Black Widow Movie Review

Echoing the weird frothy cover version playing over the opening credits, "Here we are now," says the cinema audience, "entertain us."

by Tom Davies

A common factor among the vast majority of superhero movies is the scene in which whatever ubermensch has his name plastered on the poster loses his powers and becomes vulnerable: the Kryptonite necklace; “Spider-Man No More”; that bit in Infinity War where Hulk suddenly becomes a whiny baby. It adds false jeopardy to nudge the audience towards the mindset that, ‘actually, this time, they might lose’ but, let’s be honest, we’re not convinced. Cate Shortland’s Black Widow prequel says “what if that, but a whole movie.”

Following the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff has landed on the wrong side of the superhero registration act, The Sokovia Accords and is now engaged in a high-stakes game of keep-away with General Thunderbolt Ross. But a package containing a mysterious red gas takes her back into the field and back through her past as a big sister in a Russian ‘family’ planted in Ohio to steal secrets; as a brainwashed agent for a sinister assassin training facility; and as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. who made morally indefensible decisions.

Furthering Marvel’s love affair with bending indie film-makers to their mighty will, Cate Shortland’s (Somersault) deft touch with intimate drama and quiet introspection sets Black Widow up as something other than what the trailers would have you expect. As an exploration of what exactly makes a family, the opening scenes are solidly focussed on the loss of both of Natasha Romanoff’s  –  the Russian spy unit she spent three years with as a teenager and the Avengers. She re-hardens herself to the world as she cuts herself off once again and, in doing so, the opening act of the movie mostly shuns the usual bombast of an MCU entry.

We are allowed to spend our first moments with Natasha as a person, not just the female Avenger. These moments, some of the strongest of the movie, are sadly all too fleeting as a chance encounter with the human embodiment of inner conflict, martial mimic Taskmaster (“it’s like you’re fighting a mirror”), puts paid to her aspirations for a quiet life and we’re sent on a flailing series of international boarder hopping scenes - Norway, Morocco, Budapest – as we’re tilted full speed back into Marvel-mode.

 

... mostly shuns the usual bombast of an MCU entry

Taskmaster and, to a lesser extent, puppet-master Dreykov are the personification of the film’s preoccupation with a tug of war between self and family. While Taskmaster draws this into a suitably menacing unbeatable fight, Ray Winstone’s total inability to hold an accent as Derykov creates a distinctly ‘nails on a chalkboard’ effect making him something of a poor choice for shouldering some of the dramatic heft of the final act.

But Winstone is not the stumbling block here. A clash of the intimate with the dizzying scale of a summer blockbuster is the key issue with Black Widow. Surprisingly, it does each separately pretty well, but has difficulty gelling the two in time to sell its generic comic-y climax. A car chase early on writes a cheque for an intimate film steeped in action movie lore that the rest of the movie fails to cash. Though they eventually fall by the wayside, visual and thematic nods to The Bourne Identity, Bond, Terminator 2 and others punctuate the early set pieces, which are themselves prodigiously well-choreographed… until they aren’t.

Black Widow
"Did I ever tell you girls about the time I fought Captain America? in the comics, I mean, not a movie."

This is an outlier in the franchise, a movie where the punches feel like they really land. There is clear weight to the stunts, mostly practical to begin with, and Shortland takes time to make sure we see the resulting bruises on Natasha’s body. When she falls, if there’s a possibility she could hit something on the way down, she hits it. If there’s a danger she might clip herself on a doorframe or duct or a piece of furniture, she slams into it. There is a brutality to these super punch-ups that is missing from almost all of its predecessors. These scenes are meant to sell the character’s vulnerability, and they really do, but it doesn’t last. As soon as the film shifts gear into its more traditional MCU pattern, a lot of that ground-work turns out to be for nothing as we’re reminded that firstly, more than ever here, we’re trudging toward a foregone conclusion with Black Widow’s fate literally etched in stone, and secondly, that we’re watching a Marvel movie and so must enjoy (or endure) a mass of weightless CGI puppets and explosions before we get to the end credit stinger.

 

... snappy and touching in equal measure.

Thankfully, through its generic leanings, screenwriter Eric Pearson has his finger firmly on the pulse of what’s required of a Black Widow movie. His familiarity with the moving parts at work here stems from his tenure as a writer for Agent Carter, another Marvel project featuring the sinister agents of The Red Room. He has fun playing within the Marvel house style – one liners fired off in juxtaposition with impending doom – and from that confidence blossoms one of the movie’s greatest assets, its family sitcom-y vibe.

The interactions between Natasha and her surrogate family are snappy and touching in equal measure. Sister Yelena (Florence Pugh, clearly enjoying herself and spreading that joy effortlessly) is snark personified – her jibes about Natasha’s fighting pose are filled with sisterly needling, father Alexei (David Harbour doing what he loves best, acting big) the canned Soviet superman, Red Guardian, is full of misplaced pride for his killer daughters, and Melina (Rachel Weiss bursting out of her sitcom mom role) proud scientist for, and shameful victim of, The Red Room all rub up against one another like they’ve been doing it for years. Each of them a rounded dysfunctional family member whilst also embodying the dichotomy of self that is the movie’s main theme and key question: are you defined by your worst actions or can you be forgiven?

It’s a question not adequately answered as the tonal shifts eventually seem a little glib; cracking wise about life as a child soldier for example is a swing-and-a-miss. These little inconsistencies, the pull between family dynamic and comic movie necessities, intimate moments against macro-action, are only going to land one way: the Marvel way. It’s as good and better as we could hope for from a Black Widow movie but ultimately, despite its encouragement for us to finally see Natasha as the human Avenger, it can’t fully break out of its pre-determined path.

Black Widow is out in cinemas now and on Disney+ as a premium rental on Friday 9th July 2021.

Scores

Verdict

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7

7
AVForumsSCORE
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