Black Widow (2021) Disney/Action-Adventure RT: 134 minutes Rated PG-13 (intense sequences of violence/action, some language, thematic material) Director: Cate Shortland Screenplay: Eric Pearson Music: Lorne Balfe Cinematography: Gabriel Beristain Release date: July 9, 2021 (US) Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, O-T Fagbenle, Olga Kurylenko, William Hurt, Ever Anderson, Violet McGraw. Box Office: $183.7M (US)/$379.8M (World)
Rating: ***
I’ve long since learned not to set my expectations too high when it comes to movies I’ve been waiting a long time to see. If I learned anything from The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it’s to keep expectations at medium. Fans waited 16 and 19 years respectively for them to be realized. That’s a long time for anticipation and excitement to build up. I doubt any movie could have lived up to the high, high hopes of fired-up filmgoers eagerly awaiting new chapters in their favorite franchises. It’s just one of those things. It’s best to go in hoping for a pretty good movie.
Black Widow, the first installment of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was originally slated for release in May 2020. It was delayed due to COVID-19. It wouldn’t see the inside of theaters for more than a year (fourteen months to be exact). That’s long enough, but I’ve been waiting for it for some time. Black Widow aka Natasha Romanoff, the character played by Scarlett Johansson (Ghost World), is the most overlooked Avenger of the bunch. I’ve long felt she deserved her own movie, ever since her introduction in Iron Man 2. A former KGB assassin who defected to the West to join S.H.I.E.L.D., I knew there had to be an interesting backstory. ANYWAY, I was thrilled when Black Widow was announced. I also knew NOT to expect an epic along the lines of Avengers: Endgame. I mean, how do your surpass that? You don’t! That being said, Black Widow is exactly what I expected, pretty good.
Set just after the big airfield battle in Captain America: Civil War, Natasha is a fugitive for violating the Sokovia Accords. After successfully eluding S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, she goes to a safehouse in Norway where she unknowingly receives an important package from her “sister” Yelena (Pugh, Midsommar). Perhaps I ought to backtrack a bit. As children circa 1995, Natasha and Yelena were part of a team of Russian spies sent to America to pose as a family so the “father” (Harbour, Stranger Things) could steal intel from S.H.I.E.L.D. His name is Alexei, but he’s better known in his home country as Red Guardian, Russia’s answer to Captain America. Upon achieving his objective, they all flee the country. They’re met in Cuba by his boss Dreykov (Winstone, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) who immediately recruits the children into the Black Widow training program. It’s during this period that the “sisters” go their separate ways. Natasha joined the Avengers while Yelena remained a Black Widow assassin.
During her final mission as a Black Widow, Yelena is exposed to Red Dust, a chemical substance that releases Widows from mind control. Having regained her senses, she sends vials of the Red Dust to Natasha hoping she will help end the program, free the other girls and take down the man in charge, Dreykov. What this means is an uneasy “family” reunion with each other and their “parents”. After breaking their “father” out of prison, they hook up with their “mother” Melina (Weisz, The Mummy). Needless to say, their reuniting isn’t cause for celebration. The girls have a few matters to hash out before they team up one more time.
Directed by Cate Shortland, Black Widow is more like a spy movie than a superhero movie with elements of James Bond, Jason Bourne and Mission: Impossible combined with big action set-pieces befitting the MCU. It even has a Talking Villain with an irresistible urge to explain his entire operation to Natasha/Black Widow even though it’s been the downfall of many a Bond baddie. He also has an unbeatable henchman named Taskmaster, a costumed killing machine with the ability to mimic the fighting styles of any and all opponents. Unfortunately, Dreykov isn’t all that memorable a bad guy. He’s like one of the lesser Bond villains, the ones that don’t come up in conversations about the best Bond nemeses. He has an evil plan for world domination, but he never comes off as a real threat. There’s no sense of urgency behind his plan. He’s just too basic.
Johansson is great as usual, no surprise there. There’s something innately bad ass about her. I can’t think of an actress better suited to play Natasha/Black Widow. HOWEVER, the real stand-out in Black Widow is Pugh. She absolutely crushes it as Yelena, the one bearing the biggest scars from her “family’s” troubled history. She resents Natasha for leaving her behind after her defection to be used as a tool for a corrupt government organization.
In addition to telling the titular heroine’s backstory, Black Widow is also a passing of the torch so to speak. Without giving too much away, we will be seeing plenty more of Pugh in future Marvel projects. Harbour adds comic relief as a braggart of a hero who finds himself at a loss when trying to bond with his angry daughters. Weisz is also good as the “mother” whose whereabouts were unknown to her “daughters” for 21 years.
I’ll grant that Black Widow has a few pacing issues. It slows down when the attention shifts to family matters. It’s talkier than the average Marvel movie. However, the action scenes really make up for the lost time. Although they’re CGI, they rock. The finale on an airborne secret facility is especially cool. All in all, I have to say Black Widow is a nice way to kick off the next phase in the MCU. Be sure to stay through the credits for an end scene that won’t make a lot of sense if you haven’t yet watched The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. Even so, Black Widow is a high-flying good time at the movies.
