Zhao ultimately robs the artist’s comic of its sweep by constantly turning a space opera into a repetitive character drama.

| Feb 16, 2022

Eternals is far from perfect, but it pushes the MCU into promising new territory....it feels like an amalgam of what Marvel does best - splendidly chaotic fight scenes, dazzling special effects, and stories that speak to who we are as human beings.

| Dec 17, 2021

Eternals makes for an alienating first watch. ... Dig a little deeper, however, and this behemoth of a superhero flick has its rewards too.

| Nov 19, 2021

Clearly, we're supposed to leave the cinema filled with an urgent sense of anticipation. But all I felt was relief that the two-and-a-half hour running time had finally come to an end.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 12, 2021

In many ways, what it means to be human is the central question that drives Eternals... But the movie's dizzying star power and twisty backstories render it too clunky and overstuffed to concisely answer said central question.

| Nov 8, 2021

Gorgeous and vacant, The Eternals is the most numbing entry in Marvel's 13-year-old MCU franchise -- even as it struggles to be its weirdest and most philosophical.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 8, 2021

For all the effort that has gone into ensuring representation in the casting, the storytelling, with its forced flashbacks and synthetic sentiment, lets the whole thing down.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 7, 2021

Regardless of Zhao's (and Marvel's) intentions, "Eternals" is a parade of faces without experience, a movie that reaches back and forth through history and comes back empty-handed.

| Nov 6, 2021

This is one of the more forgettable MCU movies, despite the direction of Oscar winner Chloé Zhao.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 6, 2021

At a glacial pace of 2 hours and 37 minutes, the movie occasionally feels eternal, and it sags under that weight.

| Nov 6, 2021

I certainly can't get emotionally invested anymore...it's just a series of special effects interspersed with a bit of humor...

| Nov 6, 2021

[Chloe Zhao] puts into full view the kind of moral quandaries that Marvel's only ever really danced around in the past... But there's only so much room for that kind of thought.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 5, 2021

You have to commend the effort to take the MCU in a different direction, but there's little else worthy of applause.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 5, 2021

I don't think Zhao should be chided for attempting a film so seemingly outside her comfort zone. No director should have to commit to a career of specialization. The only qualm I have about Eternals is that it's not better.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Nov 5, 2021

The use of tendrils of light connecting the superheroes is impressive and the special effects at the end are truly mind-blowing, but the film is mostly saved by Nanjiani, whose humor and delivery makes him seem like he's in another movie.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 5, 2021

There is plenty to criticize in Eternals-and some things that I might praise, in another story set in another universe-but I'm not sure any story set in this universe could possibly offer anything to care about one way or the other.

| Nov 5, 2021

If they weren't dressed like members of Earth Wind & Fire you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching a left-wing book group in a trendier corner of Portland

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 5, 2021

Eternals sags under many conflicting demands that the film attempts to cater to.

| Nov 5, 2021

All superhero movies are ridiculous. That's where the super part comes in. With the good superhero movies, you don't notice the ridiculousness - or it doesn't matter. With "Eternals," you notice.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 5, 2021

With Eternals, Marvel proves itself to be nothing more than a staid, lumbering black hole.

| Nov 5, 2021