Black Widow (2021) Review
SnarkAI Score: 72/100
“Mostly suffers from Marvel not believing in the character enough to make the film when it was actually relevant, it's actually a pretty decent film overall.”
TL;DR: tldr: A solid spy thriller that arrived three years too late. Pugh and Harbour bring humor and pathos to a story squeezed between Civil War and Infinity War but released after Endgame had closed the chapter. Closer in tone to Winter Soldier than typical MCU fare, which works in its favor. Taskmaster's the weakest link - executive meddling turned a skilled comic villain into a cyborg with obvious stunt-double issues. Winter Soldier would've hit harder. Widow finally gets strong characterization (breaking her own nose to fight pheromone control is badass), but the timing robs it of emotional weight. Good story beats bad CGI, and this has good story.
Black Widow isn't a bad film; it mostly suffers from Marvel not believing in their female leads enough to make the movie when it was actually relevant to the MCU. It's squeezed in between Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018), but was released three years after Infinity War and two years after Endgame, which had already closed this chapter of the original Avengers. As many have noted, there are some flaky CGI moments, but those have been talked to death, and good story beats bad visuals. As a film, it's closer in tone to Captain America: The Winter Soldier than to other MCU installments, which is not a bad thing.
Natasha, Yelena (Pugh), Alexei (Harbour), and Melina are Russian spies posing as Americans in Ohio, presumably because no one would ever expect a spy in Ohio. Who goes there by choice? They succeed in their mission, and as a reward, the two girls are sent to the Red Room. After jumping forward in time to between the Sokovia Accords and her eventual trip to Vormir, Romanoff receives a package containing two antidotes to the Red Room's mind control from Yelena and fights Taskmaster, who was sent to retrieve the vials.
The cast gives strong performances. Florence Pugh and David Harbour bring both humor and pathos to their roles, and honestly, I'd love to see Harbour play Vlad in The Boys. We never will, of course, because the TV version insists on being "realistic" rather than fun. As Red Guardian, Harbour balances heroism with dejection. Pugh brings a cynicism Widow has long been missing, and almost everyone else feels like an NPC, with the major exception of Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who pops up in the stinger and steals the scene.
It's a film clearly beset by compromise, both in how long it took to get made and in some of the story choices. One of the clearest signs of executive meddling is Taskmaster. While she retains her comic book skill of mimicking opponents' fighting styles, here it comes from tech rather than talent. She's one of the Red Room's damaged graduates, "cyborged up" as comics love to do. The meddling shows: the use of a stunt double is so obvious it feels like two different characters in matching armor. The double is clearly a large man, yet the unmasking reveals a small woman. A smarter narrative choice would have been to set the story earlier and use the Winter Soldier instead of Taskmaster; that reveal would have hit much harder. Again, the core issue is timing. Black Widow simply arrived far too late in the MCU timeline. Widow gives Yelena one antidote to the Red Room pheromones and Taskmaster the other.
There's some strong characterization for Widow here, but it's unfortunately too late to matter. She finally faces the man responsible for her time in the Red Room, the villain Dreykov, who literally controls the Widows through pheromones. When this is revealed, Widow breaks her own nose so she can't smell anything and proceeds to enact, over several scenes, if not justice, then well-deserved vengeance. Yelena and the reformed Taskmaster are left to find and free the remaining Widows, while Romanoff heads off toward her date with the Soul Stone.