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Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2021 film Black Widow.
Story
I was hoping for a story about how amazing Natasha was; instead we got a story that felt like it really needed to knock her down a peg in every fight.
This wasn’t a story about Natasha as Black Widow, it was a convoluted mess of a set up for Yelena to become Black Widow.
Other than being a backstory for a character we don’t know, there are some odd choices. The movie doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be a spy thriller or a superhero movie.
Story: 0
Character
Natasha was not quite as badly written as she was in previous movies, but that isn’t a high bar. The rest of the cast was fantastic and a little cheesy. Yelena was a great character with a lot of fun moments.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
I liked how the characters interacted and the little jabs at the ridiculous dialogue of past movies. The banter was realistic and funny.
This movie has a significant amount of good lines, shade, and throwbacks.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The movie was well filmed, but had a lot of shaking and cutting for my taste. The franticness of the camera often tried to make up for the lack of urgency in the action scenes. Each action scene followed the same script and it got a little boring by the end.
The scenery was wonderful.
The music was okay, but the Black Widow theme was repetitive, loud, and annoying.
Score: 0.5
Fun
The movie felt like it wanted to be a six part series. There were a lot of decisions that I didn’t like and I felt that Black Widow was again treated like a set piece and punching bag.
My daughter found it a little too violent and scary; my son got bored.
Score: 0.5
Overall
This movie should have been better, putting Black Widow into her spy element, but instead it forgot she was a spy and tried to turn her into an action star without any real triumph. In the end it’s an interesting introduction to the future Black Widow, but not a proper send off for the MCU’s worst treated and written character.
Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5