Despite Multiple Media Outlets Gushing About ‘The Marvels’ First Reactions, Critic Review Scores Are Extremely Rotten
John F. Trent
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Multiple media outlets attempted to put a positive spin on The Marvels’ and first reactions from critics. However, critic review scores tell a very different story.
Some of the media outlets attempting to praise the film were UpRoxx, GamesRadar, Collider, TheWrap, MovieWeb, and ComicBookMovie.com among others.
However, review scores tell a very different story from the media narrative. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently has a rotten 55% score from 73 reviews.
The movie has an average rating of 5.7 out of 10 with 40 fresh reviews and 33 rotten reviews.
The Top Critic score is even worse coming in at 33% from 27 critics. There are 9 fresh reviews and 18 rotten reviews with an average rating of 4.4 out of 10.
Here’s what some of the critics are saying:
Owen Gleiberman at Variety gives the movie a rotten review. He writes, “There’s a place in the MCU for wackjob silliness. But in The Marvels, the bits of absurd comedy tend to feel strained, because they clash with the movie’s mostly utilitarian tone.”
Richard Whittaker at Austin Chronicle gives the movie a rotten 2 out of 5. He wrote, “A film begins with the script. It quickly becomes abundantly clear that the problems with The Marvels start with a lumpen, exposition-laden, charmless, and emotionally flat one … and it’s all downhill from there.”
Matt Singer at ScreenCrush gives the film a rotten 4 out of 10. He simply writes, “The messiest Marvel movie.”
Clarisse Loughrey at Independent gives the film a positive 4 out of 5. She writes, “While Marvel’s been busy flooding us with endless, exhaustive content, DaCosta’s movie offers us the one thing that made this franchise work in the first place – heroes we actually want to root for.”
Lindsey Bahr at the Associated Press gives the movie a rotten 2 out of 4. She writes, “As is often the case with Marvel’s girl power attempts, it feels a little pandering in all the wrong places and doesn’t really engage with any specific or unique female point of view.”
Richard Roeper at Chicago Sun-Times gives the movie a rotten 2 out of 4. He says, “Neither as funny nor as engaging and warm as it tries to be, despite the best efforts of the talented director Nia DaCosta and a trio of gifted and enormously likable leads in Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani.”
Amelia Emberwing at IGN gives the film an 8 out of 10. She says, “Both funny and heartfelt, Nia DaCosta’s MCU debut will have you asking when she and her leading ladies are coming back immediately after the credits roll.”
Jeremy Mathai at Slashfilm gives the film a rotten 5 out of 10. He explains, “Iman Vellani is a movie star, but The Marvels is a disjointed and painfully rushed effort.”
Kaitlyn Booth at Bleeding Cool gives the film an 8.5 out of 10. She says, “The Marvels feels like a return to form for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it is a film focused on telling the story of its three leading ladies and not future endeavors, and those three ladies are all a ton of fun to watch.”
Danielle Solzman at Solzy at the Movies gives the film a 4.5 out of 5. She says, “Nia DiCosta’s direction of The Marvels brings solid chemistry and an all-around fun tone that allows a powerhouse trio of Carol, Monica, and Kamala to shine on screen.”
EJ Moreno at Flickering Myth gives the film a rotten review. He says, “One character carries the weight of the film, while the rest feel hollow and uninteresting. That middling head-scratching post-credit scene can’t redeem this.”
Aaron White at Feelin’ Film Podcast gives the movie a rotten 2.5 out of 5. He explains, “Iman Vellani and Goose are the stars here, but an undercooked main plot and maybe the worst villain the MCU has had yet sink this thrown together mixed bag despite it being a refreshingly diverse female-led superhero flick.”
Over at Metacritic, the movie as a 51 Metascore based on 36 critic reviews. The film received 13 positive reviews, 19 mixed reviews, and 4 negative reviews.
Here’s what the critics on Metacritic are saying:
Molly Freeman at ScreenRant gave the film an astounding 90 out of 100. She said, “The Marvels is an uproariously fun and action-packed comic book movie that’s made all the more delightful by the heartwarming dynamic of the leads.”
Brian Truitt at USA Today gives the film a 75. He wrote, “Directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman), Marvels throws a ton of plot at viewers that too often falls back to Marvel-y familiarity – world-saving stakes, villain with a light-up doodad – yet enjoyably soars when it centers on its core trio and dares to go gonzo.”
Liz Shannon Miller at Consequence gave the movie a 75 as well. She wrote, “As successful as its biggest, wildest swings are, it’d really be nice if the plotting of The Marvels lived up to those elements. That said, those other elements are hard to oversell. It might not be the most coherent MCU entry of 2023. But it’s perhaps the most purely enjoyable.”
Lovia Gyarkye at The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a 70. She said, “DaCosta’s kinetic direction and intimate storytelling style lets audiences see this trio — whose lives collide in unexpected ways — from new and entertaining vantage points.”
Roger Moore at Movie Nation gives the movie a 63. He stated, “The fizziness of it all kind of overwhelms some of the shortcomings and distracts us from others.”
Mike Ryan at Uproxx gives the movie a 50. He said, “Even though there are some fun scenes with The Marvels trio, I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this to anyone who isn’t an MCU superfan. Again, even *I* was a bit lost with the latest in the Kree and Skrull political relationships — I felt lost by it all and I’ve seen every movie. I bet a pretty straightforward plot involving the main three characters would have gone a long way.”
Jake Cole at Slant Magazine also gave the film a 50. He said, “Only in the film’s climax, when the heroes are in the same confined area and can thus better calibrate their constant shifts in position, does the action attain a logical sense of movement and timing.”
Nick Schager at The Daily Beast gave the film a 45. He wrote, “An irrelevant B-team affair which further suggests that the MCU can’t survive, short- or long-term, without the active participation of its most famous characters.”
Katie Erbland at IndieWire gave the movie a 42. She said, “Tellingly, the most pleasurable moments in Nia DaCosta’s The Marvels don’t hinge on the audience having an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marvel. . . . They’re just solid pieces of blockbuster filmmaking: charming stars (like the full-force charisma of Iman Vellani and the appealing vulnerability of Teyonah Parris), sprightly action, and zippy humor.”
Alan Ng at Film Threat gave the movie a 40. He wrote, “In the end, The Marvels is a superhero movie clearly made and produced by people who have never read a Marvel comic book but read Archie instead. It feels like it was made for teen girls and not for actual comic book fans.”
Michael O’Sullivan at The Washington Post gave the film a 37. He explained, “This interpretation is overly reductive, I’ll admit. But once the thought had implanted itself in my brain, I could not shake it: These ladies are going to war over a couple of bangles (Kamala’s word, not mine). There’s a lot of fighting, and the fate of the world is said to hang in the balance. But when you look at the screen, all you see is a bunch of people trying to grab some shiny things from one another.”
Robbie Collin at The Telegraph gave the movie a 20. He said, “The shortest of the films yet is also the most interminable, a knot of nightmares that groans with the series’ now-trademark VFX sloppiness.”
Johnny Oleksinski at The New York Post gave the movie a 0. He said, “In order: bland, annoying and misused.”
What do you make of these critic scores for The Marvels?
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