Eternals | Marvel Studios | Nov 5 2021 | Magnum-Opus by Oscar winner Chloe Zhao - Marvel's first rotten movie | Dips into the 40s on RT, B CinemaScore

[XXR vs XXR]

48 minutes ago, cdsacken said:

we definitely don't do a sequel. Since it's a random one off, not sure it matters.

Every time you comment I feel like you just learned about the MCU yesterday and have no idea how it works.

 

Thinking this won’t get a sequel even if it made $15 total is missing the whole boat.

[iamjesuisiam]

Sorry for my poor English.

I saw the film tonight in France. My background: my favorite MCU movies : Endgame, Iron Man, WS, GOTGvol1 and Shang-Chi.

I don't think the movie is mediocre. But rather uninteresting. I didn't manage to get attached to a single character. None of them carry the weight of thousands, millions of years. Especially Kumail Nanjiani. The most useless and poorly written character in the MCU.
Gemma Chan is certainly a good actress, but I find her lost in this film, she has no charisma.
The only characters that interested me a little are Makkari and Phastos.
The rhythm is indigestible. Some Eternals are introduced after 90 minutes. We see them at the beginning and then nothing for 90 minutes.
The romances suck.There is no chemistry between Sersi and Ikaris.
The sex scene we were sold is ridiculously soft. Lion King sex scene is more sexual. The upside down kiss in Spider-Man 1 is WAY more sexual. 
I'm not talking about the inconsistencies on the power scales. We are told: x character is very strong! He or she could beat all the Eternals! But at the end, no. Absolutely not. Even Shang-Chi seems stronger.


There are some very serious things going on during the movie but that doesn't seem to affect the characters. Nothing seems serious when we hear about the end of the world. I don't believe in any stakes. I don't understand why John Campea says the film is dense. Dune, Interstellar, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Cloud Atlas are dense.
 

[Ozymandias]

9 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

Never forget….

 

Michael Mann’s Miami Vice - 46% RT

 

Tony Scott’s Man on Fire - 38% RT

 

Just two examples of films with mixed reactions at the time which critics now fawn over. Also notable they’re both from directors with hugely acclaimed films in their armoury. Just like Zhao. 

 

Man on Fire was a movie a lot of people always liked from the start since release in spite of the critics, I remember quite well audiences responding well to Denzel and Dakota in that movie.

 

But since when did Miami Vice get reevaluated?  That movie still sucks and was the beginning of the end for Michael Mann. 

[tonytr87]

15 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

 

Man on Fire was a movie a lot of people always liked from the start since release in spite of the critics, I remember quite well audiences responding well to Denzel and Dakota in that movie.

 

But since when did Miami Vice get reevaluated?  That movie still sucks and was the beginning of the end for Michael Mann. 

 

Where have you been? 

[Ozymandias]

1 minute ago, tonytr87 said:

 

Where have you been? 

 

on earth

[von Kenni]

15 minutes ago, iamjesuisiam said:

None of them carry the weight of thousands, millions of years.

This would be interesting to see character development wise. Although if they act anything like humans, they would have ended themselves already due to boredom but still you could have played with the idea in the film. This is perhaps the most interesting thing for me in the concept of Eternals. How do you feel seeing it all? What still keeps you going? How has it changed you?

 

Highlander played it interestingly and showed the difference. The guy was cheerful, immature, self-serving kid in the beginning before becoming immortal. Then fast-forward 500 years, and you see him almost numb to the affairs of the world and reliving his memories through sniffing old wine or looking at the artefacts he collected from his (not explained) adventures. Surprise, being an antique dealer in modern NYC.

 

Anyhew, I wonder it Eternals have any this kind of character developments or are they pretty much the same person throughout all ages? (you don't need to go all Logan but something...)

[tonytr87]

3 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

 

on earth

 

If you pay attention to critics or Film Twitter you'll know that it's been reevaluated the most of any film in the last 15 years. There are long-form articles about it. 

[iamjesuisiam]

10 minutes ago, von Kenni said:

Anyhew, I wonder it Eternals have any this kind of character developments or are they pretty much the same person throughout all ages? (you don't need to go all Logan but something...)

 

There is no character development. There are far too many of them. The nice character stays nice, the ambiguous one stays ambiguous, the maternal character stays maternal, the warm character stays warm. They are archetypal. All the characters are one-dimensional.

Spoiler

Phastos

is perhaps the only character to evolve but we don't see him evolve. We are told that. Moreover, we hardly see him during the first two hours.

[CoolioD1]

yeah if you go on the miami vice letterboxd page all the reviews on the first couple pages of the popular reviews section are five star write-ups calling it a transcendental masterpiece or whatever. There's this vulture article from just a month ago 

https://www.vulture.com/2021/10/miami-vices-journey-from-misfire-to-masterpiece.html

[XXR vs XXR]

8 minutes ago, iamjesuisiam said:

 

There is no character development. There are far too many of them. The nice character stays nice, the ambiguous one stays ambiguous, the maternal character stays maternal, the warm character stays warm. They are archetypal. All the characters are one-dimensional.

  Reveal hidden contents

Phastos

is perhaps the only character to evolve but we don't see him evolve. We are told that. Moreover, we hardly see him during the first two hours.

Stop talking about the contents of the film. Period.

[Firepower]

55 minutes ago, wildphantom said:

Never forget….

 

Michael Mann’s Miami Vice - 46% RT

 

Tony Scott’s Man on Fire - 38% RT

 

Just two examples of films with mixed reactions at the time which critics now fawn over. Also notable they’re both from directors with hugely acclaimed films in their armoury. Just like Zhao. 

I really really doubt this is Man On Fire situation. It was a movie that critics hated, but general audience loved (and I personally think it's a brilliant film), but critics never liked Tony Scott very much in general, Zhao on the other hand was critics' darling before Eternals happened.

[Porthos]

2 hours ago, Menor said:

Well...

 

 

70% RT. Though, you could say that Clarke cursed the BO. 

 

The production itself was pretty cursed, plus it almost singlehandedly killed the whole "Anthology" series of SW films, so, yeah.  Still fits, sadly.

[Ronin46]

Love Miami Vice. An incoherent mess and a masterpiece. 

 

[lorddemaxus]

1 hour ago, wildphantom said:

Never forget….

 

Michael Mann’s Miami Vice - 46% RT

 

Tony Scott’s Man on Fire - 38% RT

 

Just two examples of films with mixed reactions at the time which critics now fawn over. Also notable they’re both from directors with hugely acclaimed films in their armoury. Just like Zhao. 

Lol, if this getting a rotten causes Marvel fans to turn towards "vulgar auteurism". But seriously, nah, the reason those films have developed a fanbase amongst critics (like other late-style works from these directors) is because they're singular visions where the directors just go all out with their unique sensibilities (and in the case of Man on Fire, it was also one of the most influential action movies of the 2000s). Doubt that will be the case with this. 

[Liiviig 1998]

1 hour ago, Ipickthiswhiterose said:

 

 

Captain Marvel is currently the most fundamentally different of the Marvel films IMO.

 

- The structure of the movie consists almost entirely of a bunch of duologues.

- The amnesia plot line means our relationship to the protagonist is totally different from any other movie.

- The resolution is the protagonist choosing *not* to have a big showdown with the villain.

- The film is existential in nature and deals with matters of self-actualisation and who a person is, in contrast with the rest of the canon that is largely classical storytelling with mild social commentary.

 

The accusations of blandness from film commentariats really aren't in tune with the general audience. My dad's a 70+ year old conservative who likes westerns and thrillers. Captain Marvel is by far his favourite MCU movie.

 

I don't think we can tell much about how Eternals will be received yet by general audiences. There's a huge irony between the histrionics of the responses to the critical scores, compared to the fact that the critics themselves are pretty unanimous that the film is mostly mediocre and non-committal. 

 

Almost everything about the way things are setup give indications that slant young and Very Online. That's not the whole of the MCU's audience. I suspect older audiences, more female audiences and non-movie regular audiences will all have their own takes on this one - they might all shake out different, they might not - but I'm not trusting the *online movie discourse* on this one just yet.

Disagree personally  though I do agree the structure changes a bit the results are so by the numbers and brei larson is for me one of the weakest protagonists in the mcu . Her story lacked urgency and turning her into an amnesia state kind of made her bland in parts. Having fury and mendelson around really helped.

 

The end falls flat because her past relationships with her father, lashana and her daughter aren't expounded more upon and yeah she is just so overpowered which kills all the stakes. .

 

[wildphantom]

10 minutes ago, lorddemaxus said:

Lol, if this getting a rotten causes Marvel fans to turn towards "vulgar auteurism". But seriously, nah, the reason those films have developed a fanbase amongst critics (like other late-style works from these directors) is because they're singular visions where the directors just go all out with their unique sensibilities (and in the case of Man on Fire, it was also one of the most influential action movies of the 2000s). Doubt that will be the case with this. 

I wasn’t really pointing out what this might mean for Marvel-dom.  It was more emphasising that middling reactions from critics don’t mean we all have to judge the movie unseen. 
 

the thing I loathe the most about RT is it presents film criticism as a movie being ‘good or bad’. A review judged ‘rotten’ does not mean that critic disliked the movie at all. 
Imagine said critic gave a ‘positive’ to, say, BW, but in their review said it was safe but familiar. Then gave a ‘rotten’ to Eternals, yet found it ambitious even if it didn’t quite fully work all the way through. 
That critic might well have had a better time with the latter than the former. 

An RT score is never the full picture. I know I’m preaching to the converted on that point, but our culture really does think RT is the be all and end all - and its damaging for discourse on film. 
 

It’s accepted because people like an instant read on something. They actively won’t watch anything with a score under 60, which is so pathetic. Especially when you consider a multitude of ‘critics’ in the RT club that are nothing more than clickbait poison with YouTube channels. 
 

 

 

[wildphantom]

Miami Vice RULES. 

[Menor the Destroyer]

I don't think CM was as formulaic as is often claimed and it does have some structural uniqueness from other superhero films, but I wouldn't call it the most "fundamentally different." Within the MCU, I would say Infinity War is the most structurally different of the films, easily. 

[Issac Newton]

6 hours ago, dudalb said:

Nothing but blind praise of a film should be allowed.

Yeah, right..

Funny, the way you feel about critcis is the way I feel about fanboys.

It's pointless for me to say all of them are bad (as many (some) write genuine review) but they are some who watch pirated copies &speak like they have lost out of their pockets. This is truly disgusting to lie. I have many past experience where they write reviews without even watching. Frankly, speaking, I watch based on my will & doesn't look for review/ratings to select my choice.

[Macleod]

2 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

 

on earth

I think he's been stuck over in Europa for 10 years, @tonytr87. 😁