Black Widow Review

 

Black Widow is a comic book movie based on the Marvel Comics' character of the same name, the movie is also the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film is produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. Black Widow is written by Jac Schaeffer, Ned Benson, and Eric Pearson and directed by Cate Shortland.

The story is after the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha is now on the run. She soon makes up with her sister Yelena who tells her that organization that made who they are coming after her. Now Natasha must put an end to them, the only one standing in her way is the deadly Taskmaster.

Initial Reaction

Now I was curious about this movie, but I wasn't fully excited. For two reasons, 1) Everyone pretty much agreed we should've gotten this film sooner, and 2) Last time I saw a MCU movie with a superheroine it wasn't very good to say the least. And it's really not helping with that comparison when one of the writers who worked on that movie, are also working on this one. But, I always judge a movie based on it's finally product, and not what the trailers and commercials were showing me.

Cons

One thing I hated about the movie was Taskmaster. Not only does the suit suck, but they butchered this character. They gave the character a twist which was unnecessary for two reasons. 1) It didn't get any build up until what felt like the very last minute, and 2) the twist is so pointless, that if you do a quick rewrite, the movie would still be the same. Another thing that made the character suck is they're not the main villain. It's some OTHER bad guy who's screentime I don't even think clocks in at 20 minutes. Another character that was written poorly was Red Guardian. If you were expecting the filmmakers to make David Harbour a badass, well prepared to be disappointed. The whole moron shtick they gave him got old really, really, really fast. I was literally begging for just one serious moment with him and I didn't get a single one. What also made the movie bad were the humorous moments. There were maybe two bits I liked, but the rest of the humor just didn't belong. In matter of fact, that brings up another problem with Black Widow and that's the tone. At one point we're this serious and dark spy thriller and then we're a fun action movie, then we're back to being dark and gritty, then we're back to being fun, and it's like that throughout a majority of the film. It really came off as the filmmakers didn't know what tone to go for, so they decided to be an amalgamation of both. The final thing that made this movie bad, and this was something I didn't notice until I really started to think about it, and that's this movie was trying so hard to be like Captain America: The Winter Soldier. From a grand conspiracy, to an unstoppable assassin that has some sort of connection to the title character, to even blandly taking gadgets from that movie. If anything it's almost just a rip-off of The Winter Soldier but with some slight changes here and there.

Middle Ground

The only gray area with Black Widow was the CGI. It looked fine in some places, but there were two scenes where I looked and thought to myself "Wow. They had this on the shelves for years, and they thought THAT looked good."

Pros

One positive thing going for the movie was the post-credit scene. It made me curious about what's going to happen next. The other good aspect of Black Widow were the actress and actors. I won't be giving any specific praise to a certain person, because I really felt despite how bad the product was they all still give it their all for this movie.

Black Widow is sadly a major letdown, and an even sadder conclusion for the title character. Taskmaster was butchered, Red Guardian's an insufferable moron, the humor didn't work nor did it belong here, I have no idea what tone the movie was going for, and the film was desperately trying to be the new Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The CGI was okay. The only good things were the post-credit scene, and the acting.

My final rating is Bad.

First Captain Marvel, now this. Two Marvel superheroine movies and they both sucked. I now have absolutely no faith in The Marvels. Anyhow, that's going to do for me. Come back on Monday, Jul 12th for my review of Fear Street Part 2: 1978. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.