Saturday, October 23, 2021

Black Widow

 

RATING: C+

It's hard to believe it has been two years since the last Marvel Cinematic Universe film outing. Yes, we've had a handful of miniseries' via Disney Plus, but I'm not really counting those (and am also hoping they won't expect us to have seen those in order to understand future movies). But it's been two years since Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home. And this would appear to be the last throwback to the Infinity Saga before we start rolling with stuff like Eternals and Spider-Man: No Way Home and bring in the multiverse (sigh). 

Ultimately, the main reason this movie exists is because the fans clamored for it; but the studio supposedly couldn't find a place for one before. Now with Natasha's storyline definitively ending in Endgame, there is nowhere to go but backwards. The result is a prequel of sorts that takes place between Civil War and Infinity War while Natasha is on the run (again). And the first thought that comes to mind is... why couldn't they just have released it in between those two movies? 

So shortly after Natasha went after the run in Civil War, she finds herself crossing paths with her dark past; specifically, the brutal "Red Room" where she had been trained that had been hinted at in Age of Ultron. This leads to her reuniting with her surrogate family from those early days; specifically, her "sister" Yelena. Together, they will face off against a new threat (I think?) from the Red Room, as well as the foe Taskmaster. 

There are definitely some interesting pieces in here. The film is at least partially built around Natasha and her old "family," and on at least two out of three members, it works pretty well. Yelena (Florence Pugh) is easily the highlight of the movie overall, with her frequent snarking with Natasha as well as being able to hold her own as well due to also being part of the Black Widow program. David Harbour is also clearly enjoying himself as Alexei / the Red Guardian and gives the film another strong source of levity. Rachel Weisz's mother figure doesn't fare as well, but that's in part due to her character being more complicated (and not in a good way). 

There is some fun action here as well. We get some of the usual moments for Natasha as well as Yelena to have some good fighting scenes. Natasha also gets another classic moment of turning the interrogation around. Some of the earlier Taskmaster fights are quite good as well, who is formidable due to having the ability to mimic fighting styles. Elsewhere, the film does a good job at times of showing the horrors (well, sometimes more implied than shown) of the Black Widow program--to the point where real-life trafficking parallels can feel invoked. Such scenes are creepily effective. 

However, there are definitely issues here. To start with, this doesn't completely feel like Natasha's film--in part because it does not do much with her character. She's supposed to be confronting her dark past, and there's good opportunity for this after a revelation about a particularly alarming thing she did. The problem is the film does not a good enough job of making her seem properly remorseful--a poor oversight on the writers' part, who seem to be more focused on the levity and family side of things--as well as the evils of the program itself--at the cost of character development, as well as sometimes borderline hand-waving the terrible things the individuals have done. 

And there is also the matter of Taskmaster. I cannot say I know much about the Taskmaster of the comics, but plenty of comic-book fans were unhappy with the film version. And the reveal of the identity of Taskmaster here is ultimately rather underwhelming. Taskmaster is set up as this formidable foe and the presumed primary antagonist, but much of this gets undone by the final act as Taskmaster is revealed to be playing a rather different role than expected. 

Speaking of the final act, that also in general is a bit underwhelming. There does not seem to be a grand deal in the way of stakes--or at least, not by Marvel movie standards. Yeah, not everything can be an "Avengers-level threat," as it was put in Far From Home, but it doesn't really match up to the darker tone set up earlier on, and due to the previously mentioned underwhelming reveals as well as the storyline not being entirely coherent, one can end up feeling less invested by the time stuff starts blowing up. While Ant-Man and the Wasp also did not have as big stakes (aside from Hank going to the Quantum Realm to find his wife), that one was at least a little more innovative and genuinely fun, and less fundamentally flawed. Black Widow at least gets the "fun" part more or less down, but it's too weighed down by the flaws to be particularly notable. 

Black Widow is a decently enjoyable pastime, but it's also a bit of a mess. While a lot of this boils down to poor character development and arcs, it also boils down to the fact that this film does not really mean anything in the grand scheme of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It mostly just exists so that they could have a solo movie for Natasha and possibly introduce a future replacement for Scarlett Johansson. It does leave a tease for one of the upcoming Disney Plus series in the post-credits scene, but at this stage, I could not possibly care less about that. And while it may be a welcome enough addition for fans of the character, I do not think it should be too much to ask in an entertainment series this utterly vast that the installments matter in the grand scope of the series. 

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