Black Widow - Movie Review

Critics Score - 4 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they hit their stride with the first Avenger film and have put out some really impressive work culminating in Infinity War and Endgame. Don’t believe me to be a Marvel hater, I would rate Infinity War as a 10 personally, it’s one of my favorite films of the last decade. But we’ve entered into Marvel’s Phase 4, with Black Widow being the newest film to continue the MCU, even though it’s technically a pre-Infinity War film. There’s enough to the film that general audiences and Marvel fanboys will be entertained, but it’s light on humor and too conventional in it’s story for it to really satisfy. Unlike the fantastically amusing Thor Ragnarok, Black Widow takes zero chances creatively, has subpar performances with one exception and fails to connect emotionally with the audience. While it may reach some audiences with it’s action and Scarlett strutting in her black skin tight suit, it will invariably leave some people feeling a bit woozy and a little sick from this Black Widow bite.

We start our latest female superhero film with a childhood flashback of the young Natasha and sister Yelena being hauled away from their Ohio home and escaping by plane to Cuba with their parents Alexei (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz). We quickly pick up on the fact that they were all placed there as Russian spies to gather intel but with the mission complete, they go their separate ways. The girls are shuffled around shelters while a lady sings a mediocre rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit. After this fifteen minute intro, it finally gets into the main plot and we flash forward to a post Captain America Civil War with Natasha (Scarlett Johansson) running from the government, making her way to a hideout in Norway. In her mail is box containing some kind of neurological chemical that an assassin has mailed to her that can reverse a brainwashing program that *spolier alert* a Russian bad guy has been using to control the minds of young women for a Black Widow assassin program. Natasha finally runs into her sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) the one decent performance in the movie, which is unfortunate because Johansson did an excellent job in the last two Avengers films. At a two hour and fifteen minute runtime, it seems like it’s a solid twenty minutes too long while we watch Natasha track down her entire former family in an effort to take down the Black Widow assassin program.

By the time all the bad guys have been beaten, we’ve come to realize what a deep and meaningful family bond can do to strengthen the emotional ties . . . who am I kidding, this film has virtually no depth or meaning. Of course Natasha is the focal point of the story, and watching a female superhero lead is a great thing and I hope we get to see more female and minority groups represented on screen. But I also hope they can put in the time to not give us the same old genre film we’ve seen at least a half a dozen times before. The original score does do some interesting work at making some of the emotional beats the film tries to hit stand out some. Besides the action and fight sequences, Florence Pugh is the best reason to see the film, she’s pretty spectacular and manages to outshines the star of the show who just seems to be along for the ride.

SUMMARY - This film is certainly a good time for all those craving some interesting action sequences and hungry for new MCU material. But if you’re in the market for anything more, this film is bound to disappoint. The screenplay, performances and humor mostly fall flat and leave you wishing you hadn’t walked right into this Black Widow’s web.