Black Widow

 

A little over a year ago, I had written an article declaring that I was done with Marvel movies for a little bit after Kevin Feige revealed that events which transpire in the Disney+ shows would carry over into the films. Even though that article does come across as excessively salty upon rereading, I still feel that way, especially after spending the quarantine widening my palette and seeing the other types of movies that are out there and available. But deep down, I had a small hope that maybe Black Widow – a movie that I and many others had been waiting to see for years, and one that is serving as both a swansong for Scarlett Johansson’s character and a “tying-up-loose-ends” prequel to Infinity War – would be the film that finally brought me back into the fold and consider giving the Disney+ shows and future films a watch.

 

…it wasn’t.

 

Our story: set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding out in Norway, on the run from the U.S. government. But after coming into contact with a mysterious enemy known as Taskmaster, she discovers a conspiracy that involves her old family – including Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), a.k.a the Red Guardian, her sister Yelena Bolova (Florence Pugh), and her surrogate mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) – and a Russian general named Dreykov (Ray Winstone), who’s in charge of the Red Room where Natasha, Yelena, and Melina trained to become Black Widows.

 

Now, you probably think from the opening of this review that I disliked this movie. No, I just didn’t love it. As a matter of fact, this might be the first Marvel film since maybe Thor: The Dark World that left little to no emotional impact on me. It’s too well-made and all the actors are doing too good of a job for it to be considered bad – the standouts being Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour as an over-the-top Russian Captain America, and Florence Pugh demonstrating she’s ready to take up the mantle of Black Widow when it’s her turn – but the film is mostly just forgettable.

 

I think the main problem with the film is that the pacing is a little too rushed. The first half hour of this film was just too fast-paced with so many action scenes that I didn’t develop a real emotional attachment to any of the new characters, despite the actors doing their best. For me, the movie is at its best when it’s slowing down to show just how much of a dysfunctional family Natasha, Alexei, Milena, and Yelena really are, especially the one right around the middle. But again, it didn’t really land for me because I didn’t really care about any of the characters. There’s also the problem of some of the jokes going on a little too long because Marvel really wants to capitalize on that humor they’re so well-known for, despite that it undercuts many moments that should be emotional and dramatic (the worst of the bunch comes during the end-credits scene). Also, the action is not very well-photographed, succumbing to the common problem of too much shaky cam and fast editing for us as the audience to get a sense of what’s going on and who’s fighting whom.

 

But there are some bright spots here. Like I said, Johansson, Harbour, and Pugh are really good here, the dramatic moments are sufficiently effective, and this is sort of a nice way to close out the original Black Widow’s run in the MCU. The biggest standout for me, though, was Lorne Balfe’s score. Given that this is a film about Natasha, the music really leans into her Russian heritage, making great use of men’s choirs and motifs that put me in mind of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky’s music, particularly “A Night on Bald Mountain” and his opera Boris Godunov. There’s also a little of Prokofiev’s “Battle on the Ice” cue from Alexander Nevsky thrown in there for good measure.

 

So, like I said before, Black Widow isn’t a bad movie, it’s just nothing special. It played, I watched it, I was mildly entertained, and then about an hour later, I had already forgotten pretty much everything that happened in it. Nothing you really need to go rush out and see and definitely not worth springing for that extra $30 price tag on Disney+.  

 

So, yeah. Sorry, Marvel. Still not really into you anymore. I’ll still see GOTG Vol. 3 and Thor: Love and Thunder, but I ain’t gonna follow you like I used to.