Black Widow is the first Marvel Studios movie in cinemas since Spiderman: Far From Home in July of 2019 having been delayed 15 months due to the pandemic and Scarlett Johansson finally gets a solo movie as the Black Widow character which takes place between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War as Natasha goes on the run and finds her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) and her parents (Rachel Weisz and David Harbour) as whispers emerge of more Black Widow spies around the world as well as the dangerous Taskmaster who has been ordered to find and kill Natasha and her family.
Black Widow was a film I had mixed hopes for mainly due to the character’s death in Avengers: Endgame and also a sense that this film was way too late as I felt it should’ve been made in Phase 2 of the MCU which was everything from Iron Man 3 to the first Ant Man film but here we are 15 months after its initial April 2020 release date and was it worth the wait.
Well yes and no, the first two thirds of this movie I thought were quite good, it felt a lot like a Jason Bourne film with its grounded action, European locations and spy thriller plot that while I had my guard up for the most part it did win me over and I did enjoy myself and that really comes down to the chemistry between Johansson and Pugh who work really well together and Pugh is a born movie star and it’s a real pity that she couldn’t have had that year of 2020 to really build on her rise in 2019 but that’s a pandemic for you.
As for Rachel Weisz she is okay in her role but she doesn’t really have any kind of meaningful story arc in the film but the show stealer for me was David Harbour as the Red Guardian who was said to be Russia’s answer to Captain America and he is clearly having a great time in this role and he reminded me a lot of John Goodman and the little action figure we see of the character in the film I really loved as well.
But as good as the first two thirds of this movie are the third act is not and it feels like you go from this very grounded spy movie to a traditional Marvel Studios movie where there’s big things and lame villains AGAIN! Yes sadly it seems Marvel Studios has not learnt from how successful Thanos was in the last 2 Avengers movies and reverted back to type with giving us lame villains, Taskmaster was said to be studying all of the Avengers and how they fight yet we barely see that in the film and there were golden opportunities to show that off particularly when he fights the Red Guardian in the climax he could’ve channelled the Hulk and given us an awesome battle but instead nothing and Taskmaster as a character as well as his master just feel like their there for a third act plot twist.
And it is not GOOD ENOUGH ANYMORE!!!!! I’m sorry but Marvel Studios is the number one movie franchise in show business right now, they have rewritten the rule book and it has been a big reason a magnificent movie studio in 20th Century Fox which had wonderfully rich and in depth library of films was allowed to burn to the ground because of the supposed crime of having Marvel characters in their library and STILL they cannot do the bare minimum and give us a great villain and I know I have gone on about this a lot but a great villain makes these movies more than the action, the heroes and the humour be something you go back to again and again.
And If Zack Snyder of all people a man whose DC vision left a sour taste in a lot of fans mouths can see that mistake and fix it with his take on Steppenwolf in his cut of Justice League surely it is not beyond the top franchise in movies to do the exact same thing going forward after this film because I am sick to death of it and I’m over it.
And so that was Black Widow which has a great first two thirds and a weak third act and weak villains once again, 2 and a half out of 5.
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