Review 604: Black Widow

It's hard to believe that it's been a decade since Scarlett Johansson debuted in the MCU playing Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow in Iron Man 2 alongside Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow and even harder to believe that after so many supporting appearances in the MCU that she's finally getting her own solo movie.

 

Based on the Marvel Comics Superhero Black Widow by Stan Lee, Don Heck and Don Rico; Set in between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down. Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

 

In a lot of ways, Black Widow feels like a throwback to the films of the "Infinity Saga". If this film had come out after Captain America: Civil War, it wouldn't feel out of place in Phase 3. But this film is not, in fact, part of Phase 3, it's part of a slate of films that come out post-Endgame.

 

The best elements of Black Widow evoke the 70's spy movie tone which clearly inspired the Bourne Trilogy and clearly inspired Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I think that it's no coincidence that Marvel were influenced by themselves yet the film takes elements of all these spy-action films and weaves them into something that feels organic.

 

There's a strong subtext of family felt throughout Black Widow. This is most clearly visible in Natasha's relationship with her adoptive family. At the start of the film, Natasha is on the run from one surrogate family when she's spontaneously thrust back into the arms of her adoptive parents Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weitz) and Aleksei Shostakov/Red Guardian (Stranger Things' David Harbour) 

Another strong theme in Black Widow is Forgiveness: With her Avengers family in an unconventional divorce, Natasha must forgive and seek forgiveness from her past family so that she can learn to heal the family that she chose 

At times, certain elements of Black Widow feel like a retread of Captain America: The Winter Soldier such as the hero on the run, a villain who plans to rule the world from the shadows and a main henchman who is a dark reflection of the titular hero.

Director Cate Shortland's direction is intense and dynamic, the cinematography is terrific, the score by Lorne Balfe is spectacular, the action scenes are exciting  ranging from a non-stop high way chase in Budapest, a fight between Natasha and Taskmaster on a bridge to a Prison Break involving Red Guardian and a climax at the Red Room (which does unfortunately descend in a explosive nightmare which feels very previsulised). The production design is fantastic (Dreykov Red Room in particular has all the grace and outlandishness of a Bond Villain lair from the Sean Connery and Roger Moore eras).

Scarlett Johansson (as expected) delivers an outstanding playing Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Natasha Romanoff is a Russian defector, she, along with hundreds of other Black Widows, came out of a project called the Red Room where she was taught to be the perfect spy. She is pursuing some form of happiness yet at the same time, she has a lot of demons that she hasn’t faced and put to bed. For much of her life, Natasha was haunted by her past trauma: The Red Room molded her into a ruthless and callous assassin. They made her believe she had no place in the world and that she's only a tool, a blunt instrument, to be used.

Florence Pugh is a standout playing Yelena Belova/Black Widow. Because she and Natasha grew up around each other and were indoctrinated into the Red Room from a young age, this creates a very strong sisterly bond between them which makes her an excellent foil for Natasha. She too is a product of them same trauma that Natasha and Melina went through 

As a child, she looked up to and adored Natasha and despite some cynicism regarding her status as an Avenger, she clearly still cares about her. 

 

O. T. Fagbenle only has a couple of scenes of screentime playing Rick Mason but he certainly makes an impression. Mason is "a finder for people who aren't so affiliated with armies".

 

Rachel Weitz is very charasmatic in the film playing Melina Vostokoff/Black Widow, a fellow seasoned spy trained in the Red Room who acts as a mother-figure to Natasha and Yelena and is now one of the Red Room's top scientists. Melinda is an older generation Black Widow, having been put through the Red Room four times, she shares the same trauma as her adoptive daughters and yet in spite of that retains a very sweet and compassionate attitude towards her family. When she’s reunited with her surrogate family, she’s living on her own in Saint Petersburg, Russia quite happily doing her work and she seems pretty content with the new life that she’s built for herself.   

 

David Harbour is also a lot of fun playing Aleksei Shostakov/Red Guardian. The Red Guardian is the Russian/Soviet counterpart to Captain America, being the sole recipient of their recreated Super Soldier programme, having been deployed on numerous missions for the Soviet Armed Forces and won acclaim from the Soviet public. He clearly misses the glory days of when he looked up to as a symbol to the Soviet people in the same way as Americans looked up to Captain America.      

Underneath his arrogant exterior, he’s a pretty relaxed, jovial and stand-up kind of guy. 

 

I, however, have mixed feelings about Ray Winstone playing Dreykov; A Russia general and the head of the Red Room. Dreykov is the perpetrator of all the pain that Natasha has had to endure during her lifetime. He co-opted both her, Yalena and loads of other women into the room and subjected them to nightmarish training to become assassins and broke up her adoptive family when the U.S. government closed in on them. His complete lack of empathy and downright misogynistic streak seeing woman as weapons to carry out his dirty work have a not so subtle resemble to Harvey Weinstein. But beneath his intimidating demeanour, he’s fundamentally a coward as he will only antagonise those who can’t fight back.

Unfortunately, he only appeared in a handful of scenes across the first and third acts of the film and generally came across as an afterthought.

 

It's almost impossible to review this movie without mentioning one of the most hyped aspects of this film: The Taskmaster. This is a character with photographic reflexes that allow him to mimic the fighting styles of his opponents in order to use it against them. The Taskmaster fascilitate the majority of the action throughout the film. 

Unfortunately, the reveal as their true identity proved to be underwhelming, half baked and left something to be desired coupled with an actor who feels totally wasted and doesn't even get any lines of dialogue.

4/5.

The Anonymous Critic.