If you are willing to watch a film filled with really bad attempts at family drama, poor CGI-focused action sequences, and an ending like the writer and director quit before the completion of the movie, well then Black Widow is the film for you.
There were many problems with this movie that made it disappointing. Most of the movie felt like a low-end superhero pace and the actors looked like they were all bored to death. The plot in the film was basically just like any other superhero show; evil guy gets un-brainwashed, then sends messages to old friends, they work through their differences, get together and end up defeating the bad guys and that’s it. What’s worse is that our lead, Natasha, doesn’t even get a cohesive arc. She is introduced going through the conflict of post-Civil War but that build-up is just an exposition as the story takes a new direction. For the rest of the film, she lets the plot and the other characters carry her forward to the story. With don’t get her input. When we do get her forced backstory where she let a child die in order to kill the villain. The problem is that we later find out that the child is not dead and is now TaskMaster, meaning that Natasha can sleep easily now without any effort. And TaskMaster doesn’t even hate her as her mind is controlled by her father because, you know, forced feminism bullshit! That takes away whatever chance we had of a good rivalry.
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There is nothing wrong with a film having female leads. No one is against women’s empowerment. We’re good with that. The thing is, they focused more on creating male characters look stupid and weak just to promote their beliefs. They made sure to gender swap Taskmaster just to ensure that not one of the white males where physically comparable to any of the females. They try so hard to manipulate the audience into seeing female power by making all the male characters weak in comparison instead of fitting it organically. A lot of time is wasted unnecessarily in the second act for family exposition that could’ve been used for the villain’s character development. That led us to act three that was only CGI bullshit. But the script clearly lacked in all departments so it wasn’t even a surprise.
The relationship between Natasha and Yelena is the highlight of the film, although some scenes may seem a bit overacted. The chemistry between the two of them works very well as they show a believable sisterhood relationship. Florence Pugh carries this film on her shoulders. She is the heart of the film. She is introduced as the heir-apparent to the seemingly irreplaceable Natasha Romanoff but carries herself with grace, poise, and immense likeability. Her chemistry with Johansson is electric and makes you buy into the sisters’ journey and shared pain easily.
Recently, Marvel has been showing more and more of this narrative in their releases, be it the Disney plus shows or movies such as this. Sacrificing a story for an agenda is never a great thing. Sometimes writers can subtly hide their agenda cleverly but Marvel and Disney are as subtle as a brick flying through your window. You will see the brick. If the studios continue down this road then there may not be many stories left to tell people. It’s a shame because this was one of my most anticipated comic book movies but it completely missed the mark.
K- Score: 43%
STW: 10/30, D: 10/25, C: 4/8, E: 1/5, PVD: 6/12, A: 5/10, S: 7/10
