‘Black Widow’ Review: A Film That Does What Few Marvel Movies Can
Black Widow is a uncommon Marvel manufacturing, a movie that—whereas nonetheless very a lot tethered to the remainder of the franchise’s sprawling mythology—largely operates as a standalone journey, one virtually incapable of establishing a direct sequel. That’s as a result of the title character, the brainwashed murderer turned resourceful Avenger performed by Scarlett Johansson, is useless within the present-tense timeline of the Marvel movies. Black Widow is a prequel of kinds, and an origin story, a sturdy and satisfying glimpse right into a defining interlude in Black Widow’s life that nearly, virtually pulls off the trick of being wholly its personal factor.
Which can be faint reward, a jump over the low bar for discrete storytelling that Marvel has set for itself. However at a time when even the higher, extra ingenious Marvel properties—mainly the Disney+ collection WandaVision—have finally performed as mere bridge content material to one thing else, Black Widow’s relative isolation comes as a welcome change of tempo. After all, the corporate can’t resist some sort of synergy, however that basically solely arrives in a post-credits sequence. In any other case, Black Widow is just a enjoyable, sometimes poignant globe-trotting journey, one which places a dependable character to good use and introduces—one way or the other fairly organically—her alternative.
Someday round 2016, Natasha Romanoff has discovered herself on the lam from the U.S. authorities, the Avengers scattered to the winds after the calamitous occasions of (I’m fairly positive) Captain America: Civil Struggle. How precisely she returned to lone wolf standing isn’t actually necessary. The movie, directed with flinty type by Cate Shortland, rapidly fixes up Natasha with a brand new companion: one other traumatized graduate of the compulsory-attendance Russian murderer college known as the Crimson Room. She’s Yelena, a blunt and wisecracking toughie performed by the nice Florence Pugh—an actor whose star has swiftly risen one beguiling display flip after one other. I had some considerations about an actor of her promise, her vary and idiosyncratic style, getting tractor-beamed into the Marvel universe. However Pugh allays a lot of these worries (for now) with a nimble, acutely aware foray into maximalism.
She and Johansson groove properly, Johansson passing the batons (that are armed with electrical expenses) to a brand new enlistee as she hangs up the bodysuits and heads off into profession freedom. It’s a profitable alternate, made all of the extra so by the sophisticated, intriguing dynamic between Yelena and Natasha. As children, they have been the prop kids of two Russian spies (David Harbour’s Alexei and Rachel Weisz’s Melina) infiltrating the U.S. As soon as the mission was over, the 2 ladies have been tossed again into the Crimson Room program, the candy and comforting home life they’d in Ohio lowered to a tragic ruse. That misplaced existence nonetheless haunts them—Yelena needs the fantasy again, whereas Natasha appears to want it had by no means occurred.
In that psychological house, Shortland and the movie’s author, Eric Pearson (WandaVision author Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson obtain story credit score), discover alternatives to mull over problems with consent and bodily autonomy. These subjects are offered allegorically and fairly actually because the movie’s comic-book-y, sci-fi tropes come to bear on the story. Shortland and her actors discover the precise stability of humor and pathos, staging one notably partaking and odd scene wherein the pseudo household is reunited, falling again into cozy bickering and nagging even whereas discussing the sinister, world-threatening issues that compelled them into false domesticity to start with.
When these threats change into precise and rapid, Shortland sharply renders the hazard. Her motion scenes have each gnarly, intimate crunch and dizzyingly zoomed-out sweep. The movie is as thrilling when it’s two individuals combating in a dingy Budapest residence as it’s when it’s gone grand and fiery and skyborn. The physics are totally different right here than in different Marvel films, extra finely attuned to the hardness and weight of issues. All of it feels a bit extra actual, I suppose, even when Natasha is carrying out superhuman feats of endurance and agility.
The sorry factor of the movie, actually, is that this needn’t have been a Marvel film in any respect. Divorced of its duties to superhero lore, Black Widow would nonetheless be a sufficiently deft spy caper, confidently crafted and worthy by itself phrases. And but it wouldn’t exist with out the lengthy and diligent work of Johansson and Kevin Feige’s mission. Even a canny style film like this needed to be tied to the largest I.P. of all of them to get made.
It’s additionally a bit grim, possibly, that Marvel was so intent on swapping out Natasha for such an identical (however youthful!) new character, maybe revealing the boundaries of the franchise’s capability to conceive of feminine heroes. However I additionally get it. Natasha is (was?) a very good character, and Pugh greater than makes the case for persevering with that legacy. It’s unclear what awaits Yelena or any of the opposite shaggy of us we meet on this movie (Weisz and Harbour acquit themselves gamely, too). Perhaps lots; possibly solely ancillary sideline work till they get their very own present in, say, 2027. No matter occurs to those collaborators within the gleaming and looming way forward for Section 4 and past, they are going to at the least have this sturdy and environment friendly movie to level to each time somebody asks them what such succesful individuals are doing working for the machine.
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