Black Widow Movie Review

So I was pretty excited for the Black Widow movie to come out. Even if I would have to watch it from my home, I was pretty excited as I’ve always really liked Black Widow as played by Scarlett Johansson-I thought she always did a good job of enacting the fighting choreography, while portraying the character as likable, humorous, dignified, and most notably, as intriguingly complex. Natasha has mostly been well written and so when she got a movie that was essentially half her story: Captain America-The Winter Soldier in 2014, the movie’s depiction of a smart, capable, and interesting female super hero was way ahead of Wonder Woman (2017) or Captain Marvel (2019). And so for a while Black Widow was the only good female super hero we had.

So overall Black Widow was…good, fine and ok. It was mostly a fun, silly, action, popcorn movie (except here in Canada we had to make the popcorn in our microwaves for the premiere). The thing is, Marvel has given us movies that were so funny, moving and full of well shot and choreographed action- which made me expect that this movie would be closer to an Endgame or even Winter Soldier, because that’s what this character deserved. Instead what we got was a mediocre story that was a rip-off of other, previous Marvel projects. I will say that the action was mostly good, but sometimes the shots were quickly edited or a bit shaky.

I would advise you to stop reading soon if you want to avoid spoilers, but just be prepared that in order to get to some good action, some new and mostly likeable characters (not you Melina) and a small bit of interesting character development for Natasha Romanoff, you’ll have to sit through some groaners of character motivation, lazy storytelling, and repetitive and generic plot points. I’m trying to be positive, but this review is turning in to a long laundry lists of all the glaring faults I found with the movie. I think the movie is a fun, action flick, just don’t expect too much or think about things too deeply.

So I’ll give you the basic plot points, but tell me if you’ve heard this one before: A group of Russian operatives are posing undercover as a normal American family in order to obtain some top secret information, except the children are unsure as to whether/ not they are operatives or part of a real family. Once the key information is obtained the group are shipped backed to Russia, where the children are separated from the spies who were posing as their parents. The girls are forced to enter the Widows program which is run out of the Red Room terrorist organization, which will ultimately turn them into obedient spy-assassins. We then flash forwards to Natasha at the end of the Captain America- Civil War movie, where a mysterious collection of vials ends up in Natasha’s possession. Natasha figures out that the vials belong to her former fake sister Yelena and then has to go to Russia to give them back. Once in Russia, Natasha learns that Yelena is trying to take down the Red Room, which is run by the evil General Dreykov. Natasha wants to help stop the Red Room from causing anyone any more pain and so it means getting the “family” together one last time to take down the evil organization. Can they work through their anger and make peace with their pasts? Can you guess the ending based on what I’ve told you? In order to get to the end of the movie though, the audience will have to deal with women being tortured and mind controlled, a gas antidote that can stop the mind control, an evil terrorist organization that Natasha has to take down, and a secret villain named Taskmaster who is out to get the vials containing the mind-control antidote back.

You could probably tell by reading the summary that there are many problems with this film. Firstly, when I finished watching Black Widow it felt like something was missing but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. After consulting with my fellow nerds, we came to the conclusion that this movie felt incomplete, in large part because it tells the backstory of a superspy, assassin turned superhero without depicting the nature and development of her espionage. The movie has her reuniting with her “family” and going on a very straightforward mission to take down the Red Room, and while this could actually have allowed for an interesting break-in or hacking related storyline somewhere, there is noticeably no espionage elements of any interest or worth in this story. In fact a movie that actually was a spy- thriller that used Natasha’s character to her advantage was Captain America-The Winter Soldier. Winter Soldier actually gave us a lot of character development for Natasha, and allowed her to do a lot of cool spying and computer-hacking in the movie.

This leads me in to the second major problem with the movie: the story and plot points from the movie are very stale, cliché, and worst of all for a cinematic universe: RECYCLED. This movie follows very closely to another movie I’ve already mentioned: Captain America-The Winter Soldier. Both have our main heroes seeking to take down a terrorist organization that is constantly subjecting people to surveillance and threatening the freedom and safety of innocent civilians, both have a secret, shadowy killing machine who ends up being a person who is being mind controlled/ brainwashed the whole time (Winter Soldier and Taskmaster respectively) and both have Natasha as a central character. The thing is that I was willing to accept the whole mind-control plot in Winter Soldier and Civil War, but in a series where these worlds are explicitly connected and audience interaction requires that they have intimate knowledge of the previous Marvel movies- or at least the main plot points of those important movies in the MCU- it’s insulting to basically stick us with the same movie THREE times. The movie isn’t a complete disaster and did have some things going for it, but you do have to be able to get past the lazy story-telling devices of once again relying so heavily on mind-control, our main heroes taking down a terrorist organization as their main goal and the final act, and more unremarkable, bland villains.

Additionally, to add insult to injury, the Taskmaster and Winter Solder characters are both introduced, shot, and move in very similar ways-I could easily make a shot for shot comparison, because that’s how similar they are. For me though, the Winter Soldier actually ends up being a compelling character, whereas Taskmaster is extremely bland and forgettable.

In fact Black Widow ends up so closely mirroring the two Captain America movies that I’ve taken to calling the movie Captain America- Winter Soldier: the Russian Version, which would’ve been clever and inventive if Alexei hadn’t mad essentially the same joke in the movie, like a couple of times. We learn that Alexei was the U.S.S.R’s only super solider, aptly named the Red Guardian, which is of course a clear parallel to Captain America. I think Alexei’s alter-ego would have been fine, if the movie didn’t insist on frequently reminding the audience of the obvious similarities and have Harbour essentially wink at the camera whenever this is discussed. Alexei has a long, drawn-out conversation about how he fought Captain America in the 1980’s, which as another person correctly points out could only have been a fantasy or dream, as in this Universe Captain America was frozen in ice until about 2011. Alexei refuses to accept this as fact, and insists he bested Captain America, even proudly exclaiming: “I could’ve been more famous than Captain America”, if only General Dreykov hadn’t had Alexei take the fall for him for something- its not really ever explained why he sends Alexei to prison. Alexei also talks about Natasha being an Avenger with a lot of jealousy and reverence. Although we never actually learn how or why Natasha left Russia or how she was able to escape the Red Room, which is a shame as these are central parts of her character.

Look I told you this review was turning into a long list of disappointments and complaints about the movie, ok? It’s just so unfortunate that this is the movie we ended up with, when there was so much potential for this character’s backstory.

Ok so what do I like about the movie aside from the fact that it has some cool action and that I get to spend more time with the Black Widow character? Well I do like most of the other main characters, especially Natasha’s younger sister Yelena as played by Florence Pugh. I really like the bond that develops between the two women, even though they are not biologically sisters. I thought it was funny and clever how they bicker, tease each other, love, and argue with one another just like biological sisters would, which works to demonstrate that family isn’t necessarily determined by biology, but often who you care for and spend a great deal of bonding time with. I also like how the sisters are bonded by the collective trauma that they endured in the widow program and that they are essentially using the training and tools given to them by the Red Room program against General Dreykov in order to take him down and stop him from causing any more harm to anyone else.

I like how they all end up being this weird, semi-family even though they’re just a collection of spies who were acting as a family. I thought it was clever that just like how the women unwittingly treated each other like sisters, the adults who had to play their parents end up treating the women the way parents would treat their children, even when the girls are adults. I also liked that they made the family mostly sympathetic and make it clear that the fake parents clearly felt conflicted for their past sins against their fake children.

I thought the casting for the “parents” was a bit awkward and misplaced. David Harbour as Alexei the “father” was good at being funny and silly, and you can tell he is acting the best he can given the sometimes-limiting script. The real tragedy, in terms of casting, is Rachel Weisz as the fake mother Melina. She’s got a lot of “Star Wars prequel syndrome” going on: by which I mean wooden acting from a usually strong actor and a bad script, which is especially terrible for that particular character. Weisz doesn’t really act very much in the movie and frankly; her character isn’t even so essential to the plot. The lowest point comes near the beginning of the third act, when the group is deciding to team up one last time to take down the evil Red Room, but Melina’s motivations for fighting against her boss of 20 something years is never clearly explained. It’s like the script just calls for her to suddenly have a moral objection to the torture that the Red Room perpetrates against others and so poof!, she’s suddenly totally on board to take down the organization, even though not even 3 minutes ago she was proudly talking about her work for the Red Room. It’s really irritating and lazy writing. I mean they do also try to add in an unnecessary fake out in the middle regarding Melina’s actions, but it doesn’t add anything to the story, or to her character, so it ends up just feeling like a waste of the audience’s time.

The casting also does beg the uncomfortable question of why weren’t any actual Russian actors cast? This would’ve been the perfect opportunity to actually cast a Russian actor who speaks English in this part, rather than continuing Marvel’s awkward tradition of casting American or British actors to play Russian characters: such as Elizabeth Olsen playing Wanda Maximoff, who completely loses her accent randomly and for no reason throughout the movies. While the fake Russian accents in this movie are a bit better, it doesn’t really say much as they still feel very forced and fake. (Thank God they’re able to explain away Natasha’s lack of an accent rather than allowing Scarlett Johansson to subject us to a bad Russian accent for part or even all of the movie.)

There were also a lot of problems with the opening of the movie. Firstly, the opening slows the movie down and makes it so that it takes a little while for the real story to get going. Additionally, the opening was unnecessarily long, generic, and sometimes boring.

Secondly, the opening of the movie was sappy and weirdly patriotic, which makes the whole no actual Russian actors thing kind of extra uncomfortable. Young Yelena is so indoctrinated as a Russian Immigrant in American that her favorite song is “American Pie” by Don Mclean, which felt extremely forced to me: I mean if this is Summer 1995 shouldn’t a 6 year old’s favorite song be like “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas or something more realistic? The American propaganda is subtle, but still felt very tangible to me. If it’s supposed to be 1995 then why are there still all these Russian spies posing under cover as Americans? I suppose the spies and the sisters were sent by the terrorist organization the Red Room, but it still felt very similar to the anti-Russian propaganda of the 1950’s. The movie makes it seem like the characters have a weird obsession and fascination with the United States of America.

Thirdly, and perhaps worst of all, the opening does not really do anything to convince me of a bond between the sisters as young children, nor does it do anything to develop Natasha’s character as a child. Natasha does sometimes look out for Yelena, but we could also just attribute that to what we the audience know is Natasha’s generally caring demeanor. I think a lot of the problems are due to the writing and the unfortunately wooden acting coming from the young woman who plays a younger Natasha.

Perhaps one of the greatest disappointments with the movie is that Natasha’s unwilling indoctrination into the Widows program that is run by the Red Room terrorists was not clearly shown or explained. The film doesn’t take any time out to elaborate on the physical and mental torture that Natasha and Yelena would’ve been forced to endure at young ages, but instead kind of hints at the traumas and the actual training the girls go through by way of a lazily put together montage set to a terrible cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit. It would’ve been so much more powerful and important for Natasha’s character development if they’d shown some of the torture that she had endured and ultimately learned to overcome. It is hinted at us through a montage of artsy images that some of the women unwillingly get brain- changing surgeries, and hysterectomies. And we do sort of see them crying out in pain but nothing is ever really shown or explained to the audience. Whenever Natasha has spoken about her past experiences in the Red Room and as a Russian assassin, she always feels so terrible and horrified, and so actually having her confront the trauma of her past could have been a really interesting and compelling moment for her character.

It was a huge let down because in the previous films (specifically in Avengers: Age of Ultron) we’ve been told a little bit by Natasha about the torture she’s suffered at the hands of the Red Room, including being unwillingly sterilized, and how that has shaped her character. Additionally Natasha makes it sound like she has a lot of blood on her hands from her time in Russia, and a very guilty conscience, but we don’t really know what she did that was so awful. The only thing Black Widow admits to feeling guilty over in this movie is that she killed the child of General Dreykov (when she bombed the building he was also in at the time), which ends up being retconned anyways so it doesn’t really matter and we the audience don’t have to feel in any way conflicted about cheering for Natasha.

Finally I will note that something that takes away from the intensity of the action is that since this is a prequel and we know how Natasha ultimately dies, the stakes never end up being too high. I don’t think knowing a character’s ending necessarily means that the stakes that the protagonist must face and overcome can’t be exciting and gripping, it just seems like this movie was unable or incapable of doing that for Black Widow. Natasha actually ends up being kind of indestructible which was very distracting and also helped to remove the possibility of the stakes becoming too high. Some examples of the Natasha’s comically unrealistic resiliency include: her falling from tall buildings like twice, one time while fighting someone, and it doesn’t even leave a mark on her. Another time, she gets the crap beat out of her (near the end of the film), and then just needs to take a brief, cleansing breath before suddenly being back to prefect fighting ability. I realise that these are comic-book movies, but at least in the other Marvel movies when characters (usually including Natasha herself) are hit or injured they at least flinch or show some signs of minor distress before jumping back in to the ass-kicking.

There was a final secret, mid-credits scene (as prescribed by Marvel Law) that was quite good and did leave the door open to a future movie with Yelena as the main character. I thought it was the scene was well done, even though it was only a few minutes. The scene takes place after the events of Avengers: End Game and so you get to see Natasha’s grave stone, which was really important for the audience to honor the character and really get a chance to properly say goodbye to her. I thought it was actually really sweet that her gravestone said “Daughter, Sister, Avenger”, even if the movie itself didn’t really convince me terribly of the daughter part (in relation to her semi-closeness to Melina and Alexei).  

Ultimately, I’d say it is worth watching, especially if you love the character and just want an excuse to see her on screen for even a little bit more time, but not for the $30 Disney is charging you. You do get some of those fun fire explosion shots that you’re used to and when the characters are working together it is a good time, so it’s not all bad. It’s just a disappointing movie when you consider how much wasted potential there was here to really explore Natasha’s backstory and what it could have looked like to see her escape a terrorist organization and join up with the Avengers to become the Black Widow that I’ve come to love and admire.