It's fair to say that Eternals got a pretty mixed reception. Despite having a handful of passionate fans, the Marvel movie earned a middling 47% on Rotten Tomatoes upon its 2021 release, and failed to completely win over MCU lovers. Now, one of its stars, Barry Keoghan, has defended the superhero flick against its naysayers – and tried to argue why it might not have gone down well with everyone.
"I think Chloé [Zhao] brought a whole kind of feel to it," Keoghan, who plays Druig, one of the titular immortal beings, told the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "You know? So Chloe brings - as you've seen from her past films - raw performances and really, really touching performances. I don't think it was… I think it was new. I think it was just new. It was new for the Marvel world."
Also starring the likes of Kit Harington, Brian Tyree Henry, Salma Hayek, Gemma Chan, and Angelina Jolie, Eternals takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. It follows ten members of an advanced alien race, each with their own unique powers, who have lived on Earth in secret for thousands of years.
Having never interfered with major world events before – Thanos' population-halving Snap included – unless their evil counterparts, the Deviants, were involved, the group are forced to re-evaluate their passive position and come together to stop the world from being destroyed by the birth of a new Celestial, the god-like cosmic beings that control them.
Keoghan was most recently seen in The Banshees of Inisherin, opposite Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell. After earning critical acclaim, the Martin McDonagh film has been racking up the award nominations, too, including a Golden Globes nod for Keoghan in the Best Supporting Actor category. While he didn't take home the gong, The Banshees of Inisherin, itself, won Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Best Screenplay, while Farrell picked up Best Leading Actor.
