Ever since her first appearance in the second Iron Man film back in 2010, people have been begging for a Black Widow solo film. When Disney brought the film rights to the Marvel Cinematic Universe after ‘Avengers Assemble’ in 2012 people got hesitant. Disney was a family friendly company; there was no way that Disney were going to do a 15-rated film based on the super spy’s origin story (which it would’ve had to have been).
Then with the success of 2017’s Wonder Woman film from rival comic book company DC, Marvel came up with Captain Marvel…which failed spectacularly. Marvel tried the second time but with Black Widow. There was one problem though; she had already been killed off in ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
As a result people lost interest in the character and a solo film altogether. Then Disney announced the solo film. People were surprised and waited to see what Disney would do…with a toned-down 12-rated version of Black Widow’s origin story.
When ‘Black Widow’ was finally released (delayed due to the 2020 pandemic), there was a mixed reaction from the fan base.
The story starts off in 1995 with young Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova enjoying their childhood in Ohio. That is until they’re whisked away by their surrogate parents Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Melina Vostokoff (Rachael Weisz); two Russian sleeper agents undercover. Alexei is better known as the Red Guadian, Russia’s own Captain America.
When the family finally arrive in safety to a isolated island Natasha and Yelena are in for a rude awakening. They are immediately drugged by the agents that are surrounding them and are taken away to the Red Room for further training.
21 years later and after the events of ‘Captain America: Civil War’, Natasha (Scarlet Johansson) is on the run from breaking the Sokovia Accords. Whilst in a rest room she receives a phone call from U.S. Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt). He is giving her a chance to turn herself in but he doesn’t realize that Natasha isn’t in the building that he is currently in; she is on a boat to her safe house in Norway.
Meanwhile in Morocco, Yelena (Florence Pugh) is still working for the Red Room. She is hunting a Red Room agent that has escaped control from the Red Room. That is until she kills the escaped agent but not before the agent sprays Yelena with Red Dust.
Whilst the former agent lays dying, she tells Yelena that the Red Dust is an antidote used to break the control of the Red Room from her and the other “Black Widow” agents. Realizing this, Yelena immediately delivers the antidotes to Natasha’s safe house, hoping that she gets the message enough to help her free the other Widows.
Upon its release ‘Black Widow’ was met with mixed response amongst the fans.
I personally liked the film for what it was as Black Widow is a character that I’ve liked since ‘Iron Man 2’ and I have also been wanting a solo film on her for years. It also makes good use of the film’s 12-rating. Something that a lot of studios fail to do- Disney especially- as they want to keep stuff as family friendly as possible with the 12-rating and are too scared to put in anything serious in case parents complain about it.
Despite everyone’s acting talents (including Ray Winston as the villain) and some very good action scenes, ‘Black Widow’ also has some down points.
I personally would’ve liked to have learned more about Natasha’s Red Room training. Maybe even a glimpse of the Winter Soldier too (they had both been trained in the Red Room in the comics). What they did with Taskmaster was also another thing that I and many others criticized about in this film even though I’m not very familiar with the character but even I’m aware on what he’s done. The whole Red Dust thing was another thing that annoyed me.
Whilst I liked ‘Black Widow’ for what it was, at the end of the day it fell short of my expectations. Sadly the way that the MCU is going these days ‘Black Widow’ and ‘Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness’ (excluding ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ as that was Sony) might be the only last two decent MCU films coming out from Disney for some time for me.
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