Black Widow (Review)

I remember waiting in anticipation last April to catch Marvel's resident super-spy get her own solo film and was sorely disappointed when COVID-19 ground the cinematic industry to a halt, which delayed the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Phase Four slate multiple times. Despite all these setbacks, the MCU has started to pick up again starting this year with the release of their Disney+ series, which have been met with relative success. Now after more than a year of waiting, Black Widow has finally been released in theatres with Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as the titular heroine. Taking place after the events of 2016's Captain America: Civil War (henceforth referred to as Civil War), we see Black Widow confront her dark past and make amends for her mistakes. Let's dive in. 

REVIEW (SPOILER ALERT)

Introduction: Civil War ended with the very public split of the Avengers, with many of Captain America's allies imprisoned on The Raft while the star-spangled man himself went into hiding. Having "defected" to his side near the end of the film, Natasha Romanoff now finds herself alone and on the run from Secretary Thaddeus Ross, hellbent on apprehending her for aiding in breaching the Sokovia Accords. During this period of self-imposed exile, Natasha finds out that the Red Room, the top-secret Soviet brainwashing project that trained and produced lethal female assassins, is still active, despite thinking that she brought it down years ago. With this organisation back on her radar, Natasha must head back into the fray once again, and team up with old allies while taking down new and improved threats. This is the general gist of the film and there's a lot to it but I won't bore with you all the details right now. 

Film vs comics: This is going to be a long segment so strap in. After spending almost a decade in the dark about her origins, Black Widow thankfully gives viewers a better look at Natasha's past, albeit being quite a bit different from the source material. In the comics, Natasha's backstory is very poorly defined, with the most commonly accepted account being that she was born around 1928 and has had interactions with other old characters like Captain America or Wolverine. She would then go on to be trained in the Red Room, an espionage training facility set up during the Cold War by Department X, a covert Soviet agency set up to create Super-Soldiers for the KGB (including the Winter Soldier), and participate in the Black Widow Ops Programme. Through this, Natasha would become an elite Soviet super-spy and crossed swords with heroes like Iron Man and Hawkeye. Of course, she would eventually go over to the side of good and become a long-standing member of the Avengers. 

In the MCU, Natasha was born in 1984 and at some point was recruited into the KGB by General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), going on to become the Red Room's top student. From 1992 to 1995, Natasha would be sent on an undercover assignment to Ohio with fellow trainee Yelena Belova (more on her later), older Black Widow Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) and Russian Super-Soldier Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) aka the Red Guardian. They would masquerade as a family whilst secretly retrieving data on brain functions from a Hydra facility. Following the successful completion of said mission, Natasha and Yelena would be sent back to the Red Room to complete their training, and from there become elite Black Widows and master assassins. Eventually, Natasha would end up on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar, with Clint Barton aka Hawkeye assigned to take her out. Recognising her expertise, he would instead recommend her for S.H.I.E.L.D. recruitment and she would eventually defect there, going on various missions to prove her allegiance to the organisation. After many years in the field, Natasha would become part of the Avengers' original line-up, staying with the team until her death in Avengers: Endgame. 

The biggest difference between the comic and MCU iterations of Natasha is undoubtedly her age. In the comics, Natasha is a lot older than she looks (being more than 80 years old) but in the films, she was only in her 30s (being 32 during the events of Black Widow). This then leads to another difference between the two mediums, Natasha's past with the Red Room. In the comics, Natasha (and all other Black Widows) was biochemically enhanced with the Red Room's version of the Super-Soldier Serum, which gave her enhanced longevity as well as peak human physical attributes, not to Captain America levels but still beyond human norms, while unfortunately also inhibiting her reproductive capabilities. This doesn't seem to be the case in the MCU, with Natasha still very much being an unenhanced human, although she was sterilised by the Red Room.

The next character we'll be talking about is Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), the film's secondary protagonist. Both iterations of the character have gone by the alias of Black Widow and were trained in the Red Room but that's about where the similarities end. In the comics, Yelena had a fierce rivalry with Natasha, even claiming that her physical test scores were higher. Unlike her more heroic counterpart though, Yelena was never biochemically enhanced and only received physical training, impressive considering how she still became a force to be reckoned with. She's been on both sides of the law, even becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent at one point but most of the time, she's seen as a villainous character, being a thorn in the side of various Avengers teams and most recently having been part of A.I.M. Presently, Yelena isn't actually alive in the comics, having died in a Secret Avengers operation but multiple clones of her have resurfaced over the years, with the 3rd clone going by the name of White Widow and aiding Natasha once again. 

On the other hand, the film has portrayed Yelena as having more of a sisterly relationship with Natasha, having masqueraded as her adoptive younger sister in the aforementioned undercover operation. After heading back to the Red Room in 1995, she would eventually become a trained and brainwashed Black Widow, and would stay that way up till the events of this film, where she would be snapped out of her programming through the use of a gas known as Red Dust. Following this, Yelena would then embark on her quest to take down the Red Room and free the other Widows, roping in Natasha along the way as well as the rest of her adoptive family. Unlike in the comics, Yelena is also sterile (much like all other Black Widows). I would also say that her film counterpart possesses more of a childlike innocence to her as compared to the ruthless killer that she is in the comics, in no small part due to her "false" upbringing. Of course, by the end of the film Yelena is still alive and will be popping up in future MCU products (see The future of the MCU). 

Now let's take a look at Melina Vostokoff and Alexei Shostakov. In the comics, Melina was merely a Russian government agent known as the Iron Maiden but was constantly in Natasha's shadow, causing her to gain a deep hatred for the spy and eventually leaving Russia to become an assassin-for-hire. She would cross swords with multiple heroes, including Black Widow herself, Captain America and Jimmy Woo, before briefly joining the Thunderbolts during Civil War. She would then go on to join Remont 6, a group of Soviet revolutionaries who were last seen fighting the Winter Guard, although they were ultimately defeated. On top of being a master assassin and spy, Melina wears a suit of armour that increases her strength and protects her from physical and energy damage. The film has completely changed Melina, making her an agent of the Red Room and a Black Widow, having gone through the same tough training that Natasha and Yelena went through. She was also their adoptive mother during their undercover operation and as such, has a good amount of motherly instinct for the younger Widows. Just like in the comics, Melina is a master spy and assassin but unlike the source material, she doesn't hate Natasha, treating her as a daughter at times. She's also an expert scientist, having found ways to further mind control/brainwashing as well as having designed the Red Room's security system.

As for Alexei Shostakov, in the comics he was one of the most skilled Soviet test pilots, constantly being selected for the most dangerous and secret test flights. He would go on to be considered a Soviet hero with many of his accomplishments heavily publicised and he would even marry Natasha Romanoff (prior to becoming Black Widow). At the height of the Cold War, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev would handpick Alexei to take on the mantle of the Red Guardian and become their answer to Captain America, albeit without the Super-Soldier Serum. The brutal training by the KGB turned Alexei into a ruthless, cruel man, a far cry from his past self, and we would see him combat the Avengers as well as his ex-wife Natasha. Most recently, Alexei has taken on the identity of Ronin and is the leader of the Dark Ocean Society, another villainous organisation meant to fight S.H.I.E.L.D. 

The film has changed Alexei quite a bit, having him go from Natasha's ex-husband to her adoptive father and has also made him a celebrated Super-Soldier more or less on par with Captain America. In the 1995 flashbacks, we see Alexei strong enough to toss aside a large metal waste disposal vat without much effort several meters away and was fast enough to catch up to a moving biplane as it's about to take off. He's no longer a test pilot in the MCU, instead having formerly been in the Soviet Armed Forces before joining the Red Room as General Dreykov's right hand man and close friend. Some time after completing his 3-year undercover operation with Melina, Natasha and Yelena, Dreykov would imprison Alexei in a Russian gulag after a falling out and he would remain there for many years until the events of Black Widow, where he would be broken out of prison by his adoptive daughters to help them take down the Red Room. In short, while in the comics these four characters are quite separate from one another (except they all have links to Natasha and pretty much hate her for various reasons), the film has turned them into a strange dysfunctional adoptive family. 

Finally, I'm going to talk about the film's secondary antagonist, Taskmaster, who has probably undergone the biggest change of any character in this film. In the comics, he's Anthony "Tony" Masters, who was born with the ability to perfectly duplicate the movements of others through brief observation. Becoming a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in his adulthood, Masters would subject himself to a Nazi variant of the Super-Soldier Serum, greatly enhancing his photographic reflexes and allowing him to absorb information like a sponge as well as predict physical movements in a very low level form of precognition. Coupled with superhuman reflexes and agility on par with Spider-Man or Daredevil, Masters would rebrand himself as Taskmaster, setting up his own criminal training facility and becoming a mercenary, selling his services and pledging allegiance to whoever paid more. This is why we've seen him on various Avengers teams while other times being hired by villains to take down certain superheroes. His powers do come with drawbacks however, as his brain can only hold so much information. This means that every time Taskmaster copies something new, he'll forget an older memory, which includes people he's met, conversations he's had or places he's been.

Film-wise, Taskmaster is actually Antonia Dreykov (Olga Kurylenko), General Dreykov's daughter. We find out through flashbacks that Natasha's final mission prior to joining S.H.I.E.L.D. was to kill Dreykov and his daughter was thought to be collateral damage, with both of them being caught in an explosion. This act would be one of the spy's greatest regrets and made her think of herself as a monster. Of course, neither died but Antonia was disfigured and gravely injured. Seeing an opportunity, Dreykov would turn his daughter into the Red Room's finest warrior, implanting a device in the back of her head that would help her recover as well as grant her photographic reflexes, which means that just like in the comics, Antonia can replicate the movements of anyone she observes. Throughout the film, we see her perfectly imitate Black Panther's combat with claws, Winter Soldier's knife-wielding, Captain America's shield-throwing, Spider-Man's acrobatics, Hawkeye's archery, Iron Man's maneuverability in the air and Black Widow herself. Antonia would also be subjected to the same brainwashing as the Black Widows, making her Dreykov's perfect soldier codenamed "Project Taskmaster" and would only be deployed when absolutely necessary. 

Aside from the obvious gender-swapping and backstory changes, both iterations of Taskmaster are very different personality-wise. Tony Masters is quite a wisecracker with a strong Bronx accent, which is where he was supposedly born. While not on the level of Deadpool (who he's fought multiple times), Masters definitely quips quite a bit while fighting, which makes for some pretty amusing moments in the comics. He's also still quite a human character and we see him experience things like fear and confusion, especially prevalent in his own solo series where he was almost killed by the Superman-like Hyperion or when he found his alleged daughter (who possesses similar abilities) in Avengers Academy, who he unfortunately can't remember because of his powers. In contrast, Antonia Dreykov is pretty much a Winter Soldier-type character, a brainwashed silent killer who has little personality but is meant to instill dread. I'll touch more on these differences later (see Cons). 

Pros: The best part of this film is probably the cast performances, specifically by Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh. By this point Johansson has been playing Natasha Romanoff for more than a decade and has perfectly encapsulated the dangerous but sexy femme fatale. She delivers her performance with poise and elegance, giving us a heroine we want to see on screen. Natasha has proven time and time again in the MCU that she's a master manipulator, having manipulated Loki into revealing his scheme in The Avengers, and we get another glimpse of that when she tricks Dreykov into basically spilling all the beans about his ultimate plan under the guise of getting beaten up by him. That scene really solidifies Natasha's role as an expert spy, a bit of a bittersweet moment considering how she's, you know, dead as a doorknob. 

That said, the standout in this film is undoubtedly Florence Pugh's portrayal of Yelena Belova. A character that has often fallen off the radar in the comics as a second-rate Black Widow, Pugh has managed to make her a likeable and interesting character in this film. It's quite clear that under her tough no-nonsense exterior, Yelena is still very much that 7/8-year-old girl stolen away from the people she considered her real family and made to become a mindless emotionless killer. Once she's freed of her brainwashing, she oftentimes slips into a more vulnerable state, feeling violated by the Red Room's programming and betrayed by Natasha, a woman she thought of as her sister. Through all this, Yelena doesn't come off as a damsel-in-distress or a weak character, continuing to kick ass and be a strong female in her own right. She also cracks some pretty funny jokes throughout the film, with my favourite being the one about Natasha being a "total poser". Pugh and Johansson have great chemistry, and despite this being the first time their characters are together on screen, you really feel like they've known each other for a long time and also feel like actual sisters. 

Another thing that could be seen as favourable by others is the relatively grounded nature of the film. Seeing as how the Infinity Saga brought us to such great cosmic heights while Phase Four continues to go multiversal, Black Widow (literally) brings us back down to Earth and at its core is a story about family and acceptance. Combine that with the high octane action that's commonplace throughout the film, this is definitely quite enjoyable to watch. 

Cons: For all it's merits, Black Widow is unfortunately quite a flawed movie. First off, the villain presence in this film is so poor. The main antagonist is General Dreykov (MCU original), the head of the Red Room but he barely does anything of importance. He's almost relegated to being a background character and kind of behaves like a creepy old man (which he sort of is). MCU villains have been known to be quite one-off and are generally quite weak but Dreykov takes it to the next level. His plan of using his Widows to basically infiltrate every facet of society on a global scale is a good one and is something that's fairly true to the comics but he's not a menacing villain. His trump card was programming all Widows to have a pheromonal lock which prevents them from attacking him, including Natasha, which makes him come off as a typical male antagonist bullying those weaker than him, something that's actually mentioned in the film itself. Marvel seems to be pushing a far more "woke" agenda with a lot of identity politics at play and many people aren't fans of this, myself included, and this culminates in Dreykov being quite useless once he loses the pheromonal advantage. 

In the same vein, I disliked what they did with Taskmaster. Don't get me wrong, I think that making Taskmaster a woman with a completely different backstory made sense in the context of the film, what with her being a representation of Natasha's dark past, but it's disappointing as a comic fan to see such an awesome character get "butchered". Taskmaster is a character with a lot of potential and his popularity has only gone up over the years. If Marvel Studios had played their cards right, I think it would've been a better play to keep Taskmaster for a later film rather than have him (or in this case her) reduced to being a silent henchman. Instead, assuming that this is the last time we're seeing the character in the MCU, we've just lost one of the most interesting antiheroes out there, which is a shame. Phase Four actually sees Marvel doing what many call "diversity for diversity's sake" and the aforementioned Taskmaster gender-swap is just one example of this.

I also didn't like how they made Alexei almost a joke character. I understand that it's important to have some form of comedy in the film to balance out the heavier aspects but when you include comedy at the expense of having a well-rounded character, that's where the buck stops. Let's not forget, Alexei is a dangerous Super-Soldier who was revered by the people before being thrown into prison for no real reason. While it didn't have to be made the main point of the film, Alexei's plotline could've been about showing him redeeming himself from his fall from grace as well as expanding on his guilt and regret from abandoning his "daughters". Instead, he was basically made the butt of multiple jokes, the fat washed-up ex-superhero of sorts. For someone who's basically "Captain Russia", Alexei was such a jobber in this film, completely getting his ass kicked by Taskmaster. Granted, she's a force to be reckoned with but he really should've held his own better. The fight only ended because Melina  interfered, again making the male character seem like a joke. 

See the trend? Black Widow is very much a film meant to empower women and that's totally fine but you don't have to put down men just to bring up women. It's insulting to both genders and I think they could've gone with a very different approach to elevate the Widows while still making Dreykov a formidable foe and Red Guardian less of a jobber. This all boils down to the gender politics and "woke" agenda that's starting to permeate the MCU, which is quite worrying. I'll touch more on this at the end of my post but safe be it to say, this ain't it Marvel. 

One last thing that irked me a little bit (but wasn't really a huge con for the film) was that I felt the CGI was a little unpolished at times, especially near the end of the film when the Red Room is exploding and rubble is falling from the sky. There're some scenes where the CGI is laughably bad and you can totally tell that Pugh and Johansson were just secured in front of a green screen. For a film that has been delayed for a year, you'd think that the effects would've been more polished.

Miscellaneous/little touches: Once again, I'm not sure what to call this segment so I'll just be touching on some Easter eggs as well as references among other little things that I noticed. First off let's talk about Black Widow's Gauntlets, which we've seen multiple times throughout the MCU. Unless I'm mistaken, every time Natasha uses her signature Widow's Bite, which is a powerful electric discharge from her twin wrist gauntlets/bracelets, it's blue in colour. In Black Widow though, the Bite is red, kind of strange considering how it was blue in both Civil War and Avengers: Endgame. While not necessarily an Easter egg, I also liked how Yelena gave her vest to Natasha at the end of the film, a nice bit of continuity there considering the older Widow continues to wear the vest into Avengers: Infinity War. 

Other characters from the comics were also part of this film, with varying amounts of presence. The first I'll talk about is Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenle), who in the film is a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who assists Natasha throughout the course of Black Widow by helping her acquire various equipment and vehicles, including a Quinjet which she uses to find Captain America and help him break out their fellow Avengers from The Raft. In the comics, Mason goes by the alias The Agent and is the son of Phineas Mason aka the supervillain Tinkerer (who was played by Michael Chernus in Spider-Man: Homecoming). He was a mercenary specialising in the non-lethal handling of superhumans and has been under the employment of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the past. Interestingly enough, Mason's unnamed son was killed in the Stamford Incident, which sparked the Civil War. Of course, I doubt that the filmmakers realised the connection between Rick and Phineas Mason, so there probably won't be any familial relationship in the MCU and this is likely the last time we'll be seeing Rick. 

In the comics, the mantle of Red Guardian has been held by many people and some of them were part of a Russian superhero team known as the Winter Guard, who were basically Russia's Avengers. One of their members is Mikhail Ursus aka Ursa Major, a mutant who can transform into a brown bear. We don't see any bears in Black Widow but we got to see a hulking giant of a man in Alexei's fellow prisoner Ursa (Olivier Richter), who promptly got his wrist snapped in an arm-wrestling contest after insulting the Super-Soldier. There was also a namedrop for another Winter Guard member known as the Crimson Dynamo, Russia's Iron Man. Many people have gone by Crimson Dynamo (currently held by Winter Guard leader Dimitri Bukharin) but the first was Anton Vanko, who was played by Yevgeni Lazarev in Iron Man 2. Will we ever see the real Winter Guard in the MCU? Probably not but it's an interesting prospect. 

The future of the MCU: Let's be honest here, if you removed Black Widow from the MCU slate entirely, no one would bat an eye because the events depicted in the film are almost completely irrelevant to anything that came before or after it in the MCU's timeline. The film's greater connection to the MCU though comes in the form of its sole post-credits scene, which takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. A very much alive Yelena visits Natasha's grave and mourns the death of her adoptive sister, who as we know died trying to get the Soul Stone on Vormir. Yelena isn't the only one there though because we're treated to the sight of Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus in an uncredited appearance), who we last saw in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Funnily enough, Black Widow was meant to be Valentina's first appearance in the MCU but because of the COVID-19 delays, she ended up appearing first in the Disney+ series, although it doesn't really affect the overall narrative. 

As we find out, Yelena is on Valentina's payroll, probably as an assassin-for-hire. The older woman then asks the Widow if she wants to take out the man who was "responsible" for Natasha's death and shows her a picture of none other than Clint Barton aka Hawkeye. You might be confused as to why Clint is being presented to Yelena as her sister's murderer even though (as we recall) he tried his best to prevent her death but if you think about it, the events that happened on Vormir weren't made public. All outsiders (including Yelena) know are that Clint and Natasha both went to Vormir but only the archer came back so it would be a reasonable assumption without context that Natasha was killed by him. This directly leads us to the upcoming Hawkeye Disney+ series, which Florence Pugh is confirmed to be reprising her role as Yelena in, where we'll likely see her cross swords with the archer as a result of this misunderstanding. 

I think it's pretty clear by now that Valentina is behaving as a "dark" Nick Fury of sorts, assembling antiheroes and forming her own super-team. We've seen this in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, where she christens John Walker as U.S. Agent and now with Yelena in the mix, it's becoming more and more apparent that the Thunderbolts or the Dark Avengers are coming to the MCU (likely the former). We don't really know what'll come out of this development but we're definitely going to see more of Valentina recruiting other characters throughout the MCU. Maybe we'll see her recruiting Abomination in either Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings or the She-Hulk Disney+ series? It's an exciting prospect. 

Final thoughts: COVID-19 has been a real pain for everyone and I'm really glad that the MCU is finally returning to the big screen. After the great success of the Infinity Saga, it's only natural that people would expect Phase Four and beyond to be just as good if not better. Unfortunately, Black Widow doesn't really feel like a return to form for Marvel Studios and while it's an entertaining enough film, it definitely felt like it came out far too late for anyone to really care. Natasha Romanoff was such an integral part to the MCU's early years and deserved a proper send-off after her sacrifice but her solo flick really wasn't it. Bogged down by unnecessary pandering, the MCU's long-awaited big screen return could've been so much better and I can only hope future products are back up to standard. 

I give Black Widow a 6.5/10. Thanks for reading.