Scarlett Johansson played Natasha Romanoff (a.k.a. Although we have seen The Black Widow in eight films now, it feels like we are seeing a completely different character every time she comes back to screen. It's possible to blame the script or the performance for that. It is not difficult to imagine any star struggling to find a consistent persona to play the role of the perennial supporting character in Marvels forever franchise. Maybe it's just Romanoff's backstory. She was a former assassin and switched allegiances several times, playing whatever role her handlers asked her to. She says that she has lived many lives in the movie. Isn't that another way to say she's known a lot?AdvertisementBlack Widow, true to its name, is the first Marvel Cinematic Universe installment to put the character front and centre. It would be an exaggeration to suggest that Johansson and the filmmakers have finally found the true Romanoffor despite all the effort this spinoff has put into creating a tragic origin story for the superhero. Partly, this is because the film cannot see the Black Widow beyond a ragtag support network. It plunks her down into her previously unrevealed original family of action, creating a new group of yammering colleagues around her. While she does end up disappearing into the background of her own film, earning top billing, she still looks like the most opaque and unknowable criminal-fighter.Review Black Widow B - Black Widow Director Cate Shortland Runtime: 134 minutes Rating: PG-13 Language English Cast Scarlett Johansson. Florence Pugh. Rachel Weisz. Ray Winstone. O-T Fagbenle. William Hurt. Availability Theaters everywhere. Disney+ July 9Johanssons superspy was last seen. She was retiring early, let's say. Black Widow goes back to Captain America: Civil War in order to get around Johanssons absence from the current MCU timeline. The film begins much earlier than that, with a dreamy prologue in 1995 Ohio. Here, a preteen Natasha must say "Do svidaniya" to her suburban life. Her mother (Rachel Weisz), and father (David Harbour) are nothing but the truth. She is a Russian spy who has been exposed. This entire sequence is owed a clear debt to The Americans down to the use archival footage for the opening credits. It also features a cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit.AdvertisementFast forward to 2016. Flash forward to 2016. Source: Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), who claimed to be her sister in the ancient away mission. However, she was too young to realize that their happy little family was a front. She has grown up to be a top assassin in an army brainwashed Widows. They carry out orders for Ray Winstone, a Russian bigwig who kidnaps and grooms children just like these two master killers. Yelena wants to leave the program after she was chemically removed from it. Romanoff, her older sister of espionage convenience, was also with her. They set out to locate The Red Room, where she was trained. This mission eventually involves meeting the agents who posed as their parents 20 years ago.Black Widow Photo by Disney/MarvelThe reunion for the pawns of post-1945 conflict has a touch of poignancy. It is a fake family that struggles with how it became a real one by habit before being disintegrated by necessity. Surrogate families are a regular occurrence in the comic-book universe. Black Widow draws them together into another sitcom, with some domestic baggage that weighs heavily on their friendship. This mega-franchise has a lot to offer in casting. The films bantering dynamic is also supported by new hires. Pugh, who has previously wrestled onscreen with dysfunctional parents, is able to understand the task; we can see the pain beneath her characters' razor-sharp sarcasm. Harbour is also a delight as the over-the-hill patriarch of the team, an aging super soldier who has forgotten his glory days as Russia's answer to Captain America. (Though it doesnt make sense that the face for a countrys propaganda campaign would be removed from that duty for undercover work overseas, it does make sense).Black Widow is an action movie that sits lower than the rest, at least for a time. The Winter Soldier is a great example. The director Cate Shortland (Somersault), initially keeps the combat more hands-on, more realistically achieved, and more tightly choreographed. These are nominal influences from spy movies. There's a bit of Bourne in the pursuits down narrow European roads, and a little Mission: Impossible with the mask shenanigans. Moonraker's tongue-in-cheek appearance on a TV may have been more appropriate than the filmmakers might like to admit. Black Widow is Marvel at its last act. It seems like it's running through a list of Kevin Feige requirements: A gigantic floating fortress! It's a series of unconvincing digital explosions. An unidentified masked enemy that is basically The Winter Soldier redux The inevitable tilt towards formula will not be lost on the audience. Since the last time they have been on one of these rides, it has been almost two years. The reversion back to stock studio conventions is a reminder of the fact that these movies, regardless of the genre they use, tend to follow the lines.AdvertisementFilms required a collision of snarkiness and somberness that is sometimes uneasy. This is a four-quadrant movie about trauma, guilt, and child soldiers. It's also a machine for glib wisecracks. The film's core is a character that refuses to change focus. Elena says that they were both murderers, which is a blow to Natasha's delusions about growth and atonement. You are the one little girl calls their hero. Romanoff's journey through these films was a search to find a way to erase the red in her ledgeran famous line. Black Widow offers redemption that feels only half-earned by creating a side story that is a formal goodbye for one of the franchises original principals. What more can you ask for from a film that makes deprogramming seem as simple as aromatherapy? It's basically a MacGuffin that allows you to change your mind in perfume form. We will never see the true Black Widow. This would require a comic-book bonanza which doesn't view psychology as a dangling plot thread. It would also need to be tied up using the Marvel regiment of quips, boss fights, and so on.
