Black Widow review
Dec. 27th, 2021 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessI watched this on Christmas Day, having hoarded it up for that, and I admit that I paused a few times for food-related reasons, which probably wasn’t ideal and my usual poor eyesight issues apply especially with the action (although if my eyesight was fine, I wonder if I’d be grumbling about the fight scenes because Marvel), but I did enjoy it. I was a bit confused immediately after the opening credits sequence, and aware that if I could see better, I’d have picked up more from the credits sequence, but all the moving around different locations and not being certain of the timeline didn’t help. However, by the time Natasha and Yelena reunited in Budapest, it was all so much better. And FINALLY answers about Budapest. Quite right that it should be in Nat’s film. Shame we had to wait so ridiculously long for it.
Yelena worked brilliantly as a foil for Natasha (Florence Pugh was wonderful, although maybe she should start passing on the younger sister roles now), and I liked how it was clear that Natasha had more in common with and a special connection with Melina and Yelena with Alexei. The found (nuclear) family dynamic was A1 – embarrassing dad, bratty little sister, hard mom - however much Natasha tried to fight it, while Yelena had such a different perspective, which continued, because Alexei could talk about his memories of his father and Natasha gained a story about her tenacious birth mother. And there was a very nice balance between the weight and snark.
Yelena being obsessed about good ways to die – how Russian - when she’d only just begun to live again. And there was Natasha, trying to atone for parts of her past she’d considered/wanted closed, but really weren’t because she hadn’t killed Drakov, and hadn’t thought about Yelena or the others. I loved how she kept getting tweaked about being an Avenger, a little Avenger, while the Avengers were all separated and at odds (so this was after Civil War? I probably needed a primer before seeing this OR MAYBE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN RLEASED DURING A DIFFERENT PHASE), with the background of Ross trying to hunt her, and all we knew she’d been through informing the main story. Yelena tweaking her about the pose!!!
And the conflict of the parents’ being in far deeper, from Alexei’s ideological beliefs, to Melina’s long involvement – she probably turned too quickly, however powerful Natasha having held on to her words was, though I liked how they showed that Melina was as victimised as the younger generation of widows. But her and Natasha coming up with a plan on the fly was cool, and there was a sense of ‘of course’ as the Red Room ship started to fall from the sky.
I also loved that that there were so many women fighting each other – the main opponent for fighting turning out to be Antonia (Taskmaster means something different to UK audiences, although I presume it's been used in thecomics for years and years) of course, but with the layer that a lot of those fights weren’t of the combatants’ free choice, but because Drakov had messed them up, from Nat and Yelena, to Nat and Yelena fighting other widows. (I was confused for far too long about Alexei being the Red Guardian and a supersoldier, and about the Taskmaster who turned out to be Antonia, Drakov’s daughter, and about how the widows and the guards fitted in at times. I think I wasted too much time wondering if that shield was vibranium.)
What Drakov was about other than power was a bit suspect, but his sweeping up generation after generation of girls, losing 19 out of 20 in the process, taking the free will away from the rest, including his daughter– Melina and Natasha being unable to hit him was, well, it was all marrow-deep chilling and probably testament to women being involved in the making of this. But Natasha being willing to bash herself in the head!!
The only problem I had with the casting was Ray Winstone, because, quelle surprise, his accent slipped, and he’s just too Ray Winstone to be fully someone else for me. Otherwise Johannssen has been living this character for years, and was well past ready for Natasha to have her own solo movie, Pugh underlined her star quality, Weisz has long established herself, and Harbour – who was new to me – was funny and touching as Alexei failboated but came to do the right thing.
As the credits rolled, I was mainly ‘I am not resigned to what happened to Natasha in Endgame’. I waited for a post-credits scene, of course, lnowing we probably wouldn’t see ‘Black Widow will return’ – though it’s a comic books movie, Marvel could admit it was wrong and pull that card, but it won’t, not least because Johanssen is now suing the studio for the way the released panned out, and I’d have LOVED to see this on a big screen too. Instead we got Yelena AND DOG coming to her sister’s grave, and all parts of Natasha being honoured on the gravestone, and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss playing Yelena’s handler (so Yelena has not escaped that assassination career. Sigh.) and dangling the possibility of Clint as a target ahead of her. I’ve snarked on Clint, I think he should have died given what he did during the five years, but…that storyline is going to have to be handled very carefully. Yelena should totally give him a hard time and not give up legitimate gripes in the face of his manpain that Natasha was better at self-sacrificing too. I’d rather the meta one where A WOMAN went to the writers’ room and said, ‘No, this is why you shouldn’t kill Nat off.’ But mainly I was thinking ‘Oh, are there Killing Eve crossovers?’ because I think that Villanelle would have a lot to say about Yelena’s fashion choices, and Yelena wouldn’t take it lying down. Also, this blonde girl assassin-handler relationship has a lot to live up to.
But I mostly enjoyed it and I’m glad that I got a Black Widow calendar for next year.
Yelena worked brilliantly as a foil for Natasha (Florence Pugh was wonderful, although maybe she should start passing on the younger sister roles now), and I liked how it was clear that Natasha had more in common with and a special connection with Melina and Yelena with Alexei. The found (nuclear) family dynamic was A1 – embarrassing dad, bratty little sister, hard mom - however much Natasha tried to fight it, while Yelena had such a different perspective, which continued, because Alexei could talk about his memories of his father and Natasha gained a story about her tenacious birth mother. And there was a very nice balance between the weight and snark.
Yelena being obsessed about good ways to die – how Russian - when she’d only just begun to live again. And there was Natasha, trying to atone for parts of her past she’d considered/wanted closed, but really weren’t because she hadn’t killed Drakov, and hadn’t thought about Yelena or the others. I loved how she kept getting tweaked about being an Avenger, a little Avenger, while the Avengers were all separated and at odds (so this was after Civil War? I probably needed a primer before seeing this OR MAYBE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN RLEASED DURING A DIFFERENT PHASE), with the background of Ross trying to hunt her, and all we knew she’d been through informing the main story. Yelena tweaking her about the pose!!!
And the conflict of the parents’ being in far deeper, from Alexei’s ideological beliefs, to Melina’s long involvement – she probably turned too quickly, however powerful Natasha having held on to her words was, though I liked how they showed that Melina was as victimised as the younger generation of widows. But her and Natasha coming up with a plan on the fly was cool, and there was a sense of ‘of course’ as the Red Room ship started to fall from the sky.
I also loved that that there were so many women fighting each other – the main opponent for fighting turning out to be Antonia (Taskmaster means something different to UK audiences, although I presume it's been used in thecomics for years and years) of course, but with the layer that a lot of those fights weren’t of the combatants’ free choice, but because Drakov had messed them up, from Nat and Yelena, to Nat and Yelena fighting other widows. (I was confused for far too long about Alexei being the Red Guardian and a supersoldier, and about the Taskmaster who turned out to be Antonia, Drakov’s daughter, and about how the widows and the guards fitted in at times. I think I wasted too much time wondering if that shield was vibranium.)
What Drakov was about other than power was a bit suspect, but his sweeping up generation after generation of girls, losing 19 out of 20 in the process, taking the free will away from the rest, including his daughter– Melina and Natasha being unable to hit him was, well, it was all marrow-deep chilling and probably testament to women being involved in the making of this. But Natasha being willing to bash herself in the head!!
The only problem I had with the casting was Ray Winstone, because, quelle surprise, his accent slipped, and he’s just too Ray Winstone to be fully someone else for me. Otherwise Johannssen has been living this character for years, and was well past ready for Natasha to have her own solo movie, Pugh underlined her star quality, Weisz has long established herself, and Harbour – who was new to me – was funny and touching as Alexei failboated but came to do the right thing.
As the credits rolled, I was mainly ‘I am not resigned to what happened to Natasha in Endgame’. I waited for a post-credits scene, of course, lnowing we probably wouldn’t see ‘Black Widow will return’ – though it’s a comic books movie, Marvel could admit it was wrong and pull that card, but it won’t, not least because Johanssen is now suing the studio for the way the released panned out, and I’d have LOVED to see this on a big screen too. Instead we got Yelena AND DOG coming to her sister’s grave, and all parts of Natasha being honoured on the gravestone, and Julia-Louis Dreyfuss playing Yelena’s handler (so Yelena has not escaped that assassination career. Sigh.) and dangling the possibility of Clint as a target ahead of her. I’ve snarked on Clint, I think he should have died given what he did during the five years, but…that storyline is going to have to be handled very carefully. Yelena should totally give him a hard time and not give up legitimate gripes in the face of his manpain that Natasha was better at self-sacrificing too. I’d rather the meta one where A WOMAN went to the writers’ room and said, ‘No, this is why you shouldn’t kill Nat off.’ But mainly I was thinking ‘Oh, are there Killing Eve crossovers?’ because I think that Villanelle would have a lot to say about Yelena’s fashion choices, and Yelena wouldn’t take it lying down. Also, this blonde girl assassin-handler relationship has a lot to live up to.
But I mostly enjoyed it and I’m glad that I got a Black Widow calendar for next year.
