Things are looking pretty bad for Eternals right now. Critics are jumping all over it. I am really curious to see what is so bad about it since all the trailers look great. People seem to like the characters. Can critics just not comprehend a "dense" story?
Gonna be VERY interesting to see what happens on its opening weekend! When a low RT score lingers for a long time before release, it really hurts the movie in question. What helped Aladdin is the fact that the RT scores didn't start coming until the day of release. Then the audience scores followed IMMEDIATELY before many got a chance to see the RT score. The audience score for Aladdin was amazing so that helped to negate the RT score. This is not the case with Eternals. Confidence was SO high that they lifted the embargo so early.
After doing a lot of online reading, the hate for Eternals is coming from various different groups for different reasons. There isn't one factor contributing to its mixed reception.
From what I've observed:
1. Some critics and MCU fans say it feels too different from the MCU and more like a Chloe Zhao experiment.
2. Some critics are burnt out of the MCU and hate the franchise and feel the movie does NOT DO ENOUGH to differentiate itself from the MCU. These people would not be satisfied unless it completely abandoned the conventions of the genre (like having action sequences and a save the world plot).
3. Some feel it's too complicated and they didn't emotionally resonate with the film.
4. Some feel it's too bloated with its 157-minute runtime.
5. Some say the 157-minute runtime isn't nearly long enough to tell such a massive story.
6. Many critics have compared Eternals to a Zack Snyder DC film. While Snyder definitely has a cult following, his movies are often criticized by critics themselves.
7. When a movie is just "silly dumb fun" many critics will give it a pass because it at least made them laugh. Since Eternals aspired to be viewed as a serious Oscar contender tackling important themes, I think it is being held to a much higher standard than most MCU films. If you are going to be a serious movie, you have to really stick the landing and emotionally move the audience. For many critics, Eternals didn't succeed as the drama it tried to be.
8. Eternals has been praised by critics for its inclusive and diverse cast filled with women, people of color, a gay character and a deaf actress. However, we all know there is a large group of people who automatically are triggered when a movie is diverse and doesn't have a straight white male lead. The usual "go woke go broke" idiots on YouTube are probably going to have a field day trashing this movie and pandering to their racist and homophobic followers.
