Black Widow (2021) Review

 "You're a poser."

-Yelena Belova

After the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is forced to go into hiding.  However, she gets pulled back into her past when old friends and foes rear their heads.

What Works:

The first half of the movie really fells like a spy movie.  It had some serious James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Mission: Impossible vibes, which I was a fan of.  I love spy movies and seeing Marvel be less superhero focused and delve into espionage is fun.  There's even a scene with Natasha watching Moonraker.  It's a solid first half and I wish it had stayed more grounded in the second half.  I suppose that's why they had her watching Moonraker instead of From Russia with Love.

The opening action sequence is easily the best in the film.  It's extremely small scale and mostly just involves driving a plane down a runway, while David Harbour sits on the wing shooting a gun.  It's a very stripped down action sequence compared to the rest of the MCU, but it felt fresh and there was some actual tension.

The chemistry between Natasha's "family" also works very well.  Harbour, Florence Pugh, and Rachel Weisz are great when they have scenes together and when the movie slows down to have these characters interact in a meaningful way, it works really well.

Finally, I want to especially shout-out Florence Pugh who is easily the best character in the movie.  She has some real emotional depth and actually shows it, unlike Natasha.  Her performance at the dinner table scene is probably the best part of the movie.  Plus she has a few unexpected funny moments, like when she makes fun of Natasha's action pose.

What Sucks:

As I mentioned above, the second half of the movie really loses me.  Once they start going up to the Red Room, I lost a ton of interest.  The fun part of the movie was having this strange family interact.  In the final action sequence, they all go their own way to pull off the plan.  It's just not interesting.  These characters only work when they can play off each other.  Instead, they ultimately feel underused, especially David Harbour's character.

The action sequence itself was so over-the-top it felt anticlimactic.  I think if they had kept the whole spy storyline going, we could have gotten something really cool, but this was underwhelming.  Big, dumb action can be fun, but we've definitely seen Marvel do a better job with it than this.

The writing also took a serious nose dive in once they got to the Red Room.  There were some serious themes at work here with women being horribly controlled by a man.  The story of women taking control of their choices back is a good story theme, but it's executed poorly.  The main villain, Dreykov (Ray Winstone), is probably my least favorite antagonist in the entire MCU.  For this type of story, he should have been grounded and really menacing.  Instead, he's kind of a cartoon, mustache-twirling villain.  That type of villain doesn't work with these particularly story elements and the dialogue to explain everything that is going on with him, as well as Natasha's plan is clunky.

Noot only is Dreykov underused, but his main henchman, Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko), maybe the most disappointing villain in the entire MCU.  We barely see either of them.  More scenes with Dreykov would have been good to show us what he is capable of and establish an emotional connection to Natasha.  As for Taskmaster, anything more would have been appreciated.  She gets almost nothing to do. Her gimmick is she can perfectly mimic any superhero's fighting style.  She barely gets to do anything with that.  It's a massive waste of a character, especially one played by a Bond girl.  Having Natasha really get a chance to go up against a Bond girl would have been amazing.

Finally, this movie really feels like Disney and Marvel trying to save face.  Having this movie come out after Natasha has been killed off doesn't work.  This movie needed to come out years ago.  It feels like damage control after having Captain Marvel be their first solo-female superhero film, when we all know it should have been Black Widow. 

Verdict:

While Black Widow is an entertaining film, it's one of the weakest MCU films.  The first half is solid thanks to some grounded action, solid performances, and Florence Pugh being awesome.  The second half falls apart thanks to sloppy writing and stupid action.  Plus they somehow manage to underuse every single character in the movie.  Go ahead and watch it, but don't spend any money on this one.

 6/10: Okay