Black Widow: Should You Go Russian to See It?

Sorry for the absolutely terrible pun in the title. I was having a hard time coming up with one. It's weird to think that it's been two years since I've seen a new Marvel movie. The last one was Spider-Man: Far From Home. That's been the longest gap between two MCU films since The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2. The only difference is, at that time, I really didn't care for superhero movies. Fast forward to today and the wait has seemed like an eternity. After a bunch of delays, we finally get to see Black Widow! Was it worth the wait? That's what I'm here to tell you.

Black Widow is directed by Cate Shortland and stars Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, and Ray Winstone. Following the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Johansson) is the on the run. When she encounters her sister, Yelena (Pugh), Natasha is forced to face her past and unravel a dark conspiracy that could affect our future. With that all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

There are quite a few things to enjoy about this movie. Scarlett Johnansson does a good job, as usual, playing the spy-turned-Avenger. It was really interesting to see the filmmaker choose this portion of her life to focus. She had to leave her previous disfunctional family (the Avengers) and is now forced to deal with her other one. There are wrongs she has to right and the movie isn't afraid to deal with that. This movie excels when it focuses on the relationship between her and Yelena. Florence Pugh did such a great job with this character and, for me at least, stole the entire show. Going in, I though she would be this stern, emotionless spy who was going to take a backseat to Romanoff. That wasn't the case at all. Yelena is funny and not afraid to poke fun at her sister. They had great chemistry and really felt like bickering siblings. What I really liked about Yelena was that, even though she is battle-hardened spy, there's still a kind of youthful playfulness to her. Even though she has a bit of a grudge against Natasha for leaving her behind, Yelena still yearns for her sister's attention. It was really well done. I also really liked the other members of the family. I didn't really know what to expect from this group. Like the Avengers, none of them really belong together but that's what makes them work. Without spoiling too much, this isn't exactly a normal family. They're kind of jerks to each other. David Harbour was great as Alexei who alter ego is the Red Guardian. He is Russia's answer to Captain America. I really liked how there were layers to him. All he wants to do his get back in the field. He was completely different than what I was expecting. It's pretty hard to delve too deeply into details without spoiling it. In many ways, this is a better film about family than Fast 9. I also really enjoyed most of the action. Since Natasha is the most realistic Avenger (she doesn't have any powers), I was expecting the action scenes to be more gritty. Most of them were, especially in the first two acts. This movie also has a ton of nods to the previous films, which I really liked. It nicely fills in the blanks between Civil War and Infinity War. Now, when I rewatch the latter I can go, "Ah so that's how she got so-and-so." It was really well done. There are a few villains in this movie. Slight spoilers ahead. Ray Winstone plays Dreykov, who's the overseer of the Red Room (the location where the Black Widows are trained). Winstone does a good job of making you not like him. He's relentless. The only issue is he does this Russian accent which isn't the best. You can tell he's a British actor.

I mentioned there are a few villains in this movie. The main one that is being advertised is the mysterious Taskmaster, a masked figure who can easily replicate anyone's fighting style. The problem is, this movie wastes the character. Again, it's tough to talk about this too much but Taskmaster really doesn't do a whole lot in the movie. I don't even know that much about the characters in the comics and I was disappointed. I mentioned earlier that I liked most of the action sequences, the keyword there being most. There are a couple of fights, mainly in the second and third act, that go for the full-blown spectacle. As a result, they rely heavily on the CGI. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with this, since Marvel does pretty well with their visual effects. Here, they're a little iffy. By no means does it ruin the movie, it's just pretty noticeable.

My next major complaint isn't something that the movie does but what it is. I know that sounds completely stupid. This movie is a prequel. Generally I don't mind these types of films. I loved The Hobbit trilogy and loved Monsters University. The problem with Black Widow is the timing of it. Natasha died in Endgame. Why make this story now, when she's, you know, dead. I read somewhere online that this should've come out before Infinity War and I think that person is absolutely right. Since we, the audience, knows what happens to Natasha a lot of the tension gets taken out of the movie. For example, there's a scene where the baddies are just absolutely whaling on Nat. I should've felt bad, but I know that she's going to be fine (well until Endgame). "But Ben, that's kind of hypocritical, don't you think? You could say that for a lot of prequels." You might have a point, but at least for those prequels I can get why they were made. The Hobbit movies were made to show Bilbo's journey. Yes we knew that Bilbo and Gandalf were going to make it, but we didn't know about the rest of the characters. As a result, when we see them in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we get some added layers. When they make references, we can go, "Ah, I remember that." The Star Wars prequels (which I like) were made to show us how Darth Vader became the way he was. We know what happens to Vader, but it's cool to see the chain of events that got him there. Widow does some of those cool things too, but I think my main issue is the timing. Phase 3 of the MCU ended with Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the movie before it, Nat had just died. It kind of feels like they forgot to show us this movie. The prequels I mentioned had the benefit of time on their side. They came out years, if not decades, after their respective films. It's a nice way to get back into the world. What makes matters worse is that, with Widow, it was supposed to come out in 2020. This means it would've been even closer to Endgame. Another thing I'd like to note is that Marvel has done prequels a few times and they were placed pretty cleverly. Take Captain Marvel for example. That was released a little over a month before Endgame. This made sense because if we had just seen Captain Marvel show up, everyone would be pretty confused. But, because we knew her background, it made sense as to why she'd show up.

To wrap everything up, Black Widow is a fun film and a nice way to get back into the movie aspect of the MCU. Johansson does a great job as Natasha, Pugh steals the show as Yelena, the movie excels when it comes to the family dynamic, there are a lot of little nods to previous films and, for the most part the action is really well done. The movie is held back a bit, however, by mismanaging how it used Taskmaster, some iffy CG, and the fact that it's a prequel, so some of the tension is taken away. If I were to rate it, I'd give Black Widow a 7.5-8/10. Also, be sure to stay all the way through the credits. It's so nice to finally see a Marvel movie on the big screen again!