“Eternals” has become the most controversial film in the Marvel Universe for one simple reason: criticism. Unlike the rest of his installments that until now had been rated in general as very good, with averages on the Rotten Tomatoes meta site between the 80’s and 90’s, the worst rated title being “Thor: The Dark World” with 66% that continues to indicate approval, “Eternals” has, at the end of edition, 50%. The studio is unlikely to have not considered its risks with a film of which the consensus reads: “An ambitious superhero epic that rises as often as it strives, Eternals takes the MCU in intriguing, and sometimes confusing new directions. ”. So what do you win?
The Eternals came to the comics in 1975. They are a fictional race that has been listed as a branch of the evolutionary process that created life on Earth. Its creators are the Celestials, the oldest entities in the universe and of which little is known. The purpose of the Eternals is to stop the Deviants, destructive beings. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe they have appeared before in smaller participations, the most relevant participation being that of Ego (Kurt Russell) in “Guardians of the Galaxy”. The film introduces the group, the oldest with ten members, and adds entities whose narrative purpose seems to be to expand in time and space what is told, in addition to giving it a similar or close tone with that of Greek and Roman mythologies, in the that is inspired (the opposite is suggested in fiction). The film carries a budget of 200 million dollars, lasts 156 minutes and is rated B.
The stakes with “Eternals” are high. Although October has proven to be an encouraging month for cinema thanks to “No Time to Die”, “Venom” and even “Dune”, it will be necessary to see if the streak continues with a billboard that continues to feel a bit saturated because of all the films that were not delayed by the pandemic. Wow, those titles and others are still in theaters and will arrive in a couple of weeks “Ghostbusters: The Legacy.” “Eternals” is helped by the prestige and need that Marvel has built around its titles where, although something is “bad”, it is part of the general narrative and, therefore, missing it implies not having a part of the story. It is also in its favor that it only reaches theaters, after Disney realized with “Black Widow” that the simultaneous premiere on Disney + has a great (negative) effect on the box office.
The adaptation of “Eternals” takes advantage of the fact that they are lesser known characters to settle several debts and introduce their more diverse cast and thereby reinforcing the criticism that he had been facing and on which he has been working since “Black Panther” (community of color) , “Captain Marvel” (women), “Shang-Chi and the legend of the ten rings”. “Eternals” is directed by an Oscar winner for Best Director (Chloé Zhao, the second woman to win it and the first woman of color). In the original, most of the Eternals are male and white. In the film version the cast includes a South Asian, Pakistani Kumail Najiani, a Latina (Salma Hayek, in a gender-changed role), a deaf (Lauren Ridloff, deaf in real life and playing a deaf character), a gay character (Phastos by Brian Tyree Henry) who is married to another man and kisses on screen (Haaz Sleiman, openly homosexual Lebanese actor). As if that were not enough, the diversity is also joined by Gemma Chan (Sersi), who although English has Asian roots, Don Lee who is Korean-American and makes Gilgamesh, the strongest of the Eternals; Lia McHugh who with 15 years makes Sprite, an Eternal of great wisdom who appears to be a girl, and, of course, the cast includes more typical participants such as the English Richard Madden (Ikaris) and the American Angelina Jolie whose appearance or ethnicity may be interpreted in various ways. By the way, the central roles fall to Chan and Madden; Hayek is the wisest. The dimensions are also to indicate the symbolic value that is given to each of the participants. As if that were not enough, in “Eternals” there is also the “first sex scene” that has been somewhat talked about and although it is clear what will happen between the characters in question (the main characters) it must also be said that it is brief.
The above shows that beyond the segmentation of opinions (it cannot be said as such that “Eternals” is a poorly reviewed film, an exact 50% reflects precisely something that is completely divisive), “Eternals” adds to the universe of I cut a lot of diversity, breadth of criteria (explicit gay act and sexual act although brief) and even an artistic touch (among the criticized is that the first act is slow, among the praised is photography) that in the long run could symbolically mean better dividends than the mere box office, although it will be necessary to see, as they say “no one is fighting with money” and just that, more diversity implies more market.