Rent Black Widow on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Eric Pearson (screenplay by), Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson (story by)
Directed by: Cate Shortland
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, William Hurt, Olga Kurylenko
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer
Plot
Natasha Romanoff confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises.
Verdict
This movie is a long overdue adventure for Black Widow. With the events of the Marvel Universe this is a coda rather than the start of standalone adventures. This is more of a thriller than the typical Marvel super hero story, with a noticeable lack of other Avengers. This reveals Black Widow's past which had been a lingering question, but outside of the main character this feels like a rather standard thriller. This movie has no bearing on the Marvel universe in the way that other members of the Avengers' movies do. I have to wonder if this movie exists just to introduce Natasha's sister and in turn setup the plot for the Hawkeye series.
It depends.
Review
This occurs after Captain America: Civil War, and if you're familiar with the movies it's easy to realize that with discussion of the Sokovia Accords. This movie feels like it comes too late with many movies happening after this one in the timeline and some big events in the Marvel universe.
Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is the first female avenger, but this isn't the first female led Marvel movie. Captain Marvel holds that distinction.
This starts in 1995 with a lengthy introduction with the purpose only to introduce the characters. Then it's off to the main plot where Natasha must stop the secretive leader of the Russian Assassins, a group of which she used to be a member.
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| Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh play Black Widow Natasha Romanoff, Red Guardian Alexei, Yelena Belova. |
Through plenty of action this reveals Natasha's past including a sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh). Yelena is a nice inclusion as we get to see what Natasha's life could have been like. They're at odds because the movie needs drama. They team up for the sake of the plot and to resolve Natasha's past, seemingly more for the Marvel universe than for her.
The two must go through their parents to reach the big bad villain. Alexei (David Harbour) is the Red Guardian and Natasha's father. He's strictly here for comic relief. This drudges up her past and and so-called family, but it doesn't resolve anything. Natasha and Yelena pause to fight the bad guy, and he's the bad guy because he's the easiest villain to put in this movie and not create a conflict with the already established universe. He's a shadow that runs the Russian assassins and only known to Natasha.
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| Olga Kurylenko plays Taskmaster. |
This also takes the Star Wars Captain Phasma approach by providing an awesome looking bad guy that does very little in Taskmaster.
The resolution to the plot is a bit too fancy and easy. The problem with the movie is that it has no bearing on the Marvel universe at large. Neat, Natasha has a sister. She doesn't appear in any of the movies and at this point it seems this movie introduced her just to set up the plot for the upcoming Hawkeye series.
I give the movie credit for picking the time period as it provides a plausible reason why we don't see any other Avengers in this movie, when super heroes tend to show up in all the movies regardless of the title. The other side of that is that it makes this movie feel like an outlier. It doesn't have the connection to the universe that the others do. The biggest question is why this movie, or a movie about Black Widow, didn't come out years earlier.
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