Review of Black Widow (2021) by Ahmedaiman1999 — 14 Jul 2021

By tackling some hard-hitting themes of childhood trauma, loss of free will, family (or lack thereof), grief, and haunting guilt, Black Widow could've easily deceived us into believing it really justified its existence, hadn't it eschewed drama for comedy and action.

What we got is a middling Marvel effort with a rehashed spy thriller story and its affiliated action set-pieces and plot clichés. Granted, that very spy flavour that bleeds into each act more and more evidently endows us with a couple of slick action sequences that are pulled off with aplomb.

It's just unfortunate all of them are devoid of the slightest tension. While on the subject, there's no real sense of danger I feel each time either Natasha or Yelena are supposedly at risk, and The Taskmaster completely fails to prove an imposing threat, that's not to mention it's a villain that's clearly merely skimmed over, with the result of falling victim to the plot's mishmash of clichés.

The humour isn't the worst, largely due to Pugh and Harbour whose chemistry elevates each scene they share a great deal. The third act feels the most superhero-y, with a fair share of explosions and CGI-heavy scenes that almost feel incongruous with the relatively small-scope MCU installment Black Widow aims to be.

However, It's also here when we get some emotionally-charged moments where Pugh — yup, once again — and Scarlett get there moments to shine, serving a fitting send-off for our titular superhero. Moreover, all of these shortcomings can be tolerated given the joy one gets out of this movie.

I was surprised how much time flew by minutes before reaching its post-credit scene that got me really pumped up to see what's coming next.