Black Widow

Ten Second Review: They took far too long to tell her story, but Marvel’s send off for Natasha Romanov certainly goes out with a bang.

Last year when the final trailer for Black Widow dropped I already had a trip to Budapest booked. The trip was in no way related to the film, but I was excited to visit somewhere and then see it in a film so soon after so each was making me excited for the other. Black Widow didn’t release and I didn’t make it to Budapest.

Now, a year and change later I haven’t managed to rebook my trip but I have now seen Black Widow. Was it worth the wait?

In an opening flashback we see Natasha as a child in a Russian sleeper cell operation in Ohio. Already training to become an assassin her and her “family” must quickly up sticks and leave after being discovered. They are split up and we flash forward to just before the events of Avengers: Infinity War. Thinking she has left both of these lives behind her, Natasha does not expect to be dragged back into the fray so soon, but when a mysterious package arrives, her past calls out to her and she has to answer.

So was it worth the wait? Marvel certainly waited long enough to actually make a stand alone film for Natasha, but I can’t say I’m disappointed with the result. Black Widow is odd, I came away very aware of its faults but definitely still enjoying it. Overall it’s still just another Marvel film; it’s well executed action scenes with a few too many cuts and a strong save the world narrative to tie them all together. The real successes here are in its deviations, a strength we have seen in most of Marvel’s productions post Endgame.

The first thing to note is the aesthetic, at least in the first act. It rings a little closer to a combination of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo and a Bourne film before then shifting toward Bourne meets Avengers. This Scandi tone the film sets out harks closer to a thriller, and I do think the film might have benefitted a little from a smaller scale mission to really embrace that. It feels mysterious and quite cool but ever so slightly at odds with the grand scale of the second and third acts. Maybe a little less “save the world” and a little more “save these people in danger” might have helped.

The next deviation is inevitably the more female focused tone. When Captain Marvel released there was the inevitable backlash against it from a certain type of male viewer who was always going to have a problem with it, but there was a quieter disappointment from some female audiences that felt it didn’t really answer what they wanted. It still made a lot of the same mistakes with its writing and it’s tone that for many just made it slightly lacklustre Marvel film rather than a monumental moment. There wasn’t any solid character development, but rather a message of “here’s the new most powerful character, that’s all you need to know.” 

Many people praised Wandavision’s ability to humanise and unpack Wanda Maximoff’s character, delving into her emotions and progressing mental state in an interesting format, but an episodic story makes this task easier in some ways. Black Widow’s director, Cate Shortland, felt that there was a need to subvert expectation to tell Natasha’s (and her sister Yelena’s) story in more impactful way in a single movie.

“…after the #MeToo movement, the other thing that happened was we could say what we wanted to say; we could make jokes about women’s trauma and the control of women’s bodies. I think the expectation was that we were going to make a dark film and so we wanted to say ‘No, we’re not going to make a dark film because we’re not victims. These girls are going to kick ass.’”

I think it pays off well. The film focuses on the shared experiences of these two “sisters” and takes the time to develop a back story that explains Natasha while setting up Yelena for potential future exploits in the MCU. While David Harbour absolutely nails his turn as the Red Guardian, he certainly remains a comedic accessory to Pugh and Johannsson. The same can be said for Weisz too, who again plays an excellent accessory role in developing the main character narratives.  

I do still think the villains (as with many of the solo Marvel film villains are a little dull and underwritten. They’re very, “I’m evil and that’s all you need to know”, but as with many of these hero driven films, they work as a way of exploring the main characters rather than themselves. On that note; I know that many comic book fans with be unhappy with the direction they took Taskmaster here, but my favourite thing about the range of media that Marvel now puts out (films, shows, comics, games etc) is that it allows you to have your favourite version. If they were always the same and just rinsed to be inserted into different media, people would complain about that too. It is a strength of the multi-verse of content that you can have a favourite version. Not liking this version in comparison to another is fine because it means you have a version you do like. 

Black Widow isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly enjoyable. It’s a shame that Marvel waited so long to develop Natasha’s back story, but having it remain mysterious until she had passed on in the central Avengers narrative was also interesting and allowed the set up for new characters. It’s definitely an interesting outing for Marvel, but there’s enough here to recognise so as not to alarm audiences who just want their standard superhero film. It pokes fun at itself and it’s characters while also pushing the depth of its story telling a little as well. While it may not be a hugely consequential entry for the MCU, I do think it’s a good watch and where better than in the cinema!