Eternals Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

Downs...

5. The Brutal Pacing & Runtime

While it goes without saying that Eternals has to cram a lot into its runtime - namely over a dozen prominent new characters and its own dense mythology - that doesn't mean the film's bladder-busting 157 minutes are all well spent.

The pacing is frustratingly all over the place: the first half darts violently between time periods and settings enough to cause potential viewer whiplash, while the back-end of the movie slows down to a stamina-sapping halt.

As such, audiences may well find themselves clock-watching long before the story reaches its prolonged climax.

The adage goes that no good movie is too long nor no bad movie short enough, yet it's certainly easy to see how a film like Eternals could have earned its expansive length.

Yet due to the leaden writing and some questionable editorial choices, this is far more of a slog than any MCU movie ever has been. All in all, Eternals might've been a story better told in a six-part Disney+ series.