Click it and Unblock the Notifications
Black Widow Movie Review: Natasha Romanoff Deserves Better Than A Hallmark Level Family Film
Available
On:
Disney
+
Hotstar
Language:
English
Duration:
134
Minutes
Plot: Black Widow follows Natasha Romanoff when a dangerous conspiracy brings back the darkest parts of her life. While being pursued by a relentless enemy force Natasha confronts her history as a spy, and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.
Review: Black Widow follows Natasha between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War. While on the run from the government for not signing the Sokovia Accords, she is visited by her past before she became an Avenger. The film begins with Natasha running away after Civil War, and living in hiding. However, she is visited by a formidable killer who is not looking for her, but a package she received from someone she once knew.
Chasing the hints, the story takes Natasha from Ohio, Budapest, to Russia and gather her former family unit. We get to see who Natasha was before she became a Black Widow in the Red Room. She was assigned a mission at the young age of ten with a six-year-old Yelena (Florence Pugh) as her sister, the Red Guardian aka Alexei (David Harbour) as her father and Melina (Rachel Weisz) as her mother. They lived as a perfect family for three years in Ohio, but when Alexei finished the mission they flew back to the Red Room base and went their separate ways.
Natasha on meeting Yelena reveals that when she wanted out, she along with Clint aka Hawkeye destroyed Red Room and General Dreykov. However, she soon finds out she had been unsuccessful and the organisation has become stronger in the years she had been away in the West, fighting with the Avengers. For the rest of the film, Natasha attempts to gather information from her previous family and destroy the Red Room once again.
Black Widow marked the final film of Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, but she at best is only seen doing her part. Over the years, Scarlett has been mesmerising as her character even with the few shining moments that she got in MCU. However, fans were most excited to see her take on the Big Bad alone in the solo release. Given the expectations, Marvel disappoints with Black Widow not only as Natasha's final film but also as the first phase four film.
Instead of making the film about Natasha, Black Widow turns into a film about introducing Yelena who will be seen in the Hawkeye series, missing the Avengers and the mystery about what will happen to all the Black Widows. We hardly get to watch her be the spy assassin that she is known for, use her super serum strength or basically perform hand to hand combat that she is famous for in the MCU.
While Pugh as Yelena is one of the best things about the film, it is hard to watch her take the forefront when the film was meant to be Scarlet's big moment. David Harbour and Rachel Weisz are delightful but mainly remain on the sidelines, for good reason.
Overall, Black Widow is at best a filler Hallmark level family film for the MCU. It does nothing more than introducing a few characters with terrible jokes and place-in emotional moments that do little to nothing for Natasha Romanoff's character.
