Not that I particularly care about critical consensus, but that is interesting to me that this movie is apparently that divisive.
I really like Zhao’s work, but a lot of Marvel films do not get these reviews. We can’t fully blame Zhao, but we also can’t fully blame Marvel. I personally think Zhao would have fit better with some other Marvel projects. The ambition of this film just doesn’t allow much breathing room for Zhao.
I’m not the biggest marvel fan and I didn’t really give a shit to see most (any?) of the post endgame movies but I’m still pretty interested in this even with the bad reviews. A lot of the MCU movies that I thought were bland and boring as hell got great reviews so I can’t say I’m on the same page anyway.
The concept of Eternals is still something that intrigues me. Most of the negatives I’ve been reading are things I previously had concerns over anyway. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t watch Shang-Chi.
As a massive comic fan, Eternals is and was the biggest gamble as they’ve never really been a series of prominence or major interest. There have been attempts over the years to make them “a thing”, but its never stuck, and the most beloved run was more about Jack Kirby Drawing Awesome Things than anything else, which makes the muted, though visually arresting palate of the movie an odd choice. In short, this was gonna be a divisive one no matter what.
I'd also add that Nomadland was a divisive movie in spite of its Best Film win. I'm still gonna watch this but I'm adjusting my expectations in light of the reviews.
Introducing 10 new superheroes is quite a lot. Perhaps introducing half of the team and fleshing them out would have been better. The rest of the team could have joined in sequels.
I think the discussion hits the nail on the head. This is a movie that is very much at odds with itself. I think in terms of visuals and tone, it’s the most unique live action Marvel in a long, long time. There are some good performances, like Bryan Tyree Henry, Angelina Jolie when she gets to show some personality and Lauren Ridloff. There’s very little “……so that happened”-type humor (the humor overall is mainly Kumail and all of it is the clunkiest, most unfunny stuff.) There’s also, for a more than two a half hour movie, a surprising lack of focus. It jumps back and forth between current day and hundreds to thousands of years ago with multiple characters at random. There’s a character twist that is pretty obvious and dumb. It does the dumb “Man of Steel” thing where a bunch of immortal people just punch the shit out of each other, even though they’re not going to die. My big problem is most of these characters are tough to connect to because the movie doesn’t let them be actual people. They’re always too busy talking about the dense lore of the movie or getting in a big fight with the monsters. I hope Zhao doesn’t shoulder the blame because this has her kind of touches of being beautiful-looking, long and weepy, which Marvel thankfully didn’t erase. But she also has to shoehorn in the Marvel-ness of it all and it just doesn’t fit.
Ghostbusters potentially becoming a political tool is another sign that we are in the darkest timeline.
I’m unaware of any political discourse surrounding the new Ghostbusters, but I also haven’t been keeping up with it aside from watching the trailers.
I think it's just a notion of people who didn't like the "feminist" version seeing the existence of a second reboot as a victory