Why did it take this long for Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow to get a solo movie? The character was even killed off in Avengers Endgame, so it’s not like we’ll be getting more with this character from here. Marvel Films, for the longest while, seemed disinclined to give a female hero a solo movie for some reason, but now that they’re presumably setting up whatever comes post-Thanos, maybe now is the time to really get something done there, even if right now the point of the movie may be to do two things, only one of which is to spotlight Johansson’s character for the first and probably last time.
As for the other, well, that actually worked out pretty well.
Opening in 90s Ohio, we see a pre-teen Natasha Romanov living with a family that includes a younger sister, Yelena, and her parents. However, one night her father comes home and tells her mother that he got what he was after and they have to leave. Apparently, they weren’t really a family. “Mother” Melina (Rachel Weisz) is a scientist of some kind while “father” Alexei (David Harbour) is actually the Russian super-soldier the Red Guardian. Yelena and Natasha are not related, but the group spent three years undercover for the Russian government looking to get…something from S.H.I.E.L.D. and now that the mission is over, they’ll go their separate ways. For the young girls, that means the Red Room where Black Widows are trained whether they want to go that route or not.
Fast forward 21 years to just after the events of Captain American: Civil War. Natasha is on the run from at least the American government after the Avengers fell apart. Meanwhile, Yelana (Florence Pugh) has grown up to become a Black Widow assassin herself, but then something happens that puts her on the run from her own organization. There’s something going on with the Red Room, and Natasha thought it didn’t even exist anymore. Yelena reluctantly reaches out to her former “sister” and the two even more reluctantly team up to deal with it. Neither are quite happy with each other, and Natasha doesn’t want to deal with anything, but someone has to put a stop to this program, and that’ll mean not only working with Yelena, but also getting back together with their “parents” Melina and Alexei. The Red Room, however, is not without its own resources, including the mysterious Taskmaster, a copycat killer who can do any combat move he has seen someone else perform.
Black Widow is basically Marvel’s espionage movie, but it’s still set in a superhero universe. That means the villain’s central plot has a fantastic element beyond whatever the Taskmaster can do. It likewise means Alexei seems to have some level of enhanced strength, but the movie doesn’t get too much into that one way or the other. If anything, it’s a bit appropriate that when Nat sits down at one point to watch a James Bond movie, it’s Moonraker, easily the most ridiculous of the entire Bond series in its very premise and execution–though there is a part of me that thinks it would have been neat for Nat to have been watched a Daniel Craig Bond movie given who his wife is. I wouldn’t say Black Widow is as campy as a Roger Moore Bond movie, but given the superhero elements, it seems appropriate.
Oddly enough though, the superhero stuff may have been the weakest part of the movie, and none of it was bad so much as largely expected at this point. Instead, the best parts of Black Widow are actually the character work. Natasha’s whole thing has been trying to make up for the horrible things she’s done in her past, and this movie’s plot plays into that in a big way. Likewise, the best scenes are all ones involved Natasha, Yelena, Alexei, or Melina just talking to each other. The audience gets a good grasp on each of these characters. Yelena is a bit cynical about life and some of the things she’s seen Nat do over the years, Melina is consumed by guilt over things she’s done, and Alexei, a more comedic character than the rest, is a vainglorious loudmouth who wants to relive his glory days serving a cause. Of those three, as much as this is Johansson’s movie, Pugh’s Yelena easily becomes the most fully realized character. Considering the movie is as much here to introduce her to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, that’s appropriate and appreciated, especially for an actress as talented as Pugh. As rote as the final act may be, the movie still serves as a good final outing for Johansson and an introduction to Pugh, so for that, this long-delayed Marvel movie was very much worth the wait.
Grade: B
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