Lo! Marvel Studios has opened their creative fences and lets loose their pegasus Black Widow, who soars to action hero glory and even grounded is ensnared in unfathomable heights (Valkyrie may have actually rode a pegasus, but her rhapsody is still too premature and being conserved for future projects). “Black Widow” gets to it soon as the Marvel Studios animated logo fades to red, youngling Natasha Romanoff (Ever Anderson) burgeons the ochre retro spectrum in blue shoulder-length hair. The look harkens to Emma (Léa Seydoux) in the French queer romance “Blue is the Warmest Color” (2013). Natasha dashes to the playground where her non-biological sister Yelena Bolova (Violet McGraw as the child) arches her back, all fours skulking like a spider — and Natasha joins her in the freakishly playful pose. Just as Yelena scrapes her knee from running, Melina Vostokov (Rachel Weisz), their illegitimate mother, dusts her off and ushers the siblings to dinner. By eve, father figure Aleksei Shostakov (David Harbour) arrives home frantic thus startles Melina onto their cue to abscond from their undercover residence in Ohio and out of the country. “Black Widow” then cuts to the chase, literally: a saturnine sing-along to Don McLean’s “American Pie” (Yelena’s song) on their old wagon as they jet to an abandoned hangar. Natasha, Yelena, and Melina nervously board the plane while Aleksei — with his super-enhanced sharpshooting — holds off the tailing black SUVs. The camera catches one skidding sideways to glance at the S.H.I.E.L.D. decal on the right-side passenger door. More S.H.I.E.L.D. vehicles pursue as Aleksei, with super soldier prowess, sprints onto the wing of the craft. With Melina wounded, Natasha mans the joystick and manages to pull up the airplane before the runway's deadend. The S.H.I.E.L.D. cars are on a heap from the ace shots pf Aleksei, and the craft hovers towards the twilight then, like a pizza slice put into the whole, transitions into the Cuban plateau. The craft lands on a military base where Aleksei surrenders the plot-centric mysterious tape to General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), commander of The Red Room — a stinger to the story by Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson which they deepen with a middle slice of family drama in this whole caper-sting.
The breathtaking intro sighs to the opening credits set to a disturbingly slowed and even pitched rendition of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Think Up Anger. The track reeks of Evanescence’s “My Immortal” and The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” During the eerie lullaby, smuggled girls are boarded by military unto trucks, the shaky narrowness of the frames enacts the panic and smothering worry ala Paul Greengrass. Noticeable is Scarlett Johansson’s name a-flash as the executive producer of “Black Widow,” more prominent than Marvel Studios President and co-producer Kevin Feige’s. The title card tics into static, and recent Natasha leers into a horizontal half-shot mirror; Johansson still-faced, her iris has minute shivers...she might be hiding something or she isn’t thus the aggrieved calm. And the angst-dauntless panel cements “Black Widow” as an action thriller with splices of “Bourne,” “Mission: Impossible,” and the James Bond franchise. One of the latter — “Moonraker” (1979) — Natasha casually watches over a tub of ice cream in her trailer-turned-safe house on the boondocks of Norway, having been tagged a fugitive after the fate-altering tumult of “Captain America: Civil War" (2016). Natasha employs the assistance of fixer Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenle), who can source passports, safe houses, cars, aircrafts, and just about anything perhaps including the Infinity Stones for the right price. Mason’s discreet resourcefulness is tantalizing enough for his own mini-series or for the return of Marvel One-Shots, the last of which was the Ben Kingsley-starrer “All Hail the King” in 2013. Fatefully having to get gas for the generator, Natasha drives out but is intercepted by Taskmaster: in a suit that’s crossbred between the Power Rangers, the molten Terminator, and Skeletor. Mimicry might be its only super power in “Black Widow” and seems beyond every fighting aspect of his foe; mirroring the battling abilities of The Avengers: Captain America, Black Panther, the Winter Soldier, and Black Widow herself...or is it Taskmaster’s natural skill to clash akin to her? Amid the flow of strikes and grapples, Taskmaster is mechanical, hinting it’s a drone of itself. Natasha discerns the assassin is after the vials stashed in her off-roader with the photo booth snap of her and Yelena. Taskmaster missile dropkicks Black Widow over the bridge onto the river beneath, a guile into letting her slip with the specimen.
“Black Widow” being an experimental actioner with espionage injected in its DNA, the thrill is in the trail of detecting the bigger spectre. The 24th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has the antsy skull-smashing stimuli of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014). “Black Widow” has more rawness, as if skylight has just beamed upon for the day’s mission. It may yet be the finest MCU film, but it is already one of the funnest and most rewatchable along its 133 minutes run time, nice and concise since people still have social distancing to do. Johansson has confidently matured into Natasha, she’s better at being the baddest girl in the yard and best at avenging. Yet there’s a challenger, Yelena in the raging form of Florence Pugh. The adult sisters rendezvous in Budapest — beforehand, Natasha corrects Mason to pronounce “Budapesh.” In a rustic multi-level apartment, Yelena and Natasha engage in a grab-and-swoosh bout. It’s not a typical cat fight. They are tigers who have shown their stripes — all black and a prowling arachnid, their stings so powerful only a truce could remedy. Yelena has mailed the vials to Natasha, and divulges it is a mind-control antidote for the rest of the droned Black Widows. Natasha is aghast by the mention of such others, believing she killed Dreykov and effectively eradicated The Red Room where neglected girls worldwide are transformed to super spies. By her narration, Natasha teamed with Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner in a voice cameo) to assassinate the devious general. Too many questions are webbed instead of answers which is the MCU’s venom, keeping faithfuls enraptured until the puzzles wrought themselves out — if Marvel Studios is adequately kind to to decode the riddles. Seriously, what is the Budapesh incident? The closest to discovery in “Black Widow” is Barton, on the phone, seeking confirmation from Natasha during the assassination. Bad? Cunning? Deluding? Aren’t these the superpowers of Black Widow... Budapesh and more queries could be explored in the upcoming “Hawkeye” mini-series, which are really extended movies for streaming virality on Disney+. But for someone very talented at beguiling, Natasha has trust issues with her makeshift family — the seed of her guile being potent and bulletproof. There is no puncturing her tricks because she trusts the deception en route to the truth. Unreal may be her relatives, but so genuine is the gambit, and that’s how her talent was sired and perfected.
Yelena and Natasha are assaulted by the Black Widows in the apartment, and ensues a car-motorcycle chase along Budapesh streets. The sequence mirrors the “Mission: Impossible - Fallout” pursuit across Paris. On board a BMW SUV, the sibling dynamic of Yelena and Natasha are comically illustrated through their banters whilst tailed and gunned down by Black Widows on motorbikes. Yelena scoffs, “You got a plan?” “My plan was to drive us away,” hisses Natasha. Eric Pearson’s script has this type of coy see-saw. The chase is blood-pumping, palpitated by the roars of Alexandre Desplat’s horizonless score. Music ups with the rev, pummels, jumps, glides, entering, escaping, blows, acrobatics, and culminates in a windfall while a breath is too late because up again goes the verging hum, not ending at its peak until the height is out of breadth. But the rally has been featured in the trailers, so has the apartment infiltration. Then what percentage of “Black Widow” is not the trailers? A super spy never tells. Secrets web naysayers, disclosure is poison to unrevealed fantasies. Taskmaster plows Budapest on a rampaging armored carrier following the spy sisters. Channeling Hawkeye, Taskmaster pulls out the bow and arrow and aces the car to explosion into the subway. The sisters hightail it across the station as the villain walks on their tracks, and with haste, vault over the escalator ramp, whisking down towards getaway in a ceaselessly exhilarating stunt borrowed from Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem’s slide-off in 2012’s “Skyfall.” Pugh and Johansson’s chemistry is equally entrancing and noxious. They get along like tea and kettle, but when their sister genes activate it’s a cute-brutal affair. Yelena especially hates Natasha’s iconic Widow pose: Pugh reenacts the stance by awkwardly crouching, one hand on the ground, the other splayed backwards up to commit into a mangled spider-woman fighting stature. “Such a poser,” Yelena brandishes her sister in a hilariously honest analysis of Black Widow in battle mode.
Later in The Red Room, she emerges from the rafts and lands on that very pose, then she shudders, “That was disgusting.” Pugh is confusingly comic and seriously concentrated, her quips and whims manifest in a private realm of openness that flourishes with relieved awareness. The other Black Widow, Natasha, is more endearing than Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). Presumedly, it’s the longevity and because Johansson has put more character to Natasha. Captain Marvel, in her eponymous debut in 2019, has been a one-dimensional ass-kicker with reluctant friends to care for. No humor, no depth to an Air Force pilot who should have gathered acmes into her core. “Black Widow” should have arrived earlier than “Captain Marvel,” but if it did the latter would have been more abrasively unwarranted. “Black Widow” having an overdue release is a marketing strategem for poignancy to the super spy and reinforced gravitas across then and present MCU films. Johansson, with the benefit of tenure, has dissected Natasha from super spy to a mom-venger and a friend to the superhero collective (which is named after Carol “The Avenger” Danvers but has lesser empathy with), and inevitably has seen The Avengers as family. In “Black Widow,” she’s all of it, with nerves to reprimand and squash flimsy villain ploys. Natasha is too smart to be outgunned with too much weaponry to be outsmarted. Hell, she could take down Captain America with the spark of reason and the sting of her wrist-ring blaster. Her flaw: she’s soft for loved ones and does not verify executions. Because that’s what heroes do...let enemies to redemption they never earned but deserve if by the super power of forgiveness. Yelena’s is her immaturity and ironic susceptibility (Black Widows specialize in deception which Natasha is a god of), though she has as much experience in Black Widow-ing.
Next seen of Aleksei is in a Russian prison on snowy mountains, arm-wrestling inmates easily into broken bones. Whilst wasting the fools’ limbs, he narrates how he was the Red Guardian — Soviet Union’s counter to Captain America — and used the celebrated Avenger’s vibranium shield against him during the 80s...or so he says. He’s a frustrated superhero who got coped under the mantle of the more popular super soldier. Yelena and Natasha hatches a prison break for Aleksei where he gets to show out his enhanced agility — powering through the crowd of prisoners and leaping over towering railings towards the helicopter. Outnumbered by the prison guards and rioting convicts, Natasha superhero lands — from the chopper — to fetch Aleksei. The jail break action is an unfortunate blip, the choreography is thawed snow in the wintry visual noise. Sadly, it is filler in “Black Widow.” Since Yelena is more adept at doing first before thinking it through, she rocket-launchers into oblivion a gunner on vantage point — the aftershock triggers an avalanche. Natasha clings to the helicopter rope as her sister pilots the craft like a glowing lampyrid hovering to snatch Aleksei from the onslaught: harmony dancing from the clutches of gulfing doom. Reunited with Melina, now a farmer herding pigs on mind-control, the family unearths their scars over dinner. Aleksei’s he tries to bandage with the filthy Red Guardian suit he painfully squirms into. He comes out of the bathroom a bearded blood sausage from a winter prison. This chapter is the family drama in “Black Widow,” and Pugh lords screen time for profoundness. When Yelena cries, she demands resolve. When she’s heartbroken from having to accept their family is, as she puts it, such a poser, she requests silence. When she’s frustrated, her quivers and broken tears require the souls of everyone bared to nothing. The actress is on a stride ahead, on her wake is the rubble from the annihilating amazement. She tantrums from the dinner table to her bedroom, shutting the glass twin doors. Daddy duties abound, Red Guardian follows to the room to pacify the child in Yelena. Interior, bedroom, night, father-daughter moment: Red Guardian is a character that lets Harbour (in his second release of the year since “No Sudden Move”) be comical in a sincere manner of cheering up. The super soldier is the relief from the steel righteousness of Captain America. Red Guardian and Yelena are absurdism — the former flexing his dad spoof plus a happy-lonely duet of “American Pie” is the cure to her tantrums, the kiss to the spider woman. Even when battling Taskmaster, Red Guardian’s super humor seems to power him up until he traps the villain in a glass cell and scurry away panting, like a dad exhausted from his morning jog (the Red Guardian attire is his tracksuit). Melina and Natasha also share their mother-daughter time during which Natasha, teary-eyed, recalls the family’s super power, “Pain only makes us stronger.” Weisz’s near-droopy eyes reverberate that pain, and when she declares, “I’ve already alerted The Red Room,” the lie is magma from her mouth that Natasha perspires into sobs — mom and child are conniving. Not a shed from her lids, Weisz attentive — exterior as hard as her interior. This is as nasty as she is frozen, no melting point in her stature and mental strength. As Red Guardian moans the line “This will be the die that I die...,” Taskmaster and the Black Widows squash their farm home and abduct them to The Red Room, a fortress in the sky from the heritage of Super Mario, Hiyao Miyazaki, and “Sky High” (2005).
Dreykov reappears from his speculated death which has been predictable: no superhero movie kills off a main villain prematurely or at least until the credits slaps on. Believing himself a liberator of women forsaken, he shelters them in The Red Room making their brains his — dictator much. If this is Dreykov’s pupose, what is Natasha’s? To atone her soul from the abyss through the sky fortress? Coincidentally an Avenger, Natasha just has an epiphany to avenge fellow Black Widows. Purposeful but unplanned, yet tactical. Natasha’s fate she decides impetuously. “Great plan.” Indeed, Yelena, who, via mailing the vials, has awakened that “purpose” for her sister. Yelena is Natasha’s grand pursuit, her legacy, Black Widow beyond the Infinity Stones. Winstone as Dreykov is creepy as he should be. The liberator’s steps are turtle-speed, the liberation has passed him by — Winstone moves calculatingly because those lingers are the power that looms with stranglehold on the Widows, even Natasha. He had to be ancient because a new life the women will never obtain in his tenure. The actor’s raspy voice he blasts with minimal blare, a restrained shout that deafens the imagination which is the frailest of the frail. Winstone will snap anyone without contact, just watch him as Dreykov and break into sherds. But not Natasha. She has vibranium nerves, a weapon who refuses to be weaponized. The familiar Black Widow face-imitating tech is used to fleece the general, but he knowingly deactivates the shapeshifting mask to reveal Natasha. During the confrontation, Johansson’s likeable deceit matches with the stealthy Black Widow dark suit — she’s primed with steeliness that her deadpan unleashes terror to the guilty. Unfazed, Dreykov brushes her off with an almost bitch slap: Natasha is perfunctorily prevented from raging physically against the general since his biological odor, through implanted control, suppresses her revolt amid the machismo versus women’s revolution. But a revolution that stops ceases to be. It must be progressing. Alas, Black Widow might be the trickiest Avenger, her pose of weakness is the deception for her to “Sever the nerve” (Pearson has written the line as the virulent bite of the Black Widow).
From the skies she glides wingless to earth (!) contrary to parachuted Tom Cruise during the HALO skydive in “Fallout”. Johansson, in airy visual effects, free falls to near safety. Her parachute launches midway to the soil. A flashy deed amongst a party of tilt-a-whirl action that doesn’t flatline, the butt-kicking remains whooshing — deluding the senses until Black Widow rejoins afresh with Melina, Aleksei, and Yelena (by herself is an Avengers-level threat) because no one gets left behind. If so, what remains then? Black Widow imparts she’s no longer running from the past. Maybe what matters more is taking bygones with to make amends with pursuing the present. When Natasha alights from her motorcycle in blonde locks — the dye she was ruminating over in the Norway safe house — and sporting the Yelena-memento army jacket with countless pockets, 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War” conveniently slots into the MCU timeline. Quinjet and lampyridae a-flight, the sparkles are brighter when more of it gathers as “Black Widow” converges with the franchise. This film is the bar for MCU content from Phase 4 onwards. Marvel Studios’ experiment results in the new standard-bearer of its cavalcade. Even dead, Black Widow carries The Avengers mantle with certitude beyond Captain Marvel and the multiverse-purging charmer Sylvie (the portent Sophia Di Martino) from “Loki” (Scarlet Witch is on another plane *wink*). What does Black Widow take with her? To a spy, it’s confidential, but memories make for a decade-spanning final smolder. There might be another sighting of Natasha Romanoff or this is where Marvel Studios decides she passes on. Despite what comes before and after, all of it is merely on the run. Begin the pursuit.
Director: Cate Shortland
Images and trailer ©️ Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; YouTube.com
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