Black Widow – Review: One Last Dance With Natasha

This is a non-spoiler review for Black Widow.

Finally, Natasha Romanoff gets her solo film, and this time, she revisits her dark past & her broken relationships to end once and for all the organization that has tortured girls from all around the world into becoming controlled assassins.

Since Black Widow is set up in between Civil War & Infinity War, we meet Natasha while she is on the run from the government for her recent actions. The film also works as an origin movie of sorts, in which we dive into Natasha’s family & her experience in the Red Room, giving us many answers that we the fans have been long waiting for.

Also, after a bunch of set-ups & comments in previous films, we finally get to know about what happened in Budapest with Clint, and actually, the repercussions of these actions are reflected in this film and prove to be a fearsome challenge for Natasha & her team.

Black Widow proved to be a very entertaining film with great action & choreographed fights that rival many of the best CQC fights of the MCU. Especially during the 1st and 2nd act, where things felt more grounded & appropriate for a film that started of giving a vibe that it would be more of a spy-thriller, as was Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

However, things quickly changed by the third act, and though it still had the same emotional weight, things where started to feel off. For example, as a nitpick, some of the bigger set pieces felt too unbelievable for them to be made by human beings with no powers, but still were great. They were very extra, especially for a film that’s focused on grounded heroes and when Rachel Weiss’s character had to take down the helicraft, that’s were things became ultra-unrealistic and distracting from the main plot.

But that’s about it on the big negatives of this film. Of course, there are many things that could’ve been handled better, but this doesn’t mean they were wrongfully executed. One of these things, for example, is about the emotional weight that we know Natasha is feeling by the end of this film and in later films, but the film misses its opportunity to allow the audience to see how Natasha feels about it when all is quiet around her. She’s done some horrible things in the past, and we know for a fact that these things have a heavy weight on her; this was pretty clear in Endgame. I just feel that exploring this during her solitude in the 1st act would’ve made her arc felt more personal, and therefore had more emotional weight.

The star of the film is obviously Scarlett Johansson, who has always delivered endearing performances as Natasha. While watching this film, you can feel how much she loves the character of Black Widow, and how difficult it must’ve been for her to say goodbye.

The best thing about this film though, setting aside Scarlett and her always great and emotional performances as Natasha, was the introduction to Florence’s Yelena. Her dynamic with Scarlett was great & her impact on the film’s theme of sisterly love was a welcomed addition. Florence felt so natural in her role as Yelena. Her grace, attitude, physical prowess & most of all, her raw emotional talent, were all very much so in sync in this film. Also, she was definitely the funniest person in the film (sorry Harbour). We have been big fans of her, ever since we first saw her in Midsommar. We know that she’ll be back in future MCU projects (the after-credits scene leaves that very clear), and that is something that we most definitely will want to watch.

It was great to see Scarlett get her own film as the star & even better that it was a well-made film. This won’t be one of the most memorable films of the MCU but it surely gets the job done. It’s really sad that this is the last film for this amazing character. I only wish Marvel would’ve made a Black Widow film before we knew about her eventual demise in Avengers Endgame because the stakes & the emotional weight are tarnished when you know about her future, especially with how it happened. I know other film series have done this type of jumps in the past to explore characters that are gone, but this felt more as something that should’ve actually been made between Civil War & Infinity War. I just couldn’t help myself but feel melancholy while watching it and not because of what the film made me feel.

Score: 7/10