Re-Visiting the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Black Widow

 "Black Widow" (2021)

If you've followed my blog at all or you know me, you know that I'm a Marvel guy. I appreciate DC and think they're great. I'm a huge fan of Batman and Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn, but my loyalties and primary allegiance will always be with Marvel. So, it pains me to admit that there was one key area where DC beat Marvel. DC was the first to have female solo headlining film in their extended universe when "Wonder Woman" hit theaters. Black Widow was the first (and for a time) only female Avenger. She should have had a solo movie back in 2012. Natasha Romanoff gets no respect. She wasn't even Marvel's first female led solo movie. That honor belongs to "Captain Marvel" and no shade to Carol, but come on. It should have been Nat. Then there was the utter disrespect shown to Nat in "Avengers: Endgame" and let's just say this solo movie had a lot riding on it for me. Not to mention, it was the first movie of Phase 4, the first MCU movie to be released during the pandemic, after its release date had moved three times. Let's not mention the lawsuit. Well, mention again after this. 

Principal photography on "Black Widow" began in May 2019 and ended in October 2019. The film stars Scarlet Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova/Black Widow, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, O-T Fagbenle as Rick Mason, Olga Kurylenko as Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster, William Hurt as Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, Ray Winstone as Dreykov and Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff/Black Widow. The film was written by Eric Pearson, Jac Shaeffer and Ned Benson. It was directed by Cate Shortland. "Black Widow" premiered on July 9, 2021.

Physics? What physics?

If you know me or read my re-visit of "Avengers: Endgame," you know that I was not happy with the way that Black Widow went out. Just to recap, Black Widow and Hawkeye went to retrieve the Soul Stone and fought about which one of them was going to sacrifice themselves to get it. Clint Barton had spent the past five years murdering various underworld figures as the vigilante, Ronin, while Natasha spent the five years pretty much singlehandedly keeping the Avengers operation going. But, since Clint had a wife and kids, he deserved to live and it totally made sense for Natasha to die. She doesn't have kids or a husband so clearly, she doesn't deserve to live. And who cares about all the indiscriminate murdering that Clint did. We can just brush that all under the rug because deep down he's a devoted family man and they matter more than a single, childless woman, no matter all the heroic, selfless things she's done. And to top it all off, she didn't even get a real funeral!! So, the reason, I'm re-litigating this is just to really drive home that Black Widow more than deserved a solo movie, particularly after the disrespect she suffered in "Avengers: Endgame."

Let's get this out of the way first off. It's great that "Black Widow" is the movie that is kicking off the film part of Phase 4. It should have happened when Cap, Thor and Iron Man were having their solo films. I mean, even the Hulk had a solo MCU film before this. That being said, I really think that "Black Widow" is one of the best solo films that Marvel has put out. I think it does what a good solo movie should do. It tells a story that could only be told with this movie. It's linked to the past, but it also looks to the future. And it tells a story that fans have been curious about since the first Avengers film.

My girls... no longer get their periods.

"Black Widow," for all intents and purposes, is a farewell to Natasha Romanoff and the actress who played her for a decade, Scarlet Johansson. It's great to look at the evolution of the character of Natasha since she was first introduced in "Iron Man 2." This is the not same Natasha that we first met as Natalie Rushman. It's great to see Natasha in this film, kind of settling down. This takes place after "Civil War." She's on the run, but she almost seems to be relishing this idea of finally be able to be out of the game. Johansson has been playing Nat for so long, it is probably like second nature, but she continues to find nuances for the character. We've never seen Nat with family other than her Avengers family so to see her interacting with her "family" bring different layers to Black Widow. Watching Black Widow, it made me really sad that we won't see Nat in the MCU after this film.

Speaking of family, we are introduced to the closest people who could all themselves Natasha's parents and sister. Florence Pugh makes her MCU debut as Yelena Belova, Natasha's "sister" and fellow Black Widow. I wasn't sure how I would react to Pugh as Yelena. I knew they were setting her up to be the new Black Widow in the MCU and I just wasn't ready to let Natasha go, but Pugh won me over almost immediately. I love her exaggerated Russian accent. I love her quirks, like being OK with dying as long as it's a cool death, which is absolutely a trauma response to her childhood in the Red Room. Her consistent mocking of Natasha's "poser" superhero moves and her love of her vest, the first piece of clothing she bought for herself. The moment where Nat admits she loves the vest and Yelena's reaction is one of my favorite moments in any Marvel movie. It's so freaking adorable. 

David Harbour of "Stranger Things" fame portrays Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian. The Red Guardian was Russia's answer to Captain America and Alexei is stuck in his "glory" days. Spending his life in a Russian prison, arm wrestling and regaling his fellow prisoners with tales of his fights against Cap, which are most likely lies. I loved the Easter egg of him beating Ursa which I think is a reference to Winter Guard member Ursa Major. Shostakov is kind of a dopey buffoon who is pretty clueless when it comes to the girls that he refers to as "my girls." He is so blinded by nationalism he can't see how harmful the Red Room was until it's almost too late. But he does yearn to make amends and kind of does by the end of the movie. I'd love to see more of him in the MCU.

There were never such devoted sisters. 

Rachel Weisz rounds out this family unit as Melina Vostokoff. I've loved Rachel Weisz for as long as I can remember and I love her joining the MCU in any capacity. I just wish they had given her more to do. She sometimes feels a bit like an afterthought. I do love her interactions with Harbour and her heart to heart with Natasha before the Red Room operatives show up is really well acted and Weisz sells the hell out of it. I have a similar issue with O.T. Fagbenle's Rick Mason. It feels like they are sort of setting up Rick as a love interest for Natasha but it never really goes anywhere. Plus, you know that she's dead and it can't really exist past this movie, so I don't really understand why they felt the need to throw those undertones in there at all. Nat doesn't need a man, even if he is cute and charming, like Rick. 

People seemed to be a little upset about Taskmaster. In the comics, Taskmaster is an assassin for hire, who can mimic the moves of anyone he sees fight. He is not the traumatized, abused daughter of Dreykov who Nat thinks she killed. Some "fans" get super angry when things like this change and my thing is, not every character is going to be able to transfer seamlessly into the the MCU. Changes have to be made to fit the story and for me, this change is not anything to get really bent out of shape about. Taskmaster is a B-list character at best. So, calm down everyone. 

Ray Winstone is appropriately smarmy and gross as General Dreykov. I remember him as the lead in the movie adaptation of "Beowulf." Dreykov is a pretty one-dimensional villain. There is no nuance. He is human trafficker who believes that young girls are disposable. And he turns his daughter into a mindless assassin. There's not a lot of nuance there and that is fine. The movie isn't about Dreykov. He's not super integral to the story and doesn't really need to be developed more than he is. You just need to hate him and you do. His final confrontation with Natasha is fantastic and I love the callback to the first Avengers movie when she reveals she actually has the upper hand and he's told her everything. 

Mama

It should come as no surprise that the action in "Black Widow" is top notch. The confrontation with Taskmaster on the bridge is pulse pounding. Natasha and Yelena's confrontation and subsequent fleeing from the Black Widow's and Taskmaster is out of control. You feel every single hit they take and it's pretty brutal for a PG-13 movie. If I'm wincing myself every time someone takes a hit, that's some good fight choreography. And when Nat falls off the roof hitting the fire escape on the way down? Uff da. 

I loved the sequence of Nat and Yelena busting Alexei out of his Russian prison. I have to like fanboy out for just a minute over those white Widow uniforms. They are super slick and Johansson and Pugh look so good in them. I was hoping they would be the Widow uniforms for the rest of the movie, but alas, they were back to black for the climax. 

Speaking of the climax, it is just as crazy and over-the-top as you'd expect from an MCU third act battle. The Red Room falling out of orbit and Natasha like jumping from falling piece of debris to falling piece of debris is both thrilling and physics defying. But let's be real, physics doesn't exist in the MCU. Nat fighting the brainwashed Widows is so heartbreaking and it's just another place in the movie where Johansson really shines. 

Like I said at the top of this post, I think "Black Widow" really does a great job justifying its existence. This is a story that couldn't have really been told anywhere else. We learn more about Natasha's past and it deepens her character and it makes me even sadder that her time in the MCU is done. It's set in the past so it's not really focused on tying to future MCU stuff and can really be a self-contained story. We've been hearing about Budapest since "The Avengers" and we finally get a pay off on that and I love the way they do it. We get brief flashbacks but it's really in small moments that we get the full story and the movie leaves us to fill in the blanks. I love Natasha and Yelena hiding in the same cramped spot where she and Clint did back then and seeing the tic tac toe and hangman games they etched on the walls to pass the time. It's really well done. 

The movie ends with Nat newly blonde and flying off to break her fellow Avengers out of the Raft, wearing Yelena's vest. It's a really hopeful note to end on, particularly knowing what happens next. We get a post credits scene of Yelena visiting her sister's grave and I have to say when she does their secret whistle there was a huge part of me hoping she'd get an answering whistle back, but sadly we do not. We do get another appearance by Julia Louis-Dreyfuss' Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. It seems like Yelena has been working for Val and Val has a job for her. To kill the man responsible for her sister's death: Clint Barton.

Good. Kill Clint Yelena. I support you.

Next up, we get the MCU's first foray into animation with the Disney+ series, "What If...?"

What do you all think of "Black Widow?" Did her first solo film live up to the hype? Let me know in the comments.