“Eternals,” Marvel’s latest movie,  premiered in theaters on October 18, 2021, and has since grossed $346 million worldwide. The new addition to the Marvel cinematic universe was met with mixed reviews. Despite praising the themes and visuals of the film, critics have criticized the overall plot, pacing and character development of the movie.

“Eternals” takes place after “Avengers: End Game.” The movie reveals that 10 Eternals had been living on Earth since 5000 B.C. by the Celestial Arishem. Eternals have superpowers and the Celestials are god-like beings. 

Originally, the Eternals believed that they had been sent to Earth to defeat the Deviants, a group of humanoid beings sent to various planets to ensure the development of intelligent life who evolved and started hunting plants to extinction. However, their Celestial, Arishem, informed them that they were sent to ensure the “Emergence,” or the birth of a new Celestial. Realizing this would destroy the planet, the majority of the surviving Eternals attempted to stop this event. They succeeded only after an internal civil war.

With so much content and only so much time to show it all, the movie producers attempted to make “Eternals” into a more grand version of a normal Marvel movie. Yet, despite a large amount of hype prior to the movie’s release, critics and fans alike are largely disappointed with how the film turned out. 

Several scenes from the movie show huge landscapes that all feel fairly similar and always dwarf the characters. The grandness of these cinematographic shots often overshadow the importance of the characters in these scenes.

Many have also found Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao’s pacing to be extremely slow and that her choices regarding action sequences have been very underwhelming. Additionally, despite having a diverse cast, the character development of individual characters leaves much to be desired for many critics. 

Overall, “Eternals” has been met with subpar reviews and disappointment within movie reviewer circles. All of the places where Chloé Zhao attempted to enhance the experience of the viewer ended up negatively impacting the experience for many viewers.