Film REVIEW- "Black Widow"

 Black Widow is not the worst Marvel movie. I'm not sure what the point of it was. What the movie leads up can be explained in a three minute flashback when the Disney Plus “Hawkeye” show comes out. If we are just trying to have equal time for female superheroes I would have rather just sat through a movie about She-Hulk, Tigra, Elsa Bloodstone, Shanna, X-23,  Black Cat, Lyra, Thundra, Satanna, or Moondragon. Natasha first appeared as a villain, she is a spy and an assassin, while the is discussed her dark side never comes across. She was written as a supporting character so has no Rogue’s gallery of her own. The one comic book villain that is present is less accurate than the version of Ghost that was in the last Ant-man movie.

They try to use a convoluted ‘family “ cooked up for the movie which does feature actual characters from the comics , this is not the movie's best executed plot device despite all of the actors having great chemistry the writing just falls flat. While the Winter Guard was alluded to and the Crimson Dynamo is name dropped, there are lots of missed opportunities filled with some of the same now formulaic tropes being dragged out again .  Movies like Red Sparrow” and “Atomic Blonde” did this better than what this movie could have pulled off if it had a grittier tone and less of a video game feel.  Before you try to defend this with “But this movie is for little girls they need a role model” . That is bullshit, as a parent of a pre teen girl, I can tell you she had no interest in the character and prefers Harley Quinn. 

They fucked up Task Master so badly , it is hard for them to save face here, but I will say it is well shot. The effects are way better than those of both Black Panther and Capt. Marvel. For what purpose ?  They want  you to think it is for filling in gaps that did not need to be filled in the first place. While this movie works best when it is making fun of the title character, it needed to  have been a much more serious movie. It was at times more fun than not though much like most D/C films I was bored by the big climatic ending. If you miss this movie there is nothing you are not going to be able to connect the dots to on your own when it comes to future films. Thankfully they can not make a sequel.