Review of Black Widow (2021) by Theredsky — 17 Jul 2021

Before I get any hate for this rating, just know that I still really enjoy the MCU even if every so often, one of their films/shows falls flat for me. There is a lot of fun to be had here. This is the only Marvel film that had some good jokes and made me chuckle which is incredibly rare for a Marvel film.

Florence Pugh and David Harbour bring a lot of great comedic timing to their performances that definitely elevates them from boring sidekicks. Their characters are actually interesting and feel much more involved in the story.

I hope we get to see those two in the future again. Although their Russian accents do need a little bit of work. Scarlett Johansson is good. Her performance is fine. She doesn’t do a bad job but there is a lot to be desired especially considering this is her final appearance in the MCU (film wise not timeline wise).

Rachel Weisz was fine as well but her character felt very forgettable and bland which sucks because she just falls into the background whenever other characters show up on screen. The main villain is absolutely awful.

It’s honestly a contender for worst MCU villain. His motivations are almost nonexistent and he exists only to yell and exposit. The characters build up that he’ll be hard to kill but he just kinda dies without the influence of the characters which really defeats the purpose of them mentioning how hard he is to kill.

Taskmaster is an interesting side villain but ultimately contributes nothing to the plot except as closure for Black Widow’s forgettable side mission. The action scenes are kinda bland. If this was an earlier MCU film it would feel a lot better but because the MCU has bumped out some great action scenes, this just feels flat and boring.

The visual effects are really spotty. Sometimes they look good and sometimes they look really really bad but the visual effects are usually pretty good. The story is very forgettable. It revolves around Black Widow taking down the Red Room again but the sequence of events is so bland and forgettable.

I can’t remember some sequence of events relating to the story. It was nice to hear a little bit more about the Budapest adventure but it makes me wish we had got that movie instead of this. I placed this above Ant-Man but below Captain America 1 in my MCU Ranking.

If you like the MCU then you’ll probably enjoy this but if you aren’t super invested in this universe then you can skip this.