Death Stranding director Hideo Kojima shared his thoughts on Marvel's Eternals, offering a middling review of the movie's "distorted" take on the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Kojima, who is also famed for his work on the Metal Gear franchise, posted photos on Twitter from his screening of Eternals, the newest addition to the MCU from Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao. Kojima captioned the photos with his takeaways from the movie, starting by calling the Eternals film "a distorted take on the MCU, but not a bad one. The birth and extinction of worlds, fate and connection. It's not about the catharsis of crushing evil, but about their struggles and choices."
While Kojima shared a largely positive impression of Eternals' story and themes, highlighting the movie's big ideas and its focus on its character work, he followed up with some criticisms. The seasoned game director went on to point out issues he observed at a technical level, primarily with the movie's lighting and cinematography.
"The Eternals are backlit from beginning to end, and even the closer cuts cast strong shadows on their faces," Kojima wrote. "The colors are colorful, but the tone is subdued."
While Kojima had plenty of broad thoughts about Eternals' wealth of new characters, only one Eternal received mention in his review. Kojima's photo set included an image of a keychain and promotional material featuring Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani) and added "my father's name is also Kingo," to punctuate his review.
Kojima has a history of using his Twitter account to share his thoughts on the latest superhero movies. Earlier this year, Kojima praised Zack Snyder's Justice League upon its launch on HBO Max, calling the release of the movie's four-hour extended cut "justice" for its director. Like with Eternals, his Justice League review also highlighted character work and cinematography, praising the expanded roles for The Flash and Cyborg and complimenting the Snyder cut's color correction and aspect ratio.
The game director's thoughts aptly reflected Eternals' largely mixed critical reception. The movie currently holds a 47% aggregate review score on Rotten Tomatoes, making it the first "rotten" film in the MCU and the worst-reviewed film overall in the 26-movie saga. While critics have praised Eternals for its scale, visuals and storytelling, they have criticized the film for its lengthy runtime, cumbersome ambitions and reliance on harmful tropes. CBR's own Brandon Zachary agreed, calling Eternals Marvel's "most ambitious film yet," but also said the result was "a heady standout that lands like an unwieldy entry in the superhero genre."
Despite the movie's controversial reception, Eternals exceeded its expectations at the box office. The latest MCU entry brought in $71 million in North America over its opening weekend and $161.7 million worldwide, making it the second-largest worldwide opening in the era of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
To see how Kojima's review relates to the film, check out Eternals in theaters now.
Source: Twitter