Eternals
The scores were trending downward, and I figured this would happen before the film was released. Eternals debuted in the bottom three of Marvel’s grand MCU move catalog when early reviews came out, but as more have come in, it is now not only the MCU’s worst-reviewed movie, but also the first to currently have a “Rotten” score on Rotten Tomatoes, unless more reviews dramatically reverse the current trajectory.
Eternals is currently sitting at a 58% with 144 reviews in. It was hovering at 60% for close to a week, but that represented a previous sharp drop down from a high of 75% at one point when fewer reviews were in. Usually, the more reviews come in for a film, the lower its scores, and so far, that’s been proven true with Eternals here.
Here’s how the star-studded Marvel film stands in the bottom 10 of the MCU right now:
- Eternals – 58%
- Thor: The Dark World – 66%
- The Incredible Hulk – 67%
- Iron Man 2 – 72%
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – 76%
- Thor – 77%
- Iron Man 3 – 79%
- Black Widow – 79%
- Captain Marvel – 79%
- Captain America: The First Avenger – 80%
There are only two Rotten-rated MCU properties in history, when you also include all its TV shows, Iron Fist (37%) and Inhumans (11%). Eternals could still sink lower, perhaps down to the low 50s, but that’s probably worst case right now, and I doubt it gets down to that level.
Eternals
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Many have said before that it’s really the audience score that matters, and we shouldn’t listen to the critics. Believe that if you will, but at least for the MCU, there are not usually wide gaps between audience score and critical score, unless you count a political flashpoint like Captain Marvel (79% critics to 45% audience). Eternals doesn’t seem likely to rile up the politics crowd, and the fact is, most MCU movies do not really have audience scores that are more than 5-7% away from the initial critic score. Instances like Venom (30% critics versus 81% audience) are exceedingly rare in the superhero space as a whole.
Granted, Marvel has a higher bar than most other movies, given that it’s kind of wild that this is the first rotten film in an entire 26 movie franchise. And that probably means it’s “just okay,” given the company it keeps. I know there are some out there who think Thor: The Dark World or Iron Man 2 have gotten a bad rap over the years, and now Eternals can be the new punching bag for a while.
The film is out in theaters this weekend so audiences will be able to make up their mind then. But it’s a whole lot of heroes introduced at once and not ones that anyone is really familiar with, outside of comic die-hards. We’ll keep an eye on the scores, but I would not expect things to settle in the “Fresh” category, given how much it has dropped already as more and more reviews have rolled in.
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