stuck with him out of the end battle.

Brack

This was only okay for me. Probably my least favorite MCU movie. It was just a mess. Boring characters, jokes that fell flat almost all the time, deviants looked just lazy in design. It was just way too uneven for me. One flashback didn’t even tell you it was a flashback until after an action sequence in said time, who does that? I think there were some neat ideas sprinkled throughout but I just didn’t care for the execution. I hope Kevin Feige gets it together, because I didn’t especially love Shang Chi either.

fujishig

That's weird (haven't seen the movie yet so this is probably my last post in this thread for a while), since at least in the comics they established that one of the reasons they're called Eternals is because the machine can bring them back from death. But heck considering this is the same universe where Asgardians are regularly used as fodder, not surprising.