A One Mann’s Movies review of “Black Widow” (2021).
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
A long time in the waiting (again) but “Black Widow” is an excellent addition to the Marvel canon: almost a “Rogue One” in the series, taking us back to fill in some gaps after “Captain America: Civil War”. It’s just great to have ANY Marvel back in the cinema…. that Michael Giacchino Marvel tune set the hairs going on the back of my neck!
The dynamic acting duo of Scarlett Johannson and Florence Pugh. (Source: Marvel).
Plot Summary:
We’ve seen the end of life for Natasha Romanoff in “Avengers: Endgame”. Here we return to her troubled pre-teen years in small-town Ohio, where parents Melina (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei (David Harbour) have to uproot young Natasha (Ever Anderson – an excellent performance) and her younger sister Yelena (Violet McGraw) and drop them into a very different life.
Roll forwards 20 years, and Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run after breaking the Sokovia accords. But a dark part of her past reemerges and forces her to team up with her sister (Florence Pugh) to battle an old adversary.
Hi Dad. It took me a long time to recognise David Harbour in his bearded role! (Source: Marvel).
Certification:
Talent:
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, Rachel Weisz, David Harbour, Ray Winstone, William Hurt.
Directed by: Cate Shortland.
Written by: Eric Pearson (based on a story by Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson).
Poser! (Source: Marvel).
“Black Widow” Review:
Positives:
- Loving the heart in this Marvel! There’s more sense of “family” than in F9! Johansson and Pugh, in particular, have a great on-screen relationship, and nice sisterly bickering goes on. There’s a fabulous scene in a petrol (gas) station between the pair that really shows what class acting is available in this outing.
- David Harbour adds some fine comedy as the “Red Guardian”, complete with action figure! Seeing him squeezing into his old uniform reminded me strongly of Mr Incredible! And the relationship with Rachel Weisz’s Melina is also great fun.
- Completing the strong acting complement is Ray Winstone as villain Dreykov. It’s a role he’s played so many times before that he could probably do it in his sleep: but still great to watch. (The plot is almost directly stolen from OHMSS, with Winstone as the cockney Russian in the Blofeld role!) A shout-out too to the lovely Olga Kurylenko, looking decidedly unlovely here! (She isn’t given very much to do as Taskmaster though.)
- There were some genuinely laugh-out-loud moments for me: both through witty dialogue and visual gags. A helicopter ‘landing’ was particularly snort-worthy!
- Lorne Balfe delivers another stonking soundtrack, full of Russian undertones. Also great is a twisted version of Nirvana’s “Teen Spirit” over the opening titles.
Pugh goes to Hollywood! Hopefully, this will be a breakthrough movie for her in the inevitable sequel. (Source: Marvel).
Negatives:
- Now I KNOW you need to suspend belief during Marvel films, but the “Red Room” location (no spoilers, and no – not the “50 Shades” type) stretches that too far. It leads to an over-blown, free-falling finale that somewhat lessened the impact for me of the rather more realistic flow of the movie to that point.
- Tonally the movie is rather inconsistent. As an example, the start of the movie is played ‘straight’, as is the role of Alexei. But when he reappears later in the film – and it took me a long time to appreciate the jailbird character was in fact him – then he suddenly becomes the comic heart of the movie.
- I loved the way the film built the relationships between the characters. So this is NOT a negative from me. But I *suspect* some Marvel action fans may find the narrative portions of the movie too slow for their liking.
The new job doing solar panel installations wasn’t going well for Natasha. (Source: Marvel).
Summary Thoughts on “Black Widow”:
Black Widow has always struck me as an odd and slightly second-rate member of The Avengers. After all, she has no specific “superpowers”, so how has she survived all of the physical abuse to date? So, given what we know happened to her in “Endgame”, I questioned whether this was an origin story that would hold much interest with me. But the knack here is that it really isn’t an “origin story” at all. It covers her early life, pre-titles, but then skips all the intermediate biopic stuff to drill into this specific adventure in her life. And the quality of the acting and the relationships that are built up delivered something that I greatly enjoyed.
Cate Shortland seems an odd choice to front a huge movie like this (she has a very short movie CV) but I think she’s done a great job here. I’d put it in the top quartile of Marvel movies for me.
“Monkey”?
As it’s Marvel so as you might expect there is a “monkey“. You have to wait until the very end of the credits for it (so you can appreciate Lorne Balfe’s score some more). But it is worth waiting for, re-introducing a character from one of the Phase 4 TV series.
Trailer:
The trailer for “Black Widow” (that you must have seen about two-dozen times already!) is here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybji16u608U .
Finally got to see it last night and really enjoyed it, although you’re right about the inconsistent tone (felt very Bond at times, and very comedic at others.). Struck me, though, that it was a real remix of Winter Soldier. Lots of recurring themes and ideas from that movie reworked and reused here, including the cyborg that is a character we thought dead who needs their personality restoring… the super soldiers… the flying citadel to take down… Great fun, though, and made me realise just how much I’ve missed Marvel on the big screen! Bring on Shang-Chi and the Eternals!!… Read more »
Glad you enjoyed it. You’ll believe a citadel can fly…. Twice! Many may find it reminiscent of Bespin from “Empire”, but I’m old enough for my mind to immediately go to Captain Scarlet’s Cloudbase!