- Rating:PG-13 (Some Language|Intense Violence/Action|Thematic Material)
- Genre:Adventure, Action
- Original Language:English
- Director: Cate Shortland
- Producer: Kevin Feige
- Writer: Eric Pearson
Black Widow is a good day at the office for Marvel Studios and a welcome contribution from the distaff side of the Marvel Universe, says Neil Fletcher
Like so many other projects, this one’s release was endlessly delayed by Covid, a fact that doubtless heightened Marvel’s female fans, who have seen the comic book production machine’s icons Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man get three standalone films before Natasha Romanoff got one. Fans complained long before the pandemic that it felt like Black Widow was getting pushed aside, but now she has her own adventure.
Director Cate Shortland proves very adept in telling a globe-spanning superhero-cum-Cold War yarn, her style unabashedly pulling from beloved action and espionage classics including the Bourne films, Mission: Impossible, and the James Bond franchise. But the movie feels taut and original on its own terms, with tight action choreography by Shortland and a great cast that centers four very engaging performances from Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, and Florence Pugh.
The movie opens with Natasha’s origin story, as we see Natasha and Yelena as young girls fleeing their regulation life in small town Ohio after their parents are unmasked as Russian spies. They are flown at midnight to Cuba to their Russian controllers, and both subsequently turned, via both training and chemical jiggery-pokery, into so-called Widows, killing machines deployed across the globe for the greater good of Mother Russia.
Jump ahead to just after “Captain America: Civil War,” when Natasha is on the run from her own government and she receives a package from Yelena, who is suffering through her own forced exile after discovering a substance that releases the Widows from their chemical subjugation. “Black Widow” centers on vials that can turn killing machines back into ordinary women. Yelena sends a case of the vials to her sister, knowing it will bring her to a safe house in Budapest. From there, they are forced to break Alexei, aka The Red Guardian, out of prison and eventually reunite with the Black Widow who really made them, Melina.
This movie deftly moving from one action set piece to another, only losing its momentum in a couple scenes – an extended family reunion and one of the talkiest showdown scenes in history in the third act. But gripes aside, “Black Widow” tells a relatively simple story with significantly less fat than a lot of other superhero flicks. It makes sense that a no-nonsense killing machine like Black Widow should have a no-nonsense installment, but it’s nice to see it actually happened.
