Alright, everybody: Split up and get into your groups based on how you feel about the Marvel movies (and maybe the DC movies), because what we have here is either a total non-story that won’t impact you at all or a decade-late vindication that your movie opinions are Right and everyone else is Wrong. DC fans, you’re here to explain that critics are all idiots who are paid off to hate everything anyway. Everyone good? Okay, let’s get into it.
Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao’s Eternals is set to open in theaters next weekend, but as noticed by Uproxx, it’s going to be doing so as the lowest-rated entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s currently sitting at 63 percent “fresh,” which is by no means terrible on RT’s oddly complicated binary scale, but it does put it three points lower than the previous record-holder (Thor: The Dark World, which has 66 percent) and nine points lower than the actual worst MCU movie (Iron Man 2, sitting at 72 percent).
You’ll notice that all of these are positive scores, so none of them are outright bad, which brings us back to the whole “this doesn’t mean anything” point from above. We would also like to point out that we are specifically talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe here, as Marvel movies like Howard The Duck and Blade Trinity are both significantly lower.
As is Fantastic Four. As is X-Men: Apocalypse. As is Dark Phoenix. As are the other Fantastic Four movies, including the one that never came out.
What we’re saying is that, assuming you put any stock whatsoever in the Tomatometer, the lowest-rated Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is still a very different thing than the lowest-rated Marvel movie. Rotten Tomatoes can’t tell you how to feel or what to like, especially when it comes to a movie that’s not out yet.
Just remember that the great trick Marvel has pulled on all of us is that, if you skip Eternals because of its reviews, you might miss out on some important stuff that sets up the next movie (though some of that has already been spoiled). Basically, we’re all living in Marvel’s world now, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.