Review of Black Widow (2021) by Player2-Water — 07 Aug 2021

E-Value: 8.

Acting: 8.

Plot: 8.

After being delayed thrice due to COVID-19 pandemic which forced theatres around the world to close for a while, the twenty-fourth instalment in Marvel Cinematic Universe finally arrived in the big screen while the movie is also available in Disney+ for a premium fee at the same time.

Due to her betrayal in Captain America: Civil War, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Johansson) became a fugitive and is currently on the run from US Secretary of State, Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross. Elsewhere, another Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Pugh), is on the mission to assassinate a rogue and former Black Widow, whom she manage to free Yelena from mind control using an antidote vial which contain synthetic gas at the cost of her own life. Freed from mind control, Yelena sends the antidote vials to Natasha at her safehouse in Norway hoping she would help.

With the vials under the possession of Natasha, she is attack by a mysterious assassin called Taskmaster (played by Olga Kurylenko), who is coming for the vials. She fights off Taskmaster and escape with the vials. She reunite with Yelena in a safehouse in Budapest, Hungary where she learn that the Red Room led by General Dreykov (played by Ray Winstone) is still active. Working together, Natasha and Yelena break their adoptive father, Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (Harbour), out of prison in order find out Dreykov’s location so they can put an end to the Red Room once and for all.

After going through 2020 without any MCU movies, it is really good to be back watching Marvel movie once again. This movie is not exactly an origin story of Black Widow like 2008’s Iron Man but the writing in this movie did a good job in expanding Black Widow’s past after many hints in the previous movies. For example, we finally get to know what happened in Budapest after it was first mentioned in 2012’s The Avengers and the origins of the Red Room after being mentioned in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. In addition, the movie ties up all loose end on Black Widow and connects very well to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War.

The fighting scenes are very well executed which kind of reminds me of 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier and other action thriller movies such as The Bourne series. The performance of the cast have done very well in their acting. Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh have done a great job in their acting. David Harbour deserved a praise too as he not only played the role of Red Guardian well, he also have done a great job in providing comic relief moments in the movie. Ray Winstone and Olga Kurylenko also done a decent performance but I felt their characters are not well developed. I felt Ray’s character is more of a generic Russian villain you watched in other Hollywood movies while Olga did not have much screentime as Taskmaster, who is a well known villain in the comics. Taskmaster shows up in the first and third act but disappeared during the middle of the second act. Other than that, the character is more depicted as a generic henchman.

Nevertheless, Black Widow is still a good movie despite the flaws. If you have missed watching Marvel movies, this is first Marvel movie you definitely want to watch in 2021. Not only that, this movie may be Scarlett Johansson’s final role as Black Widow (her character died in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame) which is another reason why you should watch this movie. Don’t forget to stay back for post credits scene as this scene sets up a future movie or TV series.