Nolte: Marvel's Woke 'Eternals' Must Really Suck to Get These Reviews

Marvel’s upcoming Eternals has earned, to say the least, unenthusiastic reviews, and when you consider all the factors involved, that tells you this sucker must really stink.

Eternals hits U.S. theaters on November 5 and is the cornerstone offering of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe calls “Phase IV.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which is already a box office disappointment (only $422 million worldwide), is the official launch of “Phase IV,” but Eternals is the biggie, the gathering of Big Stars in a $200 million epic that clocks in at 156 minutes.

What’s more, this is also the launch of Marvel’s upcoming woke era. Eternals is loaded with racial minorities, women, a gay character, and is directed by Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao, an Asian female. You add to that the fact that this is a Disney production, and what you have is catnip for the predominantly left-wing critical class not only to gush but want to gush.

Watch below: 

Except they are not gushing, even though the movie is “very queer.”

Currently, at Rotten Tomatoes, Eternals sits right on the bubble between rotten and fresh with a barely fresh 61 percent rating. But even the “positive” reviews seem grudging. Here’s an example of a “positive” review from the left-wing loons at Entertainment Weekly:

The looping flashback structure and relaxed, intimate pacing has the odd effect of making the fate of the free world feel a lot less urgent than it probably should; the movie frequently comes off less like a standard MCU tentpole than a metaphysical family drama whose black sheep just happens to be Thanos. That probably won’t thrill a lot of fans who come for the wham-bam deluge of intergalactic battlefields and Infinity Stones, even though there’s more than enough byzantine mythology and noisy CG battles in its 2-hour-and-37-minute runtime.

Same from left-wing Variety:

Can they come together to defend their adopted home? The suspense will not be killing you, though the final battle summons aspects of grandeur. To me, there are three top-tier team superhero movies: the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” and “Avengers: Infinity War.” “Eternals” is a fluid and sometimes bedazzling entertainment I’d place on the next tier, because it never transcends its conventionality and makes you go “Damn!” Maybe next time, Zhao can raise the stakes on the heroic vibes by mixing in a drop of nomad reality.

But there are a lot of reviews from left-wing publications that are more like this:

Its idea of conflict is still characters barking platitudes at each other (here rehashing an intergalactic version of the same trolley problem that antagonized Iron Man against Captain America in “Civil War”). Its idea of resolution is still having those characters fly around and shoot finger lights at stuff in a way that never fools your brain into believing the physical reality of what you’re watching.

And this:

However, Zhao does good by diversifying the casting and the characters — there’s a gay Eternal (Brian Tyree Henry); a deaf Eternal (played by deaf actress Lauren Ridloff); and three Asian Eternals played by Kumail Nanjiani, Don Lee and Gemma Chan. And the inclusion is welcome, which makes “Eternals” a virtuous production. But that’s not the same as a good movie.

And this:

The Hot Gods of ‘Eternals’ Will Bore You to Death With Their Feelings

Yet even when the Eternals fight amongst themselves, they’re boring about it. Eternals is so busy showing off what it can do, where it can go, that it bypasses and overlooks what it really has to offer.

How many hundreds of TV shows and movies have we seen win unearned critical praise due only to their woke credentials? If something hits their left-wing sweet spots, critics almost always try to sucker us into wasting our time and money on objectively terrible movies and TV shows that push the correct political message. Disney especially gets a pass because everyone wants Disney to like them. So, let me repeat: Eternals must stink like a dead fish to earn reviews like these.

This is not a good sign for Marvel.

Don’t forget that Disney already screwed the pooch with the Star Wars film franchise. Terrible storytelling combined with woketardery sunk that baby. That leaves Marvel,  the true jewel in Disney’s movie crown. If Marvel sinks… Well, let me just say that Robert Downey Jr. might want to prepare himself for a $100 million paycheck to return as Tony Stark.

Woke is a violation of human nature, which makes it a lie, and you cannot craft art from lies.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.