WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Eternals, now in theaters
By now, everyone on Earth (including the partially emerged, frozen body of Tiamat himself) has probably heard that Eternals is officially the first "rotten" movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. At present, the film has a tomato meter score of 48 percent, and a narrative has been put forth that the latest installment of the MCU is an ambitious failure. But that green splat and the conventional wisdom that goes along with it don't tell the whole story.
First, it's useful to understand what that low score actually represents. Rotten Tomatoes is an aggregator of critical responses, and even though it provides a percentage (in this case, a failing one), by categorizing films as either fresh or rotten, it's more binary in nature than any individual reviews are apt to be. Even critics who are sour on Eternals have padded their nitpicking with praise for director Chloé Zhao's big swings. Curiously, the audience's score is about twice as high as that of critics, which -- combined with its impressive box office -- suggests the general public found a lot more to like.
Part of the disconnect might have to do with expectations. Zhao is the reigning Best Picture and Best Director winner for last year's Nomadland. She's as esteemed and creatively risky a choice to helm a Marvel movie as the studio has ever made, and critics were anticipating that her involvement would elevate Eternals above standard MCU fare. However, Nomadland made about 40 million dollars compared to Avengers: Endgame's 2.8 billion. The Venn diagram of critics that have seen both is very different from the Venn diagram of moviegoers that have seen both. Surely millions of Marvel fans went to see Eternals having never heard of Chloé Zhao, expecting little more than another enjoyable chapter of the MCU.
And that's exactly what Eternals is, for the most part. Let's get back to the idea that Eternals is overly ambitious. In some capacities, it is. Zhao had the unenviable task of introducing 11 new main characters and a whole new universe-affecting plotline to the MCU, without the luxury of any of it having been established in prior films. But that's not entirely Zhao's fault; it's Marvel Studios' and Disney's if there's fault to be found at all. Judging from the fact that most people who've seen Eternals can easily keep the characters, their powers, their motivations and the storyline straight, it seems like Zhao delivered. The reaction to many of the characters (Druig, Makkari, Phastos, Kingo and Thena, in particular) has been largely positive, with both critics and audiences wanting to see more, which is a good sign for the first film in a series.
In other capacities, Eternals isn't much different or more interested in pushing boundaries than other MCU films. Superhero movies require some suspension of disbelief and generally speaking, this has been afforded to other entries in the franchise without much complaint. Fans are willing to wave away concerns about quantum physics, time travel and space politics so long as they're having fun watching what's on-screen. Eternals handles its plot holes and sci-fi nonsense at least as well as the average MCU movie. Its twists pay off as well, and its themes are as deep as any given viewer wants them to be. Someone could interpret that Eternals (like Nomadland) is about trying to preserve one's dignity, integrity and autonomy when it seems like there are only bad choices left available, while others may watch just to see if the good guys (and girls) save the world again.
Eternals has been unfavorably compared to Guardians of the Galaxy, and it is the closest comparison. James Gunn had to go in cold with new characters, locations and plots, all from less commercially popular source material. Guardians impressed because it nailed its offbeat buddy comedy, but that's not what Eternals was going for. Zhao has said she wanted to make something inspired by the idea of ancient aliens with an east/west feel that was both epic and intimate in its scope. Tonally speaking, she accomplished what she set out to do. So what explains the harsher-than-usual reception? Some have posited that, because the film is diverse, LGBTQ+ friendly and made by a woman of color, a portion of the population was predisposed to dislike it. But that's hardly the sole reason for the negative critical consensus.
What really keeps Eternals from being top-tier Marvel is that it's something we don't see very often: an otherwise good movie with a few bad scenes. So much of the movie does work that its hard not to wonder what might have been with maybe one more edit. There are problems typical of the genre, with its protagonists being a little boring compared to its supporting players, and there are far too many establishing shots of the team assembling. But two scenes are so off in their taste level that, for some, they might spoil the whole pot.
Of more consequence to the story is the moment when Sersi learns the truth from Arishem. It plays like exposition 101, and with a whole team of writers involved, someone could've devised a more dramatically compelling way to get that information across. The worse offender, however, is the scene in which Phastos pays a visit to Hiroshima immediately after the atomic bomb has leveled the city and literally screams, "What have I done?" Even if Zhao and company wanted to comment on humanity's ability to use technology responsibly, the decision to insert fictional superheroes into what is arguably the most apocalyptic event in human history is, at best, wildly insensitive.
Still, those two scenes only account for a few minutes of more than two and a half hours of run time. It's possible that, for critics, they were dealbreakers when it came time to decide if Eternals was rotten or fresh, but they may have been less of a problem for audiences, for whom Eternals is, comfortingly, mostly more of the same.
To decide for yourself, Eternals is in theaters now.