DIRECTOR: Cate Shortland
WRITERS: Eric Pearson, Jac Schaeffer, Ned Benson
STARRING: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, William Hurt and Olga Kurylenko
As we have all been waiting in anticipation since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, cast an overwhelming sadness onto the Marvel Universe, the question has been for most fans, will the wait be worth it to see the Black Widow, aka Scarlett Johansson going it alone, and finding out where it all began…???
Well, this weekend the anticipation evaporated, as our favorite redhead finally got her chance to hit the big screen. And if you are a true Marvel fan like I, I’m sure that you too headed out to a theater to catch this film on the biggest screen you could find!!
And as we all nestled in to see where this prequel storyline would take us, finding out that the beautiful Melinda (Rachel Weisz), and Russian spy Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), were parenting Natasha, and her younger sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) as well, was pretty awesome, as the fast-paced beginning of this film, just kept luring me in to that this one was going to be something really special! And as those intensifying Marvel action sequences go, Black Widow hit the ground running there too, thus leading you to believe that even as a youngster, the Black Widow knew what to do, to save not only herself, but the family she loved so much as well…
And now, as we venture into adulthood with Natasha and Yelena throughout this film also, you feel certain that this storyline is about to fill in lots of holes in the life of Natasha Romanoff, and it’s also going to take us to a place where we can embrace her, and her Avenger-ness even more, right? WRONG! As good as this film started out to be, it very quickly went downhill, not only in the storyline itself, but in the defining of who and why the Black Widow came to be. I was saddened by the fact that Rachel Weisz’s incredible acting prowess was wasted totally throughout this film as well, as her small, and seeming less insignificant part, didn’t really add all that much to this film. David Harbour, aka The Guardian, kind of met with the same fate too, as he definitely was not given his due to make the impact he could have, with his role throughout this film. Even as Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh light up the screen, playing on their sisterhood, and incredible superhero gene pool, their dueling sequences throughout, couldn’t manage to make this film the masterpiece I was hoping it would be. Don’t get me wrong, I love Johansson as the Black Widow, and casting Pugh as her sister was really perfect, I just wasn’t as entertained at all, as I had hoped I would be, which I felt stemmed from the lackluster storyline, that seemed to dog every character we met on screen. I also hoped with this film being placed between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, that before it was through, we would end up with a cameo or two from another Avenger…but sadly, my wish didn’t happen there either. And as if these letdowns weren’t enough, it seemed that there was some additional disappointment in my future, after the credits and extra scene were over too, as we find that the next step in our MARVEL adventures is as simplistic, and in your face obvious, as it gets. Just suffice to say that even though BLACK WIDOW had so much potential as the next film out of the gate from the Marvel Universe, I wasn’t enamored at all, leaving me to rate this one a very mediocre 3 out of 5, as I also suggest that if you haven’t seen it already on the big screen, that you catch this one on Disney+, on a night when you feel like staying in… ;(
MATINEE CHAT with Kathy Kaiser 