- On Rotten Tomatoes, this is the lowest-ranked Marvel movie by a wide margin. Currently sitting at 47%, and the next lowest is Thor: The Dark World at 66%. I have no explanation for this, especially since it's not like the MCU movies are critical darlings, anyway
- This certainly wasn't the best Marvel movie, but it was also far from the worst. It was decidedly unique, which is something I've come to appreciate from individual entries into the MCU. It also took a lot of big swings. Some of the creative choices worked, some didn't, but they'll stand out in my memory and that's more than I can say for a lot of these movies
- For a while before it came out I thought this would be the next Avengers, a slam-bang team-up with a variety of dynamic personalities and superpowers. This isn't really that. The Avengers worked so well because we got to know (most of) the characters independently before seeing them work together. However, the Eternals all have the same origin story, and they're not really distinct enough from each other to make individual stories worth telling. Although this is by far the most culturally diverse Marvel cast, which I really appreciated (doesn't really explain why the fictional characters all have different accents, but I can suspend my disbelief)
- And so, with a grand total of ten title characters, some of them don't make much of an impact. Angelina Jolie, in particular, didn't have much to do, which is interesting considering her star power
- Side note, it was nice seeing Richard Madden and Kit Harrington outside of Game of Thrones (Robb Stark and Jon Snow, respectively). It was also funny that the two of them spent a lot of their screen time talking to a character named Sersi (pronounced exactly the same as Cersei)
- I've always like Kumail Nanjiani, and he was a lot of fun in this movie
- As villains, the Deviants weren't much; just some CGI monsters to rough up. And the main Deviant, who kept absorbing the Eternals' powers, really didn't go anywhere
- Villains aside, though, and despite the overstuffed cast, I liked watching the Eternals interact with each other. I enjoyed their team dynamic. The movie has also been lauded for its artistic cinematography, and I echo that. And the climax had some issues, it was a little incoherent, but I thought the Emergence aspect of the climax was extremely effective and suitably bonkers
- Finally, little bit of trivia, I'm fairly certain that this is the first Marvel movie to refer to any DC characters. Both Batman and Superman are mentioned, and it's not made explicit if they are fictional or real-life characters in the MCU. I thought that was a neat little nod, though, maybe even with some crossover potential
Up next: Somewhat undecided! Depending on when I see Spider-Man: No Way Home, it might be that, otherwise it'll be back to the thrills with the first reader-voted thrilling movie
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