Black Widow has been on the shelf for over a year. It was originally supposed to launch the 2020 summer movie season. So much has happened that it is still difficult to comprehend. In the summer 2021, the world in which the late spring's lengthening days signaled mass migration to multiplexes seems far away. The year-plus spent by Disney/Marvel revising and re-revising Black Widow's release strategy. The film could have a theatrical-only window, in the pre-pandemic style. It could also drop simultaneously on streaming and in theaters. Or, as with Pixars Lucia, would it be available only to subscribers? The studio decided to combine the brick-and-mortar option and the pricier streaming option. It will be available to Disney+ subscribers on July 9th for $30 more than their $8 per month subscription. This dual release will be a test of the ability of lockdown-weary viewers to get up from their now heavily damaged couch cushions and see what the trade press still calls an event picture.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCan a photograph still be an event? Are the Marvel Universe's activities, including the actions of Scarlett Johanssons Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow), interesting enough to keep viewers interested? They have had access to ever-increasing amounts of Marvel content online for 15 months. This has allowed them to get back in theater seats with a bucket of popcorn and a quart of cold soda in one cupholder. Black Widow, directed and produced by Cate Shortland in Australia, was a welcome reminder for me of why comic book heroes and big screens work so well together.AdvertisementSubscribe to the Slate Culture newsletter and receive the best movies, TV, music, books, and other news straight to your inbox. Signing you up was not possible due to an error Please try again. To use this form, please enable jаvascript. Email address: I would like to receive updates on Slate special offers. You agree to our Privacy Policy & Terms by signing up. Thank you for signing up! You can cancel your subscription at any time.Black Widow is a sprawling, star-packed ensemble film, by the standards of Infinity War and Endgame. It is a costly, global-spanning epic with action sequences almost every 15 minutes. It is refreshingly personal in its focus on a single Marvel character. A human character is that of Black Widow, a highly-trained superassassin who is now a crusader for justice. However, another character points out that she still needs to take ibuprofen following a particularly brutal showdown. Johansson has criticized the sexism that reduced her character to a secondary role in Marvel's universe. She was often made to feel like an object of male Avengers comic lust. (When Robert Downey Jr.s Tony Stark met her in Iron Man 2, his last comment was, "I want one," parried by Gwyneth paltrows Pepper Potts.) This criticism cannot be made of Black Widow. It places Natasha and her younger sister Yelena, played by Florence Pugh, at the heart of the action and doesn't waste any second of romance for either of them. It has been said that Marvel Universe is depressingly sexless. However, Natasha and Yelena's parents have a few lines of mildly naughty dialog, which causes their daughters embarrassment.AdvertisementAdvertisementIn a 1995 pre-credits sequence, Ohio establishes the sisters' origin story. Ever Anderson portrays Natasha as a child. She rides her bike through tree-lined streets to get home to her sister Violet McGraw (Violet McGraw), who is watching over her by Melina (Rachel Weisz). All seems perfect until Alexei, the father of the girls, arrives home with a cryptic, but urgent piece of information: The family must make a quick escape in order to avoid an unknown, but much-feared threat. After a hair-raising and laws-of-physics-defying escape on a plane to Cuba, General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), a Russian high-ranking official, intercepts them. He separates the children from their parents, and sends the girls to an elite training facility for assassins.AdvertisementTwenty-one years later we find the adult Natasha hiding from Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) in rural Norway. Natasha has just broken the Sokovia Accords, and is now on the run from both the Avengers and the feds. She's on her own and lives in a trailer, trying to avoid trouble. But when she encounters a mysterious attacker in high-tech armor on a bridge, it leaves her with proof that her younger sister is still alive. Natasha arrives in Yelena's Budapest flat and their greeting ritual isn't a hug or a cup of tea. It's a knockdown, drag-out fight with some clever choreography that involves mutual strangulation using a shower curtain. Since childhood, both women have been taught to trust no one. It takes them time to recognize that they share an enemy: Dreykov who has been abducting little girls all over the globe to raise them in a group of mind-controlled superkillers. Yelena was a former member of his group. However, in order to make it work, the sisters will need to locate their parents. Their task is to rescue their father from a Siberian prison, in the middle of an avalanche. The sisters will then track down their mom, a biologist, at a remote farm where they will test mind-control techniques with pigs. The sisters discover things about their parents that are not surprising to anyone who has seen The Americans, but that shake their worldview.AdvertisementAdvertisementFlorence Pugh is the casting director's golden girl for a reason.The movie's less-than-happy family reunion is played in an unusual emotional register. It's comical and dramatic, but not as comical as your typical Marvel film. The Avengers' personal lives are often only glimpsed during periods of downtime, between their intense bouts of universe-saving. There are occasional glimpses of romantic entanglements and, in rare instances, family life, but they are, as with most protagonists in pop culture, consumed by their work. Black Widow however, integrates the family story into its villain intrigue. The movie's second half sees Natasha and her family fighting Dreykov, a dysfunctional four-person team. It is the women who are the most competent in fighting brains and fighting abilities, in a hilarious reversal from the MCU norm. Dad Alexei, played with endearing passion by Harbour, pretends he is the Red Guardian, but in reality he is a braggart who only has one superpower: getting on his daughters nerves. Weiszs Melina, while less interesting, is still a fun character to play.AdvertisementJohansson, Pugh, and their sisters attempt to reconstruct the happy parts of their childhood. They have real sibling chemistry as they fight over the shower curtain, or talk about Yelena's now-famous sister superhero, the catsuit-clad hair-tossing Black Widow. Johansson adds new layers to a character that has been limited in her ability to strike these poses for too long. Pugh, on the other hand, proves she is the best casting director for a reason. She is able to convey any emotion, from sadness to self-doubt, and can speak in a Russian accent throughout the movie. We are left with the impression that Yelena Romanovoff, a beloved comic actress who has never been in contact with Marvel movies, will be on a mission in the next MCU installment. This is the first time I have ever said this about a Marvel property. Black Widow is too long and too loud. It's also preposterously overplotted and can cause headaches. It was like summer had finally begun when I walked out of it.
