Black Widow: Marvel Surprises!

 

It’s crazy to think that Black Widow, a character first introduced to us over a decade ago in Iron Man 2 (I think) is only now getting her own standalone film and what’s crazier is that, she’s not even the first female in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to get one. This film which was scheduled to have been released way earlier has finally come out after the release of both WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier two new MCU shows on Disney+. Please note that the following review will contain possible spoilers so thread lightly if you haven’t seen the film.

  Okay so, while this film is still fairly new, I’m a late watcher compared to the rest of the world and most of my friends in real life and on social media have seen the film and their reactions weren’t all that great. What I found truly surprising was how even my MCU die hard buddies called it average or boring. After hearing these statements I told myself it could either be so bad the MCU loyalists couldn’t hide it or it tried breaking out of the formulaic mold the newer films have been sculpted by. With that being said, I’ll like to talk about my findings and what I thought about Black Widow. 

  Black Widow is a film that honestly shocked me, it’s not some masterpiece but, I honestly didn’t expect it to be one, I didn’t expect it to do the things it did. While I watched the film, I took notes, at first I had planned to make a podcast discussing about it but I felt it would be better collecting my thoughts and writing about it. 

I think what shocked me the most about this film was how thoughtful it was. The opening sequence is over ten minutes long and it purposely takes it time to show you how crazy it must have been being Natasha, a young child who was working for dubious men in power and being denied a chance at a normal life. We’ve always known her backstory but I really love the way it’s fleshed out here, we can see her pain, we can see just how much the people who made her who she is were willing to manipulate and hurt her as long as their plans came to fruition. 

The opening sequence shows how Natasha is assigned a fake family for a three year operation. In that family she’s the older sister and her younger sibling Yelena is so little she doesn’t even know she’s part of a premeditated mole operation by their government. We see Yelena and Natasha being taken by their foster parents Alexi and Melina played by David Harbor and Rachael Weisz as they prepare to leave Ohio, USA for their home country. Their three year American mission involved fake accents, carefully planned holiday pictures and a home to mimic the illusion of a normal American family living in that state. Just seeing this alone took me by surprise because honestly even with Endgame and Infinity War, my bar for marvel films had reduced drastically due to the likes of films like Ragnarok and Far From Home. 

The narrative shifts after the cold opening and we see a recluse post-civil war Natasha on the run from General Ross due to her aiding Captain America and breaking the Sekovia Accords. She escapes him and his men easily and even tells him how he’s embarrassing himself at that point. From there we see Yelena, and some other Black Widows about to take down a runaway and Yelena manages to catch her off guard and in the process of taking her down, she’s sprayed with a gas which frees her from the mind control that’s usually done to Black Widow operatives. This leads to her trying to contact her sister Natasha, even sending her the remaining doses of the gases in hopes she would use it better due to her publicly known affiliation with Avengers like Tony Stark. 

Natasha would then journey to find her and after a very unnecessary boring fight between the two, Natasha recognizes her and they have a heart to heart. There’s a bit more that happens in-between, this isn’t a detailed recap, I’m just talking about what peaked my interest at first so yeah, I forgot about Natasha’s first clash with Task Master or at least, the MCU version of the character. Anyways, essentially that was what served as the catalyst to the story we see in the film’s two hour runtime. 

 So, back to my notes, here are some of the things I noticed, liked and hated during my viewing of the film.

The Villains:  I say villains cause they’re multiple villains in the film. We have the sparring villain in Task Master who was honestly a mess (more on that in a bit) and the puppeteer, can’t remember his name but he’s essentially the Palpatine of the film with Task Master acting as Vader. Both of them aren’t great by any means but at the same time they’re better than a lot of villains we’ve had in this universe. Task Master was just honestly wasted. 

I mean, there was no real reason for the character in this film to be task master, it could have been a new character or somebody else. They tried doing a twist with the character and I understand the need for shock factor in this type of film but it didn’t in any way hit but I’m happy they at least knew that and didn’t dwell on it for too long. The other overarching villain was pretty efficient I guess, I don’t remember his name but he did what he needed to I guess and that’s honestly all I have to say about him.  Oh wait, there’s this scene I found really dumb, it basically happens in a chase sequence where a brain washed black widow (I’m not sure if this is what they’re called) is about to die and starts saying she doesn’t want to do this. It’s weird because she’s meant to be a ruthless killer and in her last moments shows emotions and then gets killed by Palpatine (yes, that’s what I’m calling him).

The Family:  This was possibly my favorite part of the film. Natasha’s family are all so entertaining to watch, Yelena (Florence Pugh) and Alexi (David Harbour) were my favorites. Their banter was so fun and made this cinematic universe feel natural and cohesive. I think seeing Alexi the Russian super soldier talk about Captain America, the Avengers and their impact makes it more believable that they exist in this world. 

I feel like everything that came out of he and Yelena’s mouth concerning Natasha and the Avengers make them feel like real life celebrities like the ones we see on our televisions everyday. They’re so funny and not in the usual forced humor way marvel usually does. Their dysfunctional dynamic is touching and hilarious. I honestly would love to see them more in the future because, I want to see Alexi talk more about how proud he is of his daughters. This doesn’t mean Melina (Rachael Weiss’s character) sucked, she just wasn’t as good as Yelena and Alexi. 

The Tone: The tone of this film is just really good, I think I’d like to see more marvel movies adopt this style. It had serious moments but didn’t make itself a joke. It’s been the first time in a long while but honestly I don’t think there’s any real forced joke in this film besides the forced funny moment in the post credit scene and a dark joke about how Yelena and Natasha don’t have uteruses or have periods and honestly that felt more like a coping mechanism rather than a forced joke. 

  All in all, Black Widow pleasantly surprised me, I think it was a good movie, it’s not perfect but it had great acting from the main cast, heart, and pretty cool action scenes. I do think it should have come out earlier but that’s not a gripe about the film at all. I hope this is the future of MCU films, I know their new shows are slowly following suit but I’d like a universe like this and truly hope films like Spider-Man: No Way Home and Thor: Love and Thunder feel like this.