Black Widow (Film Review)
My first movie watched in a cinema for a year or so. Yay! As opposed to last years' experience, the cinema in question has digitalized so you check yourself in and out with one of the Corona warning apps. Also, there were an amazing number of amateurs (read: people not aware of the Marvel movie habit of a final tag scene after the credits) there who rushed out first thing after the film was over. In this particular case, I did find the final scene worth waiting for, which isn't always the case.
On to the movie proper, which made me suspect someone in the scriptwriting team liked The Americans a lot.
Set immediately after Civil War for Natasha, with flashbacks to her past, this was also an introduction film for Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh, who certainly is put in a position by this movie to carry on as a legacy character. (In fact, the tile "Black Widow" could refer to either of them.) Not counting Ant Man, where the "legacy" Ant Man is the one the audience meets first and who is the main character from the start, though Hank Pym is still around, this would be a first in the MCU for the superhero mantle being taken up on screen. (Well, obviously there's Into the Spiderverse with Miles as the main character, but that's its own continuity.) This said, it's also a good and worthy final outing for Natasha, taken its cue from several of the Black Widow comics to send her on an adventure where she gets to reconnect with and battle her past and also free a lot of other young women. Our main villain, Draykov, is a standard Evil Overlord (a la Red Skull, with less effort to present an affable mask first than Alexander Pierce but with much the same plot role), but the charm of the film lies a) in the dysfunctional spy family getting together again and their dynamics with each other, and b) in Natasha doing her thing. (More about this in a moment). The biggest back story additions this movie contributes to the MCU version of Natasha is revealing in her childhood, she spent three years as Paige Jennings one of two fake daughters of a pair of Russian sleeper agents, Philip and Elizabeth Alexeji and Melina in Ohio. As opposed to her younger sibling Henry Yelena, Natasha did know what was going on since she'd already started her training back home in Russia, but Yelena was just six when they were all busted and had to flee, so to her, it had been real and the reveal came as a shock.
Now the movie is all over the place with accents - during the childhood flashbacks, everyone speaks perfect Americanese, but in the main story, Melina (Rachel Weisz), Alexeji (David Harbour) and Yelena all have "Russian" accents - but honestly, I don't care. Giving Natasha these relationships for her final outing was an excellent choice because it grounds the movie emotionally and makes you care. (I mean, the action scenes are nice, but these aren't why I watch the films.) Yelena as the little sister with a chip on her shoulder (and a great ability to tease Natasha about her trademark Black Widow landing pose, among other things) finally provides Natasha with another main female character to have an intense relationship with for longer than two minutes, and the way the two of them relate to Alexej (David Harbour having way more fun than during his last Stranger Things outing as Hopper) and later Natasha to Melina (Rachel Weisz is also great, able to be both chilling and human in turns) is somewhere between Sydney Bristow from Alias and the Jennings siblings and couldn't have been more designed to press my emotional buttons. Especially since for every gag (Alexeji, who is so proud of his stint as "Red Guardian" asking Natasha whether Captain America ever mentioned him, his "geopolitical adversary, despite the fact several characters point out to Alexeji Steve was still in the ice when Alexjei was active) there's also a heartbreaking scene - the moment in the flashback you realize child!Natasha knows exactly what awaits her and Yelena now the assignment is over and what she does then.
Speaking of the serious stuff, the movie also confronts Natasha with some of the specific red in her ledger - the Draykov's daughter bit mentioned during the Natasha & Loki conversation in Avengers. As it turns out, it's not something she did while still under the control of the Red Room but the "last step" of her defection to SHIELD, and as such she's fully responsible and knows it. It's probably the darkest on screen thing the MCU let one of their heroic characters do while not under mind control or somehow tricked into it by a villainous character or by accident, and it's no wonder it haunts Natasha. I was in two minds about the nature of the confrontation throughout the movie as it depended for me on the eventual resolution, but when that came, I was on board with it.
Trivia:
- Alexej referring to himself as the only successful super soldier the USSR ever managed to produce (and he does have all of Steve's physical powers) means Bucky gets counted as Hydra, I take it.
- I had read one of the comics this film drew from and so I expected Melina to be, let's say, other than she was, and I have to say, I like the MCU version better
- I loved, loved, loved the way Natasha's final victory over Draykov was achieved, not least because it was the perfect coming-back-full-circle to two particular scenes in The Avengers which had made me fall in love with this version of the character back in the day
- while this is no excuse for not giving Natasha her solo outing earlier, it actually makes perfect sense to let it happen directly after Civil War; for once, a main Avengers character really has good Watsonian reasons why they can't ask either the other Avengers or anyone else already introduced in the MCU for help
- seriously, there must be both The Americans and Alias crossovers; extra points for making Alexej and Melina their own people, very different from both the Alias spy parents and Philip & Elizabeth. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1450682.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
On to the movie proper, which made me suspect someone in the scriptwriting team liked The Americans a lot.
Set immediately after Civil War for Natasha, with flashbacks to her past, this was also an introduction film for Yelena Belova, played by Florence Pugh, who certainly is put in a position by this movie to carry on as a legacy character. (In fact, the tile "Black Widow" could refer to either of them.) Not counting Ant Man, where the "legacy" Ant Man is the one the audience meets first and who is the main character from the start, though Hank Pym is still around, this would be a first in the MCU for the superhero mantle being taken up on screen. (Well, obviously there's Into the Spiderverse with Miles as the main character, but that's its own continuity.) This said, it's also a good and worthy final outing for Natasha, taken its cue from several of the Black Widow comics to send her on an adventure where she gets to reconnect with and battle her past and also free a lot of other young women. Our main villain, Draykov, is a standard Evil Overlord (a la Red Skull, with less effort to present an affable mask first than Alexander Pierce but with much the same plot role), but the charm of the film lies a) in the dysfunctional spy family getting together again and their dynamics with each other, and b) in Natasha doing her thing. (More about this in a moment). The biggest back story additions this movie contributes to the MCU version of Natasha is revealing in her childhood, she spent three years as Paige Jennings one of two fake daughters of a pair of Russian sleeper agents, Philip and Elizabeth Alexeji and Melina in Ohio. As opposed to her younger sibling Henry Yelena, Natasha did know what was going on since she'd already started her training back home in Russia, but Yelena was just six when they were all busted and had to flee, so to her, it had been real and the reveal came as a shock.
Now the movie is all over the place with accents - during the childhood flashbacks, everyone speaks perfect Americanese, but in the main story, Melina (Rachel Weisz), Alexeji (David Harbour) and Yelena all have "Russian" accents - but honestly, I don't care. Giving Natasha these relationships for her final outing was an excellent choice because it grounds the movie emotionally and makes you care. (I mean, the action scenes are nice, but these aren't why I watch the films.) Yelena as the little sister with a chip on her shoulder (and a great ability to tease Natasha about her trademark Black Widow landing pose, among other things) finally provides Natasha with another main female character to have an intense relationship with for longer than two minutes, and the way the two of them relate to Alexej (David Harbour having way more fun than during his last Stranger Things outing as Hopper) and later Natasha to Melina (Rachel Weisz is also great, able to be both chilling and human in turns) is somewhere between Sydney Bristow from Alias and the Jennings siblings and couldn't have been more designed to press my emotional buttons. Especially since for every gag (Alexeji, who is so proud of his stint as "Red Guardian" asking Natasha whether Captain America ever mentioned him, his "geopolitical adversary, despite the fact several characters point out to Alexeji Steve was still in the ice when Alexjei was active) there's also a heartbreaking scene - the moment in the flashback you realize child!Natasha knows exactly what awaits her and Yelena now the assignment is over and what she does then.
Speaking of the serious stuff, the movie also confronts Natasha with some of the specific red in her ledger - the Draykov's daughter bit mentioned during the Natasha & Loki conversation in Avengers. As it turns out, it's not something she did while still under the control of the Red Room but the "last step" of her defection to SHIELD, and as such she's fully responsible and knows it. It's probably the darkest on screen thing the MCU let one of their heroic characters do while not under mind control or somehow tricked into it by a villainous character or by accident, and it's no wonder it haunts Natasha. I was in two minds about the nature of the confrontation throughout the movie as it depended for me on the eventual resolution, but when that came, I was on board with it.
Trivia:
- Alexej referring to himself as the only successful super soldier the USSR ever managed to produce (and he does have all of Steve's physical powers) means Bucky gets counted as Hydra, I take it.
- I had read one of the comics this film drew from and so I expected Melina to be, let's say, other than she was, and I have to say, I like the MCU version better
- I loved, loved, loved the way Natasha's final victory over Draykov was achieved, not least because it was the perfect coming-back-full-circle to two particular scenes in The Avengers which had made me fall in love with this version of the character back in the day
- while this is no excuse for not giving Natasha her solo outing earlier, it actually makes perfect sense to let it happen directly after Civil War; for once, a main Avengers character really has good Watsonian reasons why they can't ask either the other Avengers or anyone else already introduced in the MCU for help
- seriously, there must be both The Americans and Alias crossovers; extra points for making Alexej and Melina their own people, very different from both the Alias spy parents and Philip & Elizabeth. This entry was originally posted at https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1450682.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.