Eternals is a rare misfire from Marvel.

Marvel has had a string of massive successes. Eternals had all the makings to be yet another. Unfortunately it was not and it has become the first rotten film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There are plenty of reasons why this movie did not connect with me.

I will begin with what was good. Angelina Jolie as Thena was great even though she was severely underused for the better part of the movie. She has star power that it would seem like Marvel would wish to make use of but they simply did not. It is a shame because given the range we all know Jolie has this could have been something special. In no way does this fall on her but it does make me feel a little disappointed.

Druig and Phastos were two more characters who had amazing potential but it seemed like it was wasted on the melodrama that was occuring between the rest of the Eternals throughout the movie. We only seemed to get glimpses of what would have made this movie cooler and less formulaic.

It almost feels like as well once you have seen one action sequence the rest are the exact same and don't offer anything new in the way of visuals. After one fight with the deviants we begin realizing that almost all of the fight scenes will look the same. There was no grand build up to a cool final action sequence like most movies of this nature have. It was just straight forward with no real plot twists that could not be seen from miles away.

Richard Madden was probably the worst part about the entire film as Ikaris. He spent the entire film pining for Sersi all the while harboring a deep dark secret that would change everyone's fates. He was emotionless when the latter part of the film called on him for some big time deliveries. First with the twist regarding Ajak and then his decision at the end of the film. It felt like none of it mattered because Madden failed to deliver.

It is the first time ever watching a Marvel movie that it felt like there was better things I could have been doing with said time. It did not have that captivating moment that took your breath like most big superhero adventures. It served as both an origin and a modern day tale so there are plenty of cool things it could have done to show us just how big the Eternals world could become.

When the best part of a 2 hour and 37 minute movie is a post credit voice cameo there is room to improve. A sequel needs to do three things. Focus on being a more streamlined story. Focus on growing a particular couple of characters and try and make something stand out about the action sequences. If a sequel fails to do those things it may not be worth making in the first place because it would be an even bigger mess. Most sequels have a slight drop off in quality but Eternals has the ability to make drastic improvements and get it right in a more thrilling way. It would show that the studio does not always think they know best and actually listens to the feedback of the fans.

Had this movie shaved off about 30 minutes it probably could have had the same effect. It was polarizing to see such cool potential based on Jack Kirby's works brought down to the most basic of Marvel movies to date. Kirby is one of the most recognizable names in comic writing so it's a damn shame his works have been used in this manner.