Black Widow - A disappointment for the MCU

After a month of refusing to pay $30 for this film on Disney+, I finally got the chance to see this film in cinemas with my dad.

After all that time, I was thoroughly glad to see something on a big screen again, but unfortunately, it did not end up being a good experience.

After building up 10 years of a fun character with immense popularity, Disney simply decided to throw all that away and make a cheap film so that they could make more sequel bait and capitalise on their other projects.

After all that, they simply expected us to shut up and ignore them. Black Widow was that weak attempt to pacify fans, and I’m glad that on YouTube and in Scarlett Johannsson’s recent lawsuit, it’s not working.

Black Widow is a prequel to the MCU’s other films Infinity War and Endgame, following the eponymous assassin as she rediscovers the roots of her past and seeks to eliminate them as she wants to prevent other young girls from going through the same thing. It’s a straight-forward family reunion story in many ways, with the jealous sister and the cringe-worthy, broken dad, betrayal, and a brutal fight at the end.

I won’t spoil much, but this film ultimately fails as an MCU instalment, because of how little it says in regard to the other films. It’s connected to the films that came before it chronologically, but there’s no significant development for the films that are following, no major character moments, and only a mild credits teaser that’s going to be relegated to an upcoming TV show rather than a big screen adventure. As a Marvel story, the lack of connection already makes admission shaky, but it gets worse.

This is one of the darkest entries in the MCU, at least in terms of premise. There’s a strong theme of abuse and trauma running throughout which is acknowledged on several occasions, but it’s never fully delivered on because of how awfully this movie is constructed. Similar to other film sin the MCU, serious scenes will be punctuated by inopportune jokes and silliness which takes the viewer straight out of the moment, and themes are developed superficially and quickly, failing to land as a result.

There are two key moments in the film emblematic of this movie’s problem of conveying its themes. The first is the conversation scene between Black Widow’s “father” and her “sister”, who are talking about how he used her. This scene ends in 20 seconds with no real argument, further enhanced by the film’s surprisingly poor sound mixing which fails to make the faux-Russian accents clear (At this point, just speak in dubbed Russian – it’s easier).

The second is near the beginning of the film, where a scene of Black Widow selection is shown to a melancholic cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, with the intention of juxtaposition between the teenage, grungy lyrics and the horror of the child abuse implied onscreen. This mood is brought crashing down not only by the bizarre cover, but also by the song choice – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is just wrong for the scene, unable to be taken seriously as it’s a song about sex and disenchantment. If it were either not covered at all and played as is, or switched with a more sarcastically juxtaposed song (like a Blink-182 song), it would have been so much better, but the filmmakers went quick and easy cover rather than fully commit to their central cynical tone.

Let’s talk filmmaking. As part of a move by Disney and Johannsson, Black Widow specifically sought female directors for the film, and specifically indie directors, as they thought that as per their previous hiring of male indie directors, it would work. But the men they hired for the previous MCU films – Taika Waititi, the Russo Brothers, Jon Watts – may not have had massive budget experience, but they had an understanding of great looking films and fast-paced films, even if there was no explosions and only fast-paced dialogue.

One look at the list of directors chosen, including many mumblecore directors and foreign filmmakers who have publicly stated that they hated the MCU, shows that Disney had no idea of why their previous indie-helmed films had worked. It’s not just indie creativity, it’s knowledge of pacing and visual fidelity, and so female directors who have that like Deborah Chow, Niki Caro, Ava DuVernay, Jodie Foster or even another indie Australian filmmaker like Jennifer Kent would have been far more suited that whoever was on their list.

Cate Shortland was the Australian who was chosen, and her lack of knowledge of action or pacing – coming from either psychological drama like Berlin Syndrome or regular dramas like Somersault – really shines through. This is a dull movie, with bizarrely choreographed action and a lack of clear vision when it comes to editing. The pacing and tone slide all over the place as Shortland tries to reconcile all her filmmaking knowledge at once, not helped at all by the aforementioned script problems and the at-times truly mind-bogglingly bad production design (a flying military base is apparently made by the same people who make hospitals in horror movies).

Returning to that editing, I’ve never seen a major film so undone by its editing choices. It’s so weird how none of the movie feels like it leads on from the previous scene, whether or not there’s a stupid lighting change, or no wide shot, or a lack of consideration for scene geography, or anything that has happened in the plot so far. It’s an experience I’d describe as though you are floating above the film, barely engaging with it as random point after random point is brought up and forgotten immediately. This film was rushed and looks it, thrown together in ways that barely even resemble coherence. It is a textbook in how not to edit a film at points.

The cast is the only thing keeping this movie from being absolute shit. Scarlett Johannsson is a great actress and is always trying her best as Natasha Romanoff, balancing the emotional weight and hardened cynicism rather well. Florence Pugh has been getting a large amount of praise for her portrayal of the sister, but I found her just okay, and I’m starting to wonder if she’s an overrated actress as well, because this same situation occurred when I saw her Oscar-nominated role in Little Women.

The standout is David Harbour (as usual), the hulking Russian brute with a heart of gold and a ton of jokes and sexual energy up his sleeve. He’s the only one having fun here, at points utterly hilarious and also quite compelling. Rachel Weisz has some standout moments and she and Harbour have good chemistry.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast is underused (William Hurt), completely unnecessary and possibly a diversity hire (O-T Fagbenle), or criminally stupid, particularly Ray Winstone as the snivelling villain Dreykov. Where other MCU movies have a vast array of interesting characters who are used perfectly and remembered for it, Black Widow’s script does not allow for the development of all, and needed them to be cut or given more time.

Easily the worst part of this movie, though, is the villain Taskmaster. Disregarding the differences from the comics for a sec, Taskmaster is awful in this film, not speaking a word and undermined as a human threat due to their extensive cybernetic implants and stupidity. Never actually firing a gun for some reason (if they did, the movie would be over at the half-hour point), Taskmaster’s sole purpose is as a cynical marketing tool as they deploy their comic gadgets – if they were removed from the film, it would be so much better.

The dry cynicism and wit of the comic Taskmaster is removed in favour of a silent, homogenised robot who does nothing for casual audiences and enrages the comic fans. Even worse (spoilers), in the film, it’s revealed that in a twist, rather than the man from the comics, Taskmaster is the daughter of main villain Dreykov – but aside from the scene where she takes of her helmet, all scenes with Taskmaster are played by a stuntman! Again, probably for marketing!

Taskmaster is perhaps most representative of this films utter failure – they’re robotic, only copying the movements of others without fully realising the finesse, failing to capitalise on opportunities for easy kills, bland, failing to say a word about any of its topics, and giving the illusion of care and empowerment while hypocritically portrayed as a reinforcement of corporate patriarchy. Black Widow is a mess of a film, and I do not recommend that you see it.

I’m giving Black Widow a C-.