Review of Black Widow (2021) by Nateed — 31 Jul 2021

Black Widow is a formulaic movie that tries to be more than it can handle. A lot of this movie is just telling things and not actually showing them. The story checks all the boxes in a basic action movie but never goes into depth with any of it even when there is so much potential.

The film started off really well, but I think once we reached Melina's farm, it started to go downhill. There was so much that was set up in the first 30 or so minutes of the movie that are just never explained in depth ever again.

Taskmaster is a victim of this problem. The whole character was poorly handled with the technology aspect just not being explained the best and how the person under the mask was so predictable. Taskmaster wasn't the only character to be poorly written.

David Harbour's Red Guardian is so unnecessary to the film's plot and does absolutely nothing for the whole movie. Yes, he has his action sequences, but he either makes himself look like a fool or gets saved by someone else.

Rachel Weisz's character, Melina Vostokoff, is also not that great. She is better than Red Guardian, but Rachel Weisz doesn't do a good enough job to push it to be an outstanding performance. On the other hand, Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh do an outstanding job in the film.

Even though Johansson does a great job in her farewell performance in the titular role, Pugh steals the show. Pugh has such great emotion and really nails every single line she has. Even if I had problems with some of the characters, they did look very stylish.

However, their CGI doubles did not. A lot of the CGI and VFX felt very video game-like. A lot of the scenes are so obviously featuring their CGI doubles that it takes you out of it a bit. This may sound a bit harsh, but some of the CGI is Catwoman bad.

Although, I do think Cate Shortland does make this up with her good directing. It is not near perfect in any way, but there are some big standout moments. The opening credits were just so chilling to watch and really made an impact on me.

I do wish that tone was kept throughout the whole film. If she ever gets to do a sequel or Disney+ series, I think I would like to see her create more of that lasting impact. For instance, I thought the final shot of the movie was really bad.

This is supposed to be the last time we see Natasha in the MCU and she's not even in the final shot? It just didn't make much sense to me. The editing in this movie was also really good. Again, it's not the best, but I think it's better than a lot of other Marvel movies.

Despite all the problems I had with the movie, it is entertaining. There may be a few spots in the film that slow down a bit, but overall it's action-packed with looks of fun gags and tons of hand-to-hand combat.

Black Widow is nowhere near perfection but isn't entirely bad. If the script was more polished and the CGI looked better, the film would have probably been top-tier Marvel. Read more reviews like this at postcreditreviews.