Marvel's Black Widow

[laggyteabag]

After over a year of delays, the Marvel machine on the big screen is finally chugging again, and Black Widow has now officially been released.

What did everyone think?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Personally, I thought it was a fine movie. It didn't disappoint, but equally, it didn't blow me away. It was a perfectly serviceable Marvel film.

I much preferred the first half over the second half, though. As the MCU goes on, I find myself often preferring the slower sections where the characters just exist in a room, interacting with each other, rather than the big, bombastic set pieces. And I really found myself feeling this way, here.

I did enjoy a lot of the supporting cast, though. Yelena was a lot of fun, and I do look forward to seeing more of her in the future. I did really like the Red Guardian (who I feel like stole every scene), and Rachel Weisz's character, though I don't feel like either were necessary at all to the plot, and the former definitely felt wasted in the fight scenes.

I do wish that Taskmaster leaned more into the character's gimmick, because whilst we saw a bit of Captain America, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Winter Soldier and Spider-Man in his fighting style, they quite often just reverted to using a sword - which no one uses - which kind of defeats the point of their character. I also didn't really need a tragic backstory for them (of which I guessed the twist immediately), and I would have been happy if they were essentially just a mindless/voiceless combat drone.

Otherwise, my main gripe of this film is just the timing. The film picks up directly after Civil War, and ends just before Infinity War, yet the film (even without the COVID delays) came out after Endgame - in which Natasha dies. It seems odd to have a film focused on her character, seeing as we know where her character ends up. Ultimately, this causes the film to feel like it exists more to setup Yelena's future appearances, rather than to flesh out Natasha's character. It is just a shame, because Natasha deserved this film years ago, and now it just feels like a movie out of time.

 

[Piscian]

My walkout thoughts are as follows

Movie was surprisingly great - There is a lot of real solid comedic, and emotional moments that felt real. The casting for the main cast was perfect. Some of the action shots really blew me away. Theres a scene early in the film with Task Master and Natasha which literally made me lean back in my chair like "Oh shit, that happened". Even though I'm not a fan of the comicbook character I thought it was cool to see her wear the classic comics accurate uniform.

Though I kinda went in already with a minor crush on Florence Pugh after seeing her excellence performance in midsommar, I was impressed with her character in this. I loved all the little digs at how unrealistic Black Widow is. She was very funny even next to David Harbour who chewed up every scene he was in. I accidently checked her IMDB page, she apparently already wrapped shooting on a Hawkeye mini-series. Didn't know that was a thing. Hopefully its a bit less lowrent than Captain Falcon was.

Does Rachel Weisz even age anymore? She looks exactly the same as she did in The Mummy. She goes full on original black widow in this, I'd need to look it up but I think it's an easteregg in part because she was on the shortlist to play Black Widow pre-MSU.

Taskmasters reveal was at first disappointing, but in the context of the story I got over it pretty quick. Pretty comics accurate otherwise, very impressive. I hope they do more with the character, maybe circle back to whole thing with Task Master being a mercenary with memory issues.

My only real complaints were as Follows -

That Nirvana cover at the beginning ugh, what awful tonedeaf trash. Made my ears bleed. I dig covers, but at least do something different and purposeful. It was just the same song, but trying to mimic the James Bond theme song. Fuck that.

Ray Winstone - horrible horrible miscasting of a great actor. He has a thick thiiiick south london cockney accent and hes supposed to be russian? Get the fuck out of here. He literally couldn't hold the accent for longer than a line before switching to an accent out of a Guy Ritchie film. Hilariously bad and pulled me out of the movie. Hes only in the film for a bit so it didn't ruin anything.

So I guess the Thunderbolts/Dark Avenger is a officially happening then and Yelena is the new black widow. I can get behind that. This film makes it a tad disappointing that this is Scarlett Johannsons last one, because by the end of this film Black Widow feels fully evolved and fleshed out. I could have watched a sequel to this.

Solid movie somehere around your Spider-man Homecoming/Ant-man in quality, just below Winter Soldier. Unless you hated those two..then I dont care what you think.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Solid movie somehere around your Spider-man Homecoming/Ant-man in quality, just below Winter Soldier. Unless you hated those two..then I dont care what you think.

I can agree with Ant-man and Homecoming, but don't you DARE compare this movie to Winter Soldier!

But seriously, I didn't hate it but I was a little surprised at how bad it was. Incredibly underwhelming action, but that's pretty much par for the course for the character. Red Guardian, Melina, and Yelena were great. Great enough for me to ignore the terrible plot, CGI, and writing.

It's very much a by the numbers MCU movie, something I hope we have seen for the last time. Valentina showing up is interesting, in that it seems the Disney+ shows are more important than we think. Marvel's just swinging its schlong around, because they know damn well that everyone is watching their shit.

 

[McElroy]

Marvel stuff really are a magnet for their own threads. Well, I guess I can copy my comments from the general thread:

A movie that just kinda sucks. There's an element of what you could call "feminine touch" in there that's cute an' all but to bring it out they still need to have not one but two overweight dad figures for contrast. Florence Pugh as the other "widow" Yelena gets to do a lot of stuff on top of having a sort of a character though she comes off as another snarky MCU-type. What she definitely can't pull off is being a trained killer, she is so small and soft. The rest are very simple heroic or villainous characters. I'll write a spoiler-review later. 5/10

Spoiler: Spoilers for Black Widow

Even though they point it out a couple of times that she's only human, she gets dealt an inhuman amount of damage and injury. But the movie has bigger problems. Mainly that it's a Disney movie that tries to act tough and serious but has to adhere to a dramatically dead formula. Natasha is such a goody-goody character it's unreal. She doesn't even kill anyone in the movie! And all bad guys except the main man Dreykov are mind controlled! So they get to save them! Taskmaster gets this wooby backstory which again absolves Natasha of her past sins and she gets to save her too. This sort of shit absolutely breaks the movie. Then of course there are "regular" ridiculous things like in most big action movies. The heroes can drive and survive in whatever shitcan (or a cool $$$ BMW $$$) that gets shot and blown up while the villain's roflcopter explodes in a fireball after Yelena puts a stick in the vent. Similarly the Sky Fortress is destroyed with one grenade (by all means such a delicate thing couldn't take on storms, but more importantly they would never allow explosives on board). Another stranger thing (wink) is the screenplay's urge to make everything a call-back. I get a couple of self-references but a dozen is too much. Frankly 5/10 is too high considering all of this, and it actually goes to the trash pile.

Does Rachel Weisz even age anymore? She looks exactly the same as she did in The Mummy.

Uh... Don't wear your glasses to the cinema?

That Nirvana cover at the beginning ugh, what awful tonedeaf trash. Made my ears bleed. I dig covers, but at least do something different and purposeful. It was just the same song, but trying to mimic the James Bond theme song. Fuck that.

It was a bit on the nose. From the moment you realize what song it is you instantly get what they were going for. "ah yes lol, the lyrics and all these stolen girls haha"

Ray Winstone - horrible horrible miscasting of a great actor. He has a thick thiiiick south london cockney accent and hes supposed to be russian? Get the fuck out of here.

Were any of the actors convincing Russians anyways? Winstone was the worst offender, but his character was also the laziest of them all and little in the movie anyway.

Solid movie somewhere around your Spider-Man Homecoming/Ant-man in quality.

In my mind those two are the films aimed most towards kids, and Black Widow has similar qualities eventually. It starts off like a different movie, but the edge it might have had is lost as soon as the Red Guardian is introduced about halfway in.

 

[SilentPony]

For me it was clear this wasn't ScarJo's swan song and send off movie, it was Florence Pugh's origin story. All the important scenes were centered on her, she got all the important lines, the camera was always on her, it was her tits and her ass the camera was framed on, she literally uses a baton to finish off the bad guys in the jet in a not so subtle passing of the baton moment.
And then she's set up to work for Lady Hydra to hunt down and kill an Avenger, one that deeply loved and cherished her sister, having learned absolutely nothing I guess.

Also I love how the Red Room wanted to stay off radar by not attacking the Avengers, and instead created a sky borne doom fortress of bright burning red lights and huge turbines. Like wow Shield and Sword, the doom fortress in the skies outside St. Petersburg never showed up on spy photos and recon flights? You're able to track individual arms dealers to abandoned ports and the specific cargo ships, and track off-grid heroes like Bruce Banner and created helicarriers that can target millions at a time and take them out, but the FORTRESS of DOOM and ETERNAL PERIL just slips by unnoticed for 20+ years.

 

[gorfias]

Great of you all to place this with Antman and Homecoming. That's about right. Better than Black Panther and Captain Marvel... though Black Panther's villain was among the MCU's best. I had not heard about the Hawkeye show! Looking forward to it. I have a poster of Cap fighting Wolverine and I asked online who won. The universal response was, "same as every Marvel such fight: they realize they shouldn't be fighting and stop before you have a clear winner". And I figure that will happen with the new Widow (Who I think miscast but can deal) and Hawkeye.

SPOILERs: If I were in charge, Red Guardian would have had a great fight scene with Task Master but ultimately sacrifice himself to slow TM enough to do some good. Their fight is way too brief for what I thought was coming.
You have to suspend a ton of disbelief. My buddy wants to rewatch the movie to count all the times BW should have died. Funny she was watching "Moonraker". Moonraker starts with a scene of free falling characters fighting over a parachute. I imagine that was intentional. I thought the guy that provided BW with stuff betrayed her. Her generator gives out and she has to get gas which leads to her 1st encounter w/ TM. As it goes, just a coincidence. I do think RG telling the truth that he fought Cap. At a minimum, 30ish year old cap goes back to 1950s to be with Peggy. When he was in his late 60s, early 70s in the late 80s... did he fight the Guardian? There have also been other Caps. During McCarthy trials, they made a super paranoid Cap, for instance.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I saw the movie over the weekend and I thought it was one of the funniest Marvel films in a long time. I don't know who plays the sister to Black Widow, but that girl was fucking hilarious and totally stole the show entirely.

That being said, this movie had a couple of problems for me.

Number 1: Too over the top. I think they would have done better to play to Widow's strengths and made this more of an espionage film with some super hero fantastically elements. Instead the movie was crazy with all these fight scenes and Widow getting doing impossible films and landing on falling debris and all kinds of crazy shit. The thing is, she is a highly training woman, but she's still just a woman and yet the film treats her like she has super powers which annoys me because it's like they don't give a shit about the characters anymore.

Number 2: WTF was Taskmaster? Again this bleeds off from my first problem. But why put characters into the film if you are just going to fuck their backstories and ruin their character. If you don't give a shit about your own characters then....wait what am I saying. Marvel has been actively ruining their own characters for almost a decade at this point.

Well nevermind then.

Black Widow was fun enough and I don't regret going to see it. But it doesn't paint a good picture of Marvel's future.

 

[gorfias]

And of course...

 

[laggyteabag]

I saw the movie over the weekend and I thought it was one of the funniest Marvel films in a long time. I don't know who plays the sister to Black Widow, but that girl was fucking hilarious and totally stole the show entirely.

That would be Florence Pugh, who just suddenly appeared in a lot of great films a couple of years ago.

In 2019 she really smashed it. She starred in Fighting With My Family, which is a great film about wrestling, and I would highly recommend it. Midsommar, which I thought was a bit pretentious, but she was great in the role. Then she got nominated for an Oscar for 2019's Little Women.

She is also due to appear in the Hawkeye Disney+ show, so Im excited to see more of her, there.

 

[SilentPony]

That would be Florence Pugh, who just suddenly appeared in a lot of great films a couple of years ago.

In 2019 she really smashed it. She starred in Fighting With My Family, which is a great film about wrestling, and I would highly recommend it. Midsommar, which I thought was a bit pretentious, but she was great in the role. Then she got nominated for an Oscar for 2019's Little Women.

She is also due to appear in the Hawkeye Disney+ show, so Im excited to see more of her, there.

It took me a while to warm up to her. I eventually got to that I thought she stole the show, but early on she was just channeling Bugs Bunny/Deadpool and I really don't like that kind of humor.
They're having a fight scene and Widow 2.0 is like "Why do you do that superhero landing? Its as if you think you're on camera and the center of attention." and I was like oh, don't say that. Its like when someone in a Marx Brothers movie asks why Groucho has a painted on mustache. That's the premise, you're supposed to look past that. Wondering why the sex icon ScarJo's black widow is in tight clothes and always showing off her tits and ass if a question for us real life people to ask, not for in-movie characters who have been seeing this behavior for 20+ years.

And I was soured that Widow 2.0 is now just working for Hydra instead of the Red Room. I guess she's going full Black Widow and has to learn Hydra are also the bad guys before she can become an Avenger.

 

[Piscian]

And I was soured that Widow 2.0 is now just working for Hydra instead of the Red Room. I guess she's going full Black Widow and has to learn Hydra are also the bad guys before she can become an Avenger.

I was not a fan of this or the "after credits" whatever with US Agent in Captain Falcon. I get it, this is all a reference to the original end credits hype with Samuel L. Jackson and RDJ, but if theres anything that shows my MCU fatigue it would be this. It just feels cheap and gimmicky in comparison. Like with Iron man it was like "Oh wow we're actually getting Avengers maybe? With SLJ!!!". With its like "oh theyre teasing thunderbolts dark avengers whatever..cool I guess". I wonder when we'll hit the point of measurable diminishing hype returns on MCU teasers?

Maybe its the former and I just think these particular teasers are cheap and lazy, but the end credits with Mysterio announcing Spider-mans identity was pretty shocking. Same thing with Aunt May in Homecoming. I think that could be it. With those I felt like it was more for effect where as with Captain Falcon and Black Widow it felt very much like the producer announced "boss said we gotta do a teaser for the thing were gonna do this fall", while eating a sandwich.

 

[lostinreality]

After over a year of delays, the Marvel machine on the big screen is finally chugging again, and Black Widow has now officially been released.

What did everyone think?

SPOILERS AHEAD

Personally, I thought it was a fine movie. It didn't disappoint, but equally, it didn't blow me away. It was a perfectly serviceable Marvel film.

I much preferred the first half over the second half, though. As the MCU goes on, I find myself often preferring the slower sections where the characters just exist in a room, interacting with each other, rather than the big, bombastic set pieces. And I really found myself feeling this way, here.

I did enjoy a lot of the supporting cast, though. Yelena was a lot of fun, and I do look forward to seeing more of her in the future. I did really like the Red Guardian (who I feel like stole every scene), and Rachel Weisz's character, though I don't feel like either were necessary at all to the plot, and the former definitely felt wasted in the fight scenes.

I do wish that Taskmaster leaned more into the character's gimmick, because whilst we saw a bit of Captain America, Black Panther, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Winter Soldier and Spider-Man in his fighting style, they quite often just reverted to using a sword - which no one uses - which kind of defeats the point of their character. I also didn't really need a tragic backstory for them (of which I guessed the twist immediately), and I would have been happy if they were essentially just a mindless/voiceless combat drone.

Otherwise, my main gripe of this film is just the timing. The film picks up directly after Civil War, and ends just before Infinity War, yet the film (even without the COVID delays) came out after Endgame - in which Natasha dies. It seems odd to have a film focused on her character, seeing as we know where her character ends up. Ultimately, this causes the film to feel like it exists more to setup Yelena's future appearances, rather than to flesh out Natasha's character. It is just a shame, because Natasha deserved this film years ago, and now it just feels like a movie out of time.

I just watched the movie today and I personally resonate with all your points. The movie really felt like it should've come before the endgame film lol. I loved the comedic aspect and the more depth it added to Natasha's character–but the movie overall felt like a drag in some way because... we knew where she was going. It's a case of mistiming a prequel and a sequel. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Although this film is still mainly anchored towards Marvel's phase 3, let's wait and see how it turns out in the long run for Phase 4. Nothing looks promising to me just yet

 

[thebobmaster]

The movie was at its strongest when it was focusing on the family dynamics. I loved the chemistry between Florence Pugh and ScarJo, and the way their characters interacted was some of the strongest parts of the movie. In addition, David Harbour was great casting as Alexei, and I felt he actually provided comic relief that was both funny and relieving.

However, Taskmaster really dragged the movie down. The choreography when they fought was solid, but nothing about anything Taskmaster did couldn't have been accomplished by someone else. Instead, Taskmaster as a character was just wasted, and can no longer be used somewhere else. In addition, the main villain was a disappointment of a different sort. Sure, he's evil, but not in the MCU sense. He was more of a Bond villain, trying to take over the world. It kind of worked, because this is more of a spy thriller than superhero film, but he wasn't even the good kind of Bond villain.

The movie wasn't bad, by any means, but if I were to rank it among the MCU films, definitely bottom half, and almost certainly bottom quarter, though not quite at the very bottom.

 

[sXeth]

The movie was at its strongest when it was focusing on the family dynamics. I loved the chemistry between Florence Pugh and ScarJo, and the way their characters interacted was some of the strongest parts of the movie. In addition, David Harbour was great casting as Alexei, and I felt he actually provided comic relief that was both funny and relieving.

However, Taskmaster really dragged the movie down. The choreography when they fought was solid, but nothing about anything Taskmaster did couldn't have been accomplished by someone else. Instead, Taskmaster as a character was just wasted, and can no longer be used somewhere else. In addition, the main villain was a disappointment of a different sort. Sure, he's evil, but not in the MCU sense. He was more of a Bond villain, trying to take over the world. It kind of worked, because this is more of a spy thriller than superhero film, but he wasn't even the good kind of Bond villain.

The movie wasn't bad, by any means, but if I were to rank it among the MCU films, definitely bottom half, and almost certainly bottom quarter, though not quite at the very bottom.

Eh, nothings really stopping a "real" Taskmaster from showing up and being like "That just Drakovs shitty imitation with a power helmet", like aren't we getting actual ten rings Mandarin in Shang Chi now, despite IM3

 

[BrawlMan]

The movie wasn't bad, by any means, but if I were to rank it among the MCU films, definitely bottom half, and almost certainly bottom quarter, though not quite at the very bottom.

So wait for Shang-Chi, got it.

 

[thebobmaster]

So wait for Shang-Chi, got it.

...Pretty much. Once Black Widow is free to watch on HBO Max, might be worth a watch.

 

[Piscian]

On the RLM review they noted the director, Cate Shortland, only has worked on women led dramas, in some cases spot on with descriptions similar to the family dynamics in Black Widow. It's highly likely that she was literally only involved in the script and direction for those scenes and all the CG action stuff was somebody else. It's even possible that the action scenes were dictated and being worked on before live filming even started.

It's a strange world to live in when where films are being made by entirely different crews depending on the scene because it's all auto-generated corporate shovelware. Despite that I'll be honest I still enjoyed it so I can't complain, although it's definitely on my list mcu films Ill never watch again.

 

[gorfias]

On the RLM review they noted the director, Cate Shortland, only has worked on women led dramas, in some cases spot on with descriptions similar to the family dynamics in Black Widow. It's highly likely that she was literally only involved in the script and direction for those scenes and all the CG action stuff was somebody else. It's even possible that the action scenes were dictated and being worked on before live filming even started.

It's a strange world to live in when where films are being made by entirely different crews depending on the scene because it's all auto-generated corporate shovelware. Despite that I'll be honest I still enjoyed it so I can't complain, although it's definitely on my list mcu films Ill never watch again.

Yeah, I can't think of anything in it that I'm thinking I can't wait to see this again. Dark Knight is my favorite all time movie. I saw it in the theater a number of times, got posters, Tshirts, hats, digital comics. The IP owners got all that money from me. I'm happy BW is making some good box office, but with this tepid, half hearted film, they lost out on getting fans like me to really embrace it.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I still enjoyed it so I can't complain, although it's definitely on my list mcu films Ill never watch again.

Strange world we live in indeed, where an enjoyable movie is relegated to the "never watch again" pile after a single viewing. Are they trying to trains us to expect/anticipate junk entertainment? I've come to terms with gaming heading this direction, but if static films, an untransmutable couple hours of entertainment, aren't trying to make a mark beyond their opening weekends, then fuck it; I'll stick to my sports.

 

[Buyetyen]

I enjoyed it, which I feel puts me in the minority on this forum, which generally doesn't seem to like much of anything.