Well, after waiting an extra year because of the pandemic, Black Widow finally came out. It's a great Marvel movie, an excellent action movie but not a great spy film. There are some very odd choices in this film that need to be discussed. There are some odd choices made in character development that don't sit well with me. I cannot call it a bad movie, but I can call it inconsistent. Is it worth the 30 bucks premium, or is it worth a 10 buck Tuesday? Let's talk about Scarlet's last ride.
When she was a kid, her "parents" had to get up and leave the country like their lives were on the line. Giving you the sense of the cold war spy movie, but it's the mid 90's. When they landed in Cube, the Russian Government gave her "parents a job well done. It was all a farce: the parents were actually spies, and the kids were in training. After a job well done, the parents were sent to their next mission, and Natasha and Yelena were sent to the red room program to become Black Widows. They go into a montage of child trafficking and assassin training with a slow and disturbing cover of "smells like teen spirit." I have to admit this was very disturbing. It was like the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean at the world's end where the British army hung a child at the gallows, well played Disney.
The film takes place after the Civil War, and Nat is living in seclusion in Norway. Until she's on an errand driving, and her truck gets blown up by Taskmaster. What bothered me about it was before the attack, a scene introducing Taskmaster took away the badass of the reveal. It was a Briefing where they were watching footage of Nat doing her thing. This isn't the first spy movie for the MCU either. Look at Captain America: The Winter soldier. Villain Intros are vital to setting a tone.
Speaking on the tone, the movie jumps from realism spy to a typical Marvel action movie. The most significant example of it is Taskmaster.
How can Taskmaster be a part of the Red Room, a program that makes spies and assassins that move with discretion get thrown out the door when this shiny suit bad guy shows up. Now mind you, Taskmaster is supposed to be the Cream of the crop in assassinations and spying. So explain to me how chasing Nat, and her sister in broad daylight is discrete.
It's more on the lines of something the Winter Soldier would do. Which I'm sure I'm gonna make a reference to again.
On the plus side, I enjoyed the actors very much. Scarlett did a great job with her character here, especially this being her last ride. Yelena is played by Florence Pugh, who I last saw in Midsommar, which is criminally good. The movie goes out of its way to hint that she is gonna be around. David Harbour plays Alexi the Red Guardian, a Russian Version of Captain America. He was like the lovable Dumb dad on a sitcom. My only issue was when it came time for him to fight, he mostly got his ass whooped. I was rooting for him after what happened In Hellboy. As far as acting, I think he did great. Ironically he'll be in Russia again for the next season of Stranger Things.
Taskmaster's portrayal was horrible. It has nothing to do with the actress. It has everything to do with the writing. There was no reason whatsoever to change the character to such an extreme.
No, it's not about the character being played by a woman. It is the fact that she's pretty much a voiceless robot taking orders from Dreykov. On top of that, she's his daughter that survived a bomb set by Natasha years ago.
Between that and the complete Lack of the character from the comics, this had me pissed off that these plot twists were pointless, in my opinion, just like the idea that the Red Room was a floating sky fortress, just the hellicarrier in the Winter Soldier. Dreykov plays a token Russian villain that can be in any movie. But here he is, Taskmaster's father, who weaponized her after the bombing. Which sounds pretty familiar.
But in our case, it has a happy ending.
I think the biggest issue I have is that they could not stick to the spy movie they wanted to do in the first place. Instead, they began to go back to the Marvel formula, and this is the end result. Don't get me wrong, I had a fun time watching it, and I suggest you watch it as well. But I recommend watching it from the comfort of your home for 30 bucks or go to the theatre. The after-credits scene was what I expected. The new Widow will be in the Hawkeye series coming soon. It's just nice to see an MCU movie again, even if it didn't know what it wanted to be.
Black Widow Final Grade: B-
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