Eternals beats Thor 2, Black Widow to become worst-reviewed Marvel movie, critics call it one of MCU’s biggest misfires

Marvel Studios’ latest film, Eternals has not impressed the critics. The film currently has a 62% score on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. While the score itself is not the worst, it is the lowest that any film Marvel Cinematic Universe has ever got.

The 62% score was aggregated with 92 critics reviews. For context, Thor: The Dark World and Black Widow, which are both considered among the worst films in the franchise, have 66% and 79% scores, respectively. On the other end of the spectrum are Black Panther and Avengers: Endgame with 96% and 95% scores, respectively.

Eternals is the 26th film in the MCU and is directed by Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao. It stars Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie.

International publications have mostly panned the film as dull. Polygon’s review called it a ‘mess’ and that it ‘isn’t bold, merely incongruous’. The Guardian’s Steve Rose wrote, “There’s just too much going on: it’s all headed towards yet another ‘race against time to stop the really bad thing happening’ climax. It’s not exactly boring – there’s always something new to behold – but nor it is particularly exciting, and it lacks the breezy wit of Marvel’s best movies.”

Also read: Eternals teaser: Marvel teases Indian-style wedding, Harish Patel’s scene with Angelina Jolie. Watch

Chloe, known for her humane stories set against sweeping vistas such as Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider and Oscar-winning film Nomadland, said she wanted to go big scale-wise while retaining the intimate tone of the story.

The Eternals are an alien race living on Earth for over 7,000 years who team up to protect humanity from their evil counterparts, the Deviants. Also starring Barry Keoghan, Lia McHugh and Laura Ridloff, Eternals is set for release in Indian theatres on November 5 in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.