Reviews

Review- Black Widow: Is It Too Little Too Late?

14th July 2021

Review – Black Widow (2021) Run Time: 2hrs 14mins Directed by: Cate Shortland Produced by: Kevin Feige Written by: Eric Pearson, Jac Schaeffer & Ned Benson Starring: Scarlet Johansen, Florence Pugh, David Harbour and Rachel Wei Release Date: July 8th 2021 Prduction company: Marvel Studios Introduction So, after countless delays from a certain world-changing event in 2020, (No not the Snap the other one) ‘Black Widow’ was finally released to a fairly positive public reception reportedly making $158 million at the global box office and earning $60 million on Disney Plus worldwide. However, although it has made bank at the box office and broke records, critical success does not always indicate fan praise. So, the real question is, ‘Is this a Good Film?’ Or is it too little too late for everyone’s favourite Russian Super-Spy? In this review, I am going to break down what I believe to be some of the key points of the film, which means and say it with me now, Spoilers ahead! Black Widow: Opening Well, I’ll be completely honest, yes this is a great film. Is it perfect, Well no, very few films are in the eyes of the ravenous Marvel fandom. Now before you go clicking off this review to go back to scrolling through social media, let me tell you why this is one of the best Solo MCU outings in recent years, despite some of its flaws. ‘Black Widow’ starts in 1995 where we see a happy family in a suburban neighbourhood in Ohio. All is not as it seems however as it turns out that the family are a Soviet sleeper cell comprised of The Red Guardian, Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), and their surrogate daughters Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson/Ever Gabo Anderson) and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh/Violet McGraw). When their mission to steal S.H.I.E.L.D. intel is complete, the family escapes to Cuba and rendezvous with their boss, General Dreykov (Ray Winston), who has Romanoff and Belova taken to the Red Room for training. This is where we get a phenomenal opening sequence set to a haunting cover of Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ that splices through the events of Natasha life after being taken to the Red Room, showing her involvement in several recent Political events and how prominent Ray Winstons, General Dreykov has been in recent history, being pictured with a bunch of world leaders through the years. This opening sequence allows the viewer to understand how Natasha was manipulated into, committing several war crimes and how many of the other ‘Widows’ were also by extension trafficked and controlled showing a very poignant look at the idea of modern slavery. This is also a great touch by Marvel to acknowledge that Black Widow was a cold-blooded Killer with plenty of Red in her ledger before redeeming herself into a hero, which is one of the key themes in the film. From this point, we fast forward to 2016, just after the events of Civil War where Natasha finds herself on the run from the US government going into hiding from General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt). Meanwhile, Yelena is currently still a Black Widow, being controlled by Nanites and being forced to hunt down those who are attempting to, Spoiler, Break all the ‘Widows’ free from their programming. This is one of the first flaws the film has in my opinion as although Yelena has red in her ledger as a ‘Widow’ due to her being controlled with nanites against her will it feels slightly less impactful than Natasha’s ‘earned’ red, that came because of her consciously making the choice to commit murder as a Black Widow. Yelena is then broken out of her programming by her target being sprayed in the face by an antidote to her mind control, leading to a heartbreakingly amazingly acted scene by Florence Pugh shown through her facial expressions and physical acting. Black Widow: Family Matters The characters in this film are all honestly endearing and charming, with the idea of them being one big family unit, emphasising a lot of the humorous moments to great effect. The dynamic of Scarlet Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, and Rachel Weisz as a dysfunctional family is fantastic as Pugh and Harbour especially show off their comedic chops to cut through some of the darker subjects in the film. Pugh especially uses her humour to darkly poke fun at how as a ‘Widow’ she cannot have children due to having a forced hysterectomy which is surprisingly dark for an MCU film. In terms of acting ability, each individual shines through with some convincing Russian accents from Harbour and Weisz with Pugh especially knocking it out of the park with her accent. The only person who fails to nail the voice is Ray Winston who due to his native cockney accent does sound like a cartoonish bond villain, which although not great does actually serve to emphasise his innate cheesiness as this looming figure with over-amplified Russian Traits. Black Widow: The Villains As the film progresses, we are slowly introduced to more characters in Natasha’s life as well as events in her past including the infamous Budapest event mentioned by Nathasha and Hawkeye all the way back in the first Avengers film. This event plays a key part in this film as well, as it turns out to defect to S.H.I.E.L.D Natasha had to assassinate General Dreykov, however, she caught Dreykov’s Daughter as Collateral Damage in the crossfire, an act that haunts her through the film. It turns out however neither Dreykov nor his daughter were killed and in turn are the main antagonists for the film with Dreykov planning on releasing thousands of Nanite brainwashed ‘Widows’ onto the planet tapping into what he describes as “A natural resource the world has too much of.” Girls. Although this feels like a slightly heavy-handed metaphor for ‘Girl Power’ and female empowerment, this illustrates a juxtaposition of the ideas of Women being treated like garbage for

Review- Black Widow: Is It Too Little Too Late? Read More »

Review – Teen Titans Academy #1

18th May 2021

Review – Teen Titans Academy #1 Writer: Tim Sheridan Penciller: Rafa Sandoval Inker: Jordi Tarragona Colorist: Alejandro Sanchez INTRODUCTION: Six of the original Teen Titans team members have reunited in order to teach a new generation of teens at the Roy Harper Titans Academy! Nightwing, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Donna Troy are sharing their skills that they learned while growing up as Titans to show new superpowered teens how to be heroes. But with the lingering mystery of who is parading around as Red X, Nightwing and the rest of the team are uncertain how to approach this specific topic. STORY: Throughout this first issue, the six original Titans introduce themselves as teachers and show the students what their time at the Academy will be like. As they welcome in a wide variety of super powered kids, we learn about the abilities and draw to the large cast of new characters being brought up by the original heroes. Characters like tech-genius Gorilla Gregg and the EMP powered hotshot named Brick stick out as fun new ideas while others like cylindrical shapeshifter named “Tooby” will assumedly be more fleshed out as future issues release. The most shocking inclusion however, is that of previously established DC alter-ego to Shazam, the young Billy Batson. Batson is the only previously known character of these new Titans and he is barely in the issue, but his inclusion is very shocking. Issue one encapsulates the first day of school feeling by showing the new kids moving in and getting introduction lectures from Titans as friendships and cliques begin to form. The intrigue to this story mainly comes in 2 different forms. The first of which is seeing the original Teen Titans members interact and embark on a new journey of teaching new kids that were in the same spot as them years ago. The second is that of seeing all these new characters being introduced and getting to learn more about their powers and personalities. These two things are mainly tied together by the intrigue of the mysterious Red X. This character is one deeply rooted in the Titans past while at the same time very ominously a large part of these new Titans’ future. Throughout the book, we see a lot of charming moments of the original Titans together again. As a big Titans fan, seeing them come together in teaching/leadership positions is a real treat. Also, seeing the current Teen Titans team as upperclassmen being out in the field is really cool. It gives fans of these new characters something to look forward to as they go through their enrollment and honors the older teens that have served as superheroes before the school was made. Out of thew set of characters, the main focus seems to be on the hotheaded ginger named Brick. Brick seems to have energy blast related power that includes electromagnetic pulses, but comes across as one of the much more powerful kids. He seems to have quickly grabbed the attention of Donna Troy who is greatly interested in his capabilities and seems to specifically have a fascination with the Red X. As the first day winds down, we see this Red X discussion come to its’ head as someone gifts Nightwing the original Red X mask that he wore years ago during his birthday celebration, warranting a speech. And the loss of this mask later on is what leaves this issue off on a dramatic note. ART: The artwork throughout is very good overall, as the powers displayed and action within are done very dynamically. I will say that Brick does look very similarly to another student that shows up late, the only difference being their hair color. I don’t think these two are supposed to be related, so the similarity may prove to be more confusing as the series continues. Characters like Stitch and Gorilla Gregg are drawn very well in a more detailed way that their characters warrant without looking out of place in the rest of the artwork. Some of the artwork within is good enough to warrant them being made into a poster, such as Nightwing’s birthday party and the upperclassmen fighting as Teen Titans. Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing this art style benefit the series as we get more issues. IN CONCLUSION: There are a few nitpicks I do have with this issue. Some small things that don’t come anywhere near ruining the issue, but still come across as very strange. The first of these things is Starfire’s eyes. This is something I didn’t notice on the first read through, but once I looked into her eyes I could never unsee it. Her eyes are completely white and comes across as blank windows into her soul. It comes across as a mistake that was forgotten rather than a stylistic choice. There are other artistically unique depictions within that make sense as artistic differences such as Nightwing’s unusual thickness as well as Cyborg’s fully silver depiction, but this specific Starfire change is borderline unsettling. Starfire also seems to be strangely into the Red X mask, alluding that she is attracted to it and its allure when having a personal conversation with Nightwing. Lastly, it’s kind of strange for Donna to exclaim to her student that she is gonna “kick his $#&”, which makes me a bit curious as to how Sheridan is going to handle the female characters of this series. I know these are small things, but I couldn’t go without at least bringing them up. Issue #1 of Teen Titans Academy does a very good job overall at setting up storylines and intrigue for the future of the series. It is clear that the allure of Red X is the main hook of the book’s narrative currently. And as long as the new teens and their dynamics with other heroes are better developed and established before this Red X storyline comes to an end, this series should do well at

Review – Teen Titans Academy #1 Read More »

Scroll to Top