Review – Marvel’s Black Widow (2021)
Review – Marvel’s Black Widow (2021)
Rating: PG-13 (Some Language|Intense Violence/Action|Thematic Material)
Genre: Adventure, Action
Director: Cate Shortland
Producer: Kevin Feige
Writer: Eric Pearson
Release Date (Theaters & Disney+): July 9th 2021, Wide
Runtime: 2h 13m
Production Company: Marvel Studios
End Credit Scene: Yes, after all the credits
Black Widow Main Cast Credits
Scarlett Johansson Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow
David Harbour Alexei/The Red Guardian
Ever Anderson Young Natasha Romanoff
Florence Pugh Yelena Belova
Martin Razpopov Tattoo Gulag Inmate
O.T. Fagbenle Mason
Olga Kurylenko Antonia/Taskmaster
Rachel Weisz Melina Vostokoff
Ray Winstone Dreykov
Ryan Kiera Armstrong Young Antonia
Violet McGraw Young Yelena Belova
William Hurt Thaddeus Ross
Black Widow Plot
Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Story.. Including Spoilers
Poor Natasha Romanov… No funeral in Endgame, her main movie delayed several times due to COVID and now sacrificed at the altar of Marvel Movie Tropes.
An Americcan family in the 1980s has their traditional dinner interrupted when their father (Harbour) bursts in and warns they have an hour to leave. Quickly packing, they leave all their possessions behind apart from their guns. The two young girls, Natasha and Yelina, seem confused but follow orders. At an airstrip, a small plane is intercepted by police cars but Alexi (Harbour) takes care of them easily, but not before the mother is shot and Natasha has to take over the flight controls.
The plane lands in Cuba and it becomes clear they are sleeper agents for Russia, caught stealing secrets but managing to escape. They’re not even a family and the girls knocked out and processed by the RED ROOM, the infamous facility that develops lethal female assassins, also known as widows.
A terrible montage is played over the opening titles with a piano version of Smells Like Teen Spirit showing how the Red Room is conditioning the girls with the shadowy figure of Dreykov linked to many political leaders across the decades.
The movie then switches to a classic Marvel Movie and steals tropes and scenes from as many of its previous movies as possible. Natasha (Johansson) is on the run following the events of Marvel Civil War movie and hides out in Norway, meanwhile, the Widows are tracking a young Asian woman but Yelena is sprayed in the face with a biological weapon that breaks Dreykovs conditioning.
With this new weapon able to break his control over the widows Dreykov releases his latest weapon…The Taskmaster, a shadowy figure, can analyse and mimic anybody’s fight style, including all of the Avengers.
We have secrets, lots of secrets along the way, but it feels way little, way too late for Marvel’s first lady of Superheroes.
The reunited heroes decide to break Harbour out of Jail, meet up with their old mum and take on the Red Room but is everybody what they seem and who is the Taskmaster?
Dreykov (Winstone) plays the only Mockney-Cockney in Russia and is overshadowed by the acting skills of all of the other cast members.
Overall Thoughts on Marvel’s Black Widow
Marvel’s Black Widow (2021) is a mess of a movie and this review slates it. It forgets that Natasha has no superpowers and kills her several times with a car (in Budapest train station), in a helicopter (outside St Petersberg) and of course falling from an exploding Helicarrier and bouncing off various wreckage with almost no injuries or damage. There’s way too much CGI for a spy movie and Marvel could have really leaned into the gritty Cold War spy thriller rather than try this mess,
This has so many stolen ideas, from Mission Impossible, La Femme Nikita, and almost every Marvel movie of the past 15 years it’s a sorry excuse for a hero that sacrificed her life in Endgame to stop Thanos. The end credits scene gives some recognition but also shows how nobody cares about her with a forgotten grave in the middle of nowhere. The humour is the most delightful aspect of the movie with lots of digs at the silliness of these movies such as superhero landings.
[yasr_multiset setid=2]
[yasr_visitor_multiset setid=2]
Buy tickets for BGCP Comic-Cons in and around Glasgow Scotland – BUY TICKETS
Check out all of our Comic, Movie, Television and Videogame Reviews HERE and our Podcasts/Interviews HERE
If you want to be part of the BGCP community, Join us on Discord, Twitter, Instagram etc then click HERE
