Black Widow is a superhero movie, the latest installment in the sprawling MCU, centered on Avenger Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow(Scarlett Johansson), the events take place following Captain America: Civil War and serve as a defacto origin story. The movie opens in 1995 with Natasha as a kid in suburban Ohio with what appears to be a normal family. It's quickly revealed they are actually undercover Russian operatives and have to flee. Flashfoward and Natasha is in hiding when she's contacted by her sister Yelena(Florence Pugh) who she teams up with to take down the former KGB agent turned indepedent spymaster/tyrant Dreykov(Ray Winston) who has brainwashed an army of female assasins of which Natasha and Yelena use to be members. In order to track him down the sisters must reunite with their parents Alexei(David Harbour) and Melina(Rachel Weisz).
It's great to see Johansson, finally, in her standalone Marvel movie and she, no surprise, is up for it. She's a pro and all the work and backstory she's weaved into the character in the multiple previous installments pays decent dividends here. But because of all the previous exposure of the character she is somewhat constrained and the other three members of her 'family' are able to do it a bit more, have a bit more fun, and provide a bit more depth. The movie really shines when it focuses on the family dynamic. Pugh, Harbour, and Weisz are all wonderfully refreshing for the MCU, with all the ass-kicking you could want but with emotion and humor and a certain dimension which has typically been one of the short falls of the franchise. The story has an unstoppable momentum and they're able to play into the family dynamic and explore character surprisingly well moving from one action set piece to the next, the film somewhat stumbles in the final act(as almost every single MCU movie does) with a huge CGI set piece. Which for Black Widow particularly rings a bit hollow as so much that went before focuses on practical effects and IRL fight choreography.
The movie has the polish and crispness of the MCU but this is significantly differentiated by the focus, which is Black Widow and her pseudo-family, it is almost a family-drama come action movie and actually the big bad played by an out-of-his-depth Winston and all that character's machinations are rendered almost irrelevant by the chemistry of the main four and the past which they unpack.
A solidly entertaining and propulsive Marvel offering with a refreshing focus on women within this world lead by the most woefully underutilized Avenger.
Currently in theaters and on Disney+.
See It.
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