Marvel’s fourth phase is proving fickle, with a muted critical response to its latest film releases and its TV shows fluffing their creative lines. Can the comic-book heroes pull it back from the brink?
With the news dominated by seemingly omniscient beings refusing to act against the greatest challenge facing planet Earth, what better time for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to introduce its cosmic counterparts? Indeed, this weekend the Eternals – a celestial race of supers who have hidden away for thousands of years – will emerge on to cinema screens across the world to take on their evil counterparts, the Deviants.
So far, so Marvel, but initial reaction to the film has been curiously muted. Though a reliably unreliable metric, the film’s Rotten Tomatoes score has dropped to 53%, the lowest of any film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (though, it should be noted, nowhere near as low as other Marvel and wider comic-book fare).