Black Widow Review

“I’ve got red in my ledger… I’d like to wipe it out,” Natasha Romanoff declares to Loki in response to his query towards the former Russian spy about her place in the world in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union during the first Avengers film. This line has significant thematic weight to it nearly a decade later as in Romanoff’s first solo outing, Black Widow, the origin story of the character is explored in-depth, telling the story of her painful past and how that ultimately formed the woman that she is today. The bulk of the storyline taking place in between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War with Romanoff a fugitive from the law and on the run, this film is a superb spy thriller that delivers a tense, suspenseful and deeply character-based story that will forever alter your perception of the Black Widow character. 

 

 

Audiences were first introduced to Romanoff in Iron Man 2 (2010), where Scarlett Johansson made her debut as the vivacious SHIELD superspy Black Widow, and one of Nick Fury’s top agents, posing as Tony Stark’s personal assistant. Johansson’s onscreen charisma was timeless and her chemistry with everyone from Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jon Favreau was undeniable. Her powerhouse transformation from Stark’s personal assistant to the Black Widow is a classic as she emerges from the Stark limo in her leather spandex much to Happy Hogan’s disbelief only to proceed inside the Hammer Industries complex to throw down the gauntlet with Hammer’s security forces. The kind of visceral action she engaged in was eye-catching and impressive, firmly establishing the Romanoff character as one to be reckoned with. Beyond that, she became an Avenger in the Avengers films which saw Johansson portraying Romanoff in some highly memorable storylines including her close partnership with SHIELD archer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), her tragic romance with Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and her role in the Civil War between the Avengers with her ultimately choosing to side with Rodgers (Chris Evans). Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame progressed the character from fugitive coming in from the cold spy game territory to returning to the front lines to reunite with the Avengers only to end up a fateful survivor in Thanos’s SNAP wiping out half of human existence to her epic death scene in Endgame where she paid the ultimate price for the freedom of the world. So the question arises, what does a Black Widow film explore when Black Widow is in fact dead?

 

 

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD - WATCH THE FILM FIRST BEFORE READING THE REST OF THE REVIEW
 

Well, the opening scenes of Black Widow disregards those wonderments as the story begins in 1995 Ohio with a young Romanoff growing up alongside her sister Yelena. Raised by their nurturing mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) and their father Alexei (David Harbour) who is an eccentric father to say the least but one with a deep love for his girls, Romanoff’s childhood suburban life was quickly upended by Alexei’s urgent announcement that they have to leave home. Yelena, too young and naive to know any different, thinks it's an adventurous family trip they are about to set out on but Romanoff knows better, her parents’ mission has come to an end. Escaping the police by the skin of their teeth, Alexei peels out of the suburban neighborhood with his family in the car onwards to his intended destination. The escape isn’t quite so easy though as a pulse-pounding action sequence unfolds, the scale of the scene calling for a young Romanoff to take the controls of an airplane with her father on the plane’s wing engaged in a fierce firefight with the authorities. 

 

 

Romanoff’s family somehow managing to escape make it to their rendavu in Cuba where in a turn of events Alexei meets with his boss Russian spy head General Dreykov. The mother pulled away from her girls by medics in the harsh aftermath of the gun-blazing shootout escape from the States, Romanoff, and her sister grow distressed, Romanoff even pulling a gun from one of the guards. Alexei having shown another color to his personality in the company of Dreykov as a bombastic and wild Russian spy diffuses the situation, getting Romanoff to trust him only to betray her, allowing her and her sister to be taken to the Red Room for Russian spy training. Alexei says he knows his girls “will take care of each other no matter what” but the words hardly have an effect as the opening credits roll over Romanoff and Yelena carted off with a pack of other young girls into a kind of slavery for young Russian spies in a brutal display of humanity. The musical score and color palette used in the sequence perfectly captures the dark tone of the savage and haunting early chapter in Romanoff’s origin story as a spy. 

 

 

The story flashing forward to 2016 we are caught up with present-day events sans the Infinity War/Endgame conclusion to Black Widow’s heroic journey as an Avenger as we are pivoted in between the events of Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War as in the aftermath of the Sovokia Accords Romanoff who initially sided with the government and Stark changed to Rodgers side in defense of the Black Panther, her choice leading her to have to become a fugitive on the run from the Sokovia Accords’s No. 1 enforcer General “Thunderbolt” Ross (William Hurt) her narrow getaway leading her to Norway where she is supplied with a safehouse by Rick Mason, a good down-to-earth friend in a time of crisis as well as somebody who would be a potential romantic interest for Romanoff if she had the time or wasn’t still coming to terms with Banner’s self-imposed exile at the end of Age of Ultron (2015). Meanwhile, an epic character introduction brings adult Yelena into the fold played by Florence Pugh. Completing her mission to kill a former rogue Black Widow with a vicious grace, her enemy with her dying breath tactfully unleashes a synthetic gas on Yelena releasing her from her chemical mind-control agent programming. Yelena horrified at what the Red Room has turned her into, sends the antidote to her sister, hoping she will send the Avengers to liberate the other chemically-induced Black Widow agents operating out in the world.  

 

 

Back in the peaceful vista-esque nighttime environment of Norway, a great character-revealing moment is showcased as we get to see Romanoff practicing her Russian as she watches the Bond film Moonraker (1979) speaking along. This scene being the result of the screenwriter Eric Pearson's insistence on making Romanoff a Bond film fan shows us she is just as relatable as any of us and the selection of Moonraker being what shes watching makes a lot of sense in regards to certain key action set pieces that mirror each other relatively closely. Her quiet life in hiding is quickly interrupted though as she is attacked by Taskmaster, a formidable villain drawn from the comics who has the ability to mimic the skills of any opponent he faces, including the Avengers. Romanoff quickly learns though that Taskmaster’s real target isn’t her, it's the antidote Romanoff didn’t even realize she had on her. The intense hand-to-hand combat playing out like a scene inspired by Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Romanoff escapes in her usual stylistic and deadly fashion and comes to the inescapable realization... that the antidote came from her little sister in Budapest. 

 

 

Romanoff’s travels back to Budapest find her reuniting with her sister after some initial hard-core Bourne esque fight scene conflict but they discover despite not having seen each other for decades they still have a core sense of trust in each other. What follows is some more slightly formulaic MCU fight scene-style action sequences with chemically-induced Black Widows sent to kill Romanoff and Yelena. The battle resolved and things right in the world between Romanoff and her sister the film starts to take a turn from fairly familiar MCU territory to unchartered waters in the comic book movie realms’ spy subgenre.

 

 

Romanoff and Yelena reconnecting in a sisterly fashion denoting a unique character dynamic till now as of yet unexplored in the MCU also brings back memories for Romanoff of her days in Budapest with Barton/Hawkeye leading Yelena to wonder why she didn’t bring in the calvary, Romanoff citing her falling out with Avengers. The two sisters on solid ground again, Romanoff persuades Yelena to help her dismantle the Red Room upon learning that Drekyov is still alive and to bring an end to the horrors inflicted on young girls like them when they were that age. Reluctantly agreeing, Yelena signs up for the mission asking her big sister if she knows where the Red Room is. Romanoff remarks that she doesn’t, “but I know where we can find the person who does.” 

 

 

The action picking up in the Swiss Alps we meet Alexei, now a bearded, tattooed, and disheveled, very “Russian” eccentric spirit imprisoned for the last 2 decades until his surprise bombastic breakout by his two girls. The action is larger-than-life and grandiose but it still somehow stays grounded through the spectacle and the humor and humanity of the characters on full display making for a breath-taking ride. Following the escape on helicopter Alexei, a product of his time, rubs the sisters the wrong way, both feeling abandoned and betrayed despite his protests to the contrary. What really sets them off though is learning he doesn’t know where the Red Room or Dreykov is but he knows the person who does, their mother Melina, who they are surprised to learn is still alive. Living in St. Petersburg she is the Black Widow that is responsible for the creation of the chemical agent that has allowed Dreykov to put his hold on the Widows for all this time. 

 

 

Things get very personal for all involved and this is really where the spy thriller takes off in differentiating itself as a character study and family-driven picture exploring the dynamics between a very complicated spy family who we learn through the course of a pivotal dinner scene reuniting the family together was actually a fiction created by the Russian government to place sleeper agents in America in order to gather intel. This revelation comes as a shock to Yelena who was so young at the time that she didn’t know any different and thought her origins as a spy began with her handoff to the Russians by Alexei when in actuality even those 3 years she spent in Ohio were a lie. The material in this critical dinner scene is dense and covers a lot of ground in the setting of Melina’s farmhouse but plenty of humor is infused in and around the scene allowing for some relief from all the tension including David Harbour’s Alexei character going full Mr. Incredible but in the most Russian way possible as he tries his best to get his old supersuit back on stretching his belly to full comedic effect. Alexei’s flirtations with his former cover wife are relentless and the inclusion of a pig being Melina’s illustration of the science of the mind-control agent perfectly establishes the tone of this insanely dysfunctional family. Yelena, hurt by the lies she has been told her entire life pushes back against Romanoff who never having been a victim to the chemical agent but rather psychological reconditioning when she puts the question to her of whether she was ever going to come back for her had she never sent the antidote to her. The truth speaking volumes the extended character scene plays out more like a character drama than an action film allowing time for Yelena to confront her father about caring more about his glory spy days than his daughters and for Romanoff to confront her mother about the truth about her past in which we learn what drives Romanoff despite all the horrors she has been forced to face over the years and all the tough decisions she has had to make Things escalate as Dreykov’s forces storm the beaches so to speak upon Melina’s instinctual betrayal. 

 

 

The third act is full of surprises and twists and turns as the action takes place in the Red Room which is literally a floating fortress that puts the Helicarrier in the first Avengers film to shame. The ending doesn’t merely play itself out like a brainless shoot-em up as it could have but rather acts as a sophisticated spy game thriller intermixed with entrenched personal character dynamics in service of all these characters in the Romanoff spy family’s character arcs being fully fleshed out including Romanoff learning the truth behind a previous lie she had been led to believe involving the nature of her real mother. What really makes this spy thriller work in the end though is the characters and this is artfully executed through the writing and acting with Eric Pearson crafting a masterfully tense and suspenseful spy thriller with a strong focus on character. So many great moments are brought to life by the actors as a result of this including the hilarious “poser” gag between the two sisters and David Harbour’s Red Guardian insisting he had an epic faceoff with Captain America in the 80s despite Rodgers still being stuck in the ice at that time. Eric Pearson speaking on the puzzling continuity question in the film from an interview he did with the Hollywood Reporter:

 

 

Red Guardian almost certainly never met Captain America. What was it like crafting that Steve Rogers obsession?

Everything Alexi says, he believes is true. I don’t know what Marvel’s plans are, if there are split dimensions or time travel or whatever, but you cannot convince Alexi otherwise. [That he actually fought Captain America.]

 

So in conclusion I thoroughly enjoyed Black Widow as a well-crafted spy thriller that operates in the world of high-espionage with the inclusion of high-octane action spectacles in the vein of Marvel’s blockbuster action choreography and visual effects wheelhouse while at the same time keeping everything grounded through a uniquely character-focused family dynamic albeit a very complicated and interesting dysfunctional family sporting dynamic talents in addition to Johansson in David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, and Florence Pugh. The villain Dreykov played by Ray Winstone proved to be a menacing and dangerous adversary who casts a long shadow in Romanoff’s past making for an epic final showdown between the two that isn’t about physicality but rather intellect and character. And while I wasn’t a huge fan of a couple of the plot points involving the execution of the Taskmaster villain continuing a trend of a long line of “weak Marvel villains” this spy thriller is a worthy successor to the MCU’s previous spy-genre titles in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War and ten times the film that Moonraker is in its implementation of fantastical scale. Also if you didn’t stick around for the post-credits scene you’ll want to back and visit that with the scene taking place after Avengers: Endgame and sees Yelena visiting her sister’s grave in a touching moment which is quickly intruded on as Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus portrays the character Valentine to great comedic and dramatic effect as she recruits Yelena for a mysterious mission where she will be going after Barton, thus setting up the Disney + show Hawkeye and further proving the connective threads between Disney’s streaming service and the big screen. Black Widow is seemingly the end of the road for Scarlett Johansson as Romanoff with the film’s ending tying into the Avengers: Infinity War timeframe and the character being dead post-Endgame but this is the MCU where if they really wanted to they could find some way to bring her back to life or perhaps even explore some other prequel aspect to the franchise. Telling more stories in the pre-Avengers: Infinity War timeframe could potentially work or going back to tell the story of a young Black Widow with a de-aged Scarlett Johansson to coincide with the events at the beginning of Iron Man 2 at the film’s ending could be a really intriguing and full-circle story to see onscreen. But as we wait for a potential Black Widow 2 there are a plethora of other Marvel titles coming down the pipeline so this expansive universe has plenty of room to breathe and Johansson's collective contribution to the MCU thus far has been nothing short of superb and her long-anticipated solo outing certainly didn’t disappoint as a capable and engaging espionage thriller with an unforgettable and emotionally-charged origin story for Natasha Romanoff aka the Black Widow finally being told.