Black Widow – Entertaining Throughout
Director: Cate Shortland
Writer: Eric Pearson (Screenplay) Jac Schaeffer, Ned Benson (Story)
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ryan Keira Armstrong, O-T Fagbenle, Yolanda Lynes, William hurt, Ray Winstone
Plot: A film about Natasha Romanoff in her quests between the films Civil War and Infinity War.
Runtime: 2 Hours 13 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Black Widow starts when Natasha Romanoff (Johansson) looks to escape after the events of Captain America Civil War, returning to Europe and Budapest, where she meets her younger sister Yelena Belova (Pugh). The pair find themselves being hunted down by their old trainer Dreykov (Winstone) who is out for revenge after what Natasha did in the past.
Natasha and Yelena must reunite with their family Alexei (Harbour) and Melina (Weisz) who got them into this world, to go up against Dreykov and his legion of Widows.
Thoughts on Black Widow
Characters & Performances – Natasha Romanoff must go on the run after the events of Captain America Civil War, this will see her escape the American threat, but will see her past come back to catch up with her, with her sister and parents sharing one common enemy, the man that created her. We do get to learn more about what made Natasha the way she is, the past she is running from for films before, showing her in the more spy skills, over the superhero side of things. Scarlett Johansson does get the most to do in any of her outings in the franchise, showing her true talent in this role. Yelena is the younger sister of Natasha, she was taken through the brutal training to become an assassin too, the pair reunite to expose the training methods they once went through. She does bring a lot of comic dead pan relief to most of the scenes in the film, using the comedy as a means to mask the pain her life has been. Florence Pugh continues to wow Hollywood by being the star of the show here, stealing each and every scene she is involved in. Alexei and Melina are the couple that raised the girls in hiding, both living in different parts of the world after what happened, waiting for their chance to become spies again. Both David Harbour and Rachel Weisz are strong in these roles, with Harbour understanding how over the top he is meant to be as the character. Dreykov is the man that has created the widows, he will eliminate anyone who tries to leave him and has the complete control over anything they do, while mostly just a generic villain, we never get to see the truly evil nature of his behaviour. One of the weakest parts of all of the performances is the random levels of Russian accents, they do seem to be all over the place for consistency.
Story – The story here follows Natasha Romanoff as she looks to escape from the events of Captain America Civil War and ends up reuniting with her old family that have been fighting their own wars against the people that forced the young girls into the training. This does bring Natasha her first leading role in a film, which will give her a chance to return to her spy roots, which is something the character has needed for a long time, as she doesn’t always fit in the superhero world. The reunion side of the film is an entertaining watch with everything that is going on around them, being the most interesting side too. While the villain is painfully generic, he could easily have been portrayed as a much more evil presence with what he does and wants to do to people.
Themes – Black Widow is action thriller that takes us back into the Marvel franchise with another approach to what we are going to see, taking us into the spy action thriller side of the film, which Natasha will fit better in. the action sequences are more grounded for the most part, not diving into superhero world, rather more tactical fights going on. The settings are used to make us understand the world we are entertaining, one we haven’t seen before for Natasha.
Final Thoughts – Black Widow is an entertaining addition to the Marvel world, one that grounds the action back to the spy world Natasha Romanoff comes from.
