Black Widow review
It's been a long wait to get back into the MCU on the big screen. Black Widow was supposed to open up the summer 2020 movie season, but there never WAS a summer 2020 movie season. Now, 14 months and change later it is finally here.
And it is fucking GREAT! It is probably the first MCU movie since Doctor Strange that actually EXCEEDED my expectations.
Taking place shortly after Civil War, this movie follows Scarlett Johansson's Natasha as she is on the run from General Ross and his goons. Pretty soon she meets up with Florence Pugh's Yelena, who like her was a black widow assassin and has also become estranged from that world.
The main through line of the story is the two of them teaming up to go take down the Red Room, the place where all the widows are trained and abused, and as we see here, brainwashed and controlled. Along the way the two fugitives meet back up with their old "parents", David Harbour (as Red Guardian) and Rachel Weisz. Harbour in particular is just fantastic and a lot of fun.
And it is fucking GREAT! It is probably the first MCU movie since Doctor Strange that actually EXCEEDED my expectations.
Taking place shortly after Civil War, this movie follows Scarlett Johansson's Natasha as she is on the run from General Ross and his goons. Pretty soon she meets up with Florence Pugh's Yelena, who like her was a black widow assassin and has also become estranged from that world.
The main through line of the story is the two of them teaming up to go take down the Red Room, the place where all the widows are trained and abused, and as we see here, brainwashed and controlled. Along the way the two fugitives meet back up with their old "parents", David Harbour (as Red Guardian) and Rachel Weisz. Harbour in particular is just fantastic and a lot of fun.
The movie has two primary villains, and this is the one area the movie isn't up to snuff. The flashier one is Taskmaster, a fighter with the ability to mimic fighting styles. There are some good fight scenes with them, but as a character they are not very interesting. And the character played by Ray Winstone is only sporadically interesting... even if he winds up giving us the MCU version of Jamie Spears.
Having some of the weaker MCU villains doesn't really harm the movie that much, though. Black Widow is very much a movie about the good guys, and all of those characters and performances are aced.
Johansson, in definitively her sendoff to the character (barring another prequel thing or some multiverse madness) is great. She's always been great in this role.
Harbour as I said is a lot of fun, and Weisz, in the smallest of the 4 main roles, makes a lot out of a little.
But jesus, this is Florence Pugh's coming out party as a major star. She's been killing it the last few years, but here she puts the whole package together. She gets to be funny, and dramatic, and emotional, and is very credible in the action scenes. And has fabulous chemistry with Scarlett. This movie isn't an explicit passing of the torch, but I think we all know she is set up to be the new official Black Widow. She'll be in the Hawkeye series. But I'm gonna need at least 10 BW movies starring her, and even that might not be enough.
Having some of the weaker MCU villains doesn't really harm the movie that much, though. Black Widow is very much a movie about the good guys, and all of those characters and performances are aced.
Johansson, in definitively her sendoff to the character (barring another prequel thing or some multiverse madness) is great. She's always been great in this role.
Harbour as I said is a lot of fun, and Weisz, in the smallest of the 4 main roles, makes a lot out of a little.
But jesus, this is Florence Pugh's coming out party as a major star. She's been killing it the last few years, but here she puts the whole package together. She gets to be funny, and dramatic, and emotional, and is very credible in the action scenes. And has fabulous chemistry with Scarlett. This movie isn't an explicit passing of the torch, but I think we all know she is set up to be the new official Black Widow. She'll be in the Hawkeye series. But I'm gonna need at least 10 BW movies starring her, and even that might not be enough.
The first 45 minutes or so are pretty quiet for an MCU flick, but not in a bad way at all. The character work is compelling throughout. And then when the action gets going it really delivers a couple of dandy set pieces, one involving a very elaborate prison break and the finale aboard a floating fortress reminiscent of the Winter Soldier finale. The whole movie feels very much aligned with the last 2 Cap movies. They even use the same title cards to show locations.
There was a lot of talk about why a Black Widow movie wasn't made sooner (that's behind the scenes stuff) and did we even need one now that she died in Endgame. Now sure, they could have made a similarly plotted BW movie at really any point in the last 10 years, but if anything making it at this point in the timeline helps the movie. There's a tinge of sadness to everything that kind of elevates the movie, I think. When she is saying goodbye to some characters at the end of the movie, it is actually sad cause that is probably the last time she sees them.
The movie never once feels superfluous. References to other MCU movies (primarily Civil War) are well inserted. There are no big cameos. This is a Natasha story and a Natasha movie. And a pretty great one.
It was worth the wait.
There was a lot of talk about why a Black Widow movie wasn't made sooner (that's behind the scenes stuff) and did we even need one now that she died in Endgame. Now sure, they could have made a similarly plotted BW movie at really any point in the last 10 years, but if anything making it at this point in the timeline helps the movie. There's a tinge of sadness to everything that kind of elevates the movie, I think. When she is saying goodbye to some characters at the end of the movie, it is actually sad cause that is probably the last time she sees them.
The movie never once feels superfluous. References to other MCU movies (primarily Civil War) are well inserted. There are no big cameos. This is a Natasha story and a Natasha movie. And a pretty great one.
It was worth the wait.
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