Conor and I saw Black Widow in the theater today, and we both loved it. The movie was originally supposed to open in May 2020, but then COVID happened and the studio kept pushing back (and back and back some more). I’ve been looking forward to this movie for well over a year now. Sometimes that kind of anticipation leads to disappointment, but not this time. It ended up being better than I expected.
Some general thoughts about it:
• Black Widow has one of the best opening sequences I’ve ever seen – not just in Marvel movies, but in any movie. It created a powerful emotional framework that supported the rest of the movie and infused it with a massive amount of heart. There were some beautiful callbacks to the opening as the movie progressed (especially near the end). I also loved the choices of songs they used. The placement of the two key songs could have been really corny, but it wasn’t.
• Sometimes I forget when I’m watching Marvel movies how much of an anchor Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff has been since she debuted in Iron Man 2. She’s been at the center of some of the Avengers’ most pivotal moments, and she was the glue that held together my absolute favorite Marvel film (Captain America: Winter Soldier).
Because Avengers: Endgame was such a massive, epic film, Black Widow’s death/sacrifice got swallowed up and overshadowed – especially in the end, when everyone was mourning Tony. Natasha was basically forgotten, which was complete bullshit that really irritated me. It was nice to see Black Widow get her due in this movie, and it was especially nice to see Scarlett Johansson get a chance to fully stretch and breathe in her own full-length story. Her performance made the wait worth it.
• Johansson was great in this, but the supporting cast is what really helped flesh out the movie. The true secret weapon in Marvel Studios’ worldbuilding arsenal has always been their casting, and they managed to pull it off again here. I’ve loved Florence Pugh since I saw her in Midsommar (a gorgeous and psychologically jarring horror movie that’s never really left my head), and her portrayal of Yelena Belova was phenomenal in Black Widow. It’s pretty clear what her future is going to be in the MCU, and I’m here for it.
I have to be honest – when Endgame was over, it felt like the book was closed on the MCU. At least for me. The overarching Avengers story was beautifully told, there was a clear resolution of a long-developing story that included the death of the MCU’s first superhero, and I wasn’t sure there needed to be more. Add Chadwick Boseman’s (Black Panther’s) death into the mix, and I easily could have walked away from it all happy and satisfied. But if Pugh’s Yelena is going to be around in the MCU, that’s part of what’s going to keep me around as a viewer. She’s great.
• David Harbour was also great as Alexei. We’ve all seen him in Stranger Things, so we know what he can do. But he’s hilarious in pretty much every scene he’s in here, which is necessary. Black Widow is an intense movie with a lot of action and violence. Harbour’s humor and awkwardness help balance out the intensity. He’s charming and endearing and goofy, and this movie needed those things sprinkled in to work.
• One of the things that drives me nuts about modern action movies is the way every single one of them has women do the same move. You know the one. They jump, crouch down, and flip their hair back as they lift their heads. Natasha does it a lot, but it’s not just her. Go watch some action movies from the last 10 years, and you’ll see that same move all over the place. It’s like the only thing directors know what to do with women. It’s bizarre and such a cliché at this point. Anyway, they directly address of my biggest pet peeves in Black Widow. It was very meta, very true, and very hilarious – one of my favorite gags in the movie (and another thing that instantly endeared me to Pugh/Yelena).
• If there was one letdown, it was Taskmaster. This wasn’t because of the “twist.” Taskmaster’s real identity made sense in the context of story, and I don’t care what or who plays that role in the movie. (I can’t go much deeper than that without spoiling the reveal.) I guess it just felt like Mandarin in Iron Man 3 or Deadpool in Wolverine Origins: a waste of a great, interesting comic book villain in the service of an unrelated narrative. If there’s been a consistent Achilles’ Heel in the MCU, it’s their “villain problem.” They took a step toward correcting that with Zemo in Falcon & Winter Soldier, but Taskmaster felt like a step backward. The thing that makes him interesting and unique in the comics (besides the awesome costume, which is still awesome here) is minimized and basically sidestepped in Black Widow.
On the whole, though, I enjoyed this movie a lot. Given its release timing, where it lives in the MCU timeline, and the fact that we went into it knowing that Natasha is dead “in the present,” Black Widow is better than it has any right to be. It’s easily in my Top 10 Marvel movies – definitely on par thematically and tonally with the MCU films I love best. And I can’t wait to see it again, which is always a good sign.