Was "Black Widow" Worth the Wait?

 

SPOILERS ahead:

After a pandemic-related delay of over two years (105 weeks), the MCU, which had begun releasing three films a year before COVID, finally gave us another movie. And it wasn't even remotely worth the wait. Black Widow, the solo feature for Avenger Natasha Romanoff, always seemed a little pointless, given that she died in 2019's Endgame, but I did expect more than what Marvel gave us. But as evinced by the existence of Solo, the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the Loki streaming series, Hollywood seems intent on beating dead horses and rolling out further stories about characters who've already made pretty graceful exits.

The story, set between Civil War and Infinity War, begins with Natasha's efforts to remain under-the-radar after having been branded a fugitive (along with Steve Rogers and James Barnes) following her violation of the Sokovia Accords at Germany's Leipzig/Halle Airport. Her decision to switch sides has put her in the crosshairs of Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross. And after Yelena Belova, who posed as Natasha's sister as part of a Russian sleeper cell in Ohio, reaches out, the former assassin heads to Budapest. Though she fears the consequences of returning to the city following her defection, fellow-assassin Yelena explains that no one wants to be targeted by "one of the big ones" (like Thor) who'd come to avenge Natasha's murder. After discovering that the Black Widow program is still active, the two determine to dismantle it once and for all. But first they have to find its director. And that means reuniting with the spies who posed as their parents 21 years earlier.

Though no other Avengers appear onscreen, plenty get shotouts (T'Challa, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Ant-Man, Thor) and Clint Barton's voice is heard over an earpiece. The 24th MCU movie starts out pretty great but it goes from sugar to rat-shavings once the action moves to Hungary, which is pretty early on. In fact, everything between Alexei trying on his Red Guardian uniform and Melina limping away from the Bespin wreckage is trash. Among other things, including the nearly non-stop and sometimes literal man-bashing, the inconsistent tone is a huge problem. It seems like the director couldn't decide whether the vibe should be sincere action drama or goofy comedy and went with both. There are certain dramatic moments that are outright ruined by the forced injection of intended humor, which turns out to not be funny anyway. The end-credits scene is a prime example. 

Widow also follows the trend of excusing the behavior of movie characters with blood on their hands by reinventing their explicitly stated or implied origins (Maleficent, Cruella). Now, Natasha is no longer really guilty for all of the "red in her ledger", she's a victim of psychological conditioning. Even the little girl she tried to blow up in order to take out her father somehow survived. And her fellow assassins are victims of chemical brain-washing. But it's worth noting that she intended to murder a little girl and did kill a bunch of dudes on the boat in The Winter Soldier after leaving the KGB. And whatever happened in San Paolo and the hospital fire that Loki mentioned in The Avengers are still glowing bright red in that ledger.

And as head-scratching a decision as it is, Widow plays out like a sitcom for most of its runtime. Natasha's pseudo-father, Alexei Shostakov, is a bumbling fool while her fake-sister, Yelena Belova, is the best in her field and her faux-mom, Melina Vostokoff, is a scientific genius. Alexei embodies all of the long-running tropes for a sitcom father: he's a well-meaning moron; oafish; and inadvertently insensitive. He even has a "dad bod", despite being a recent prison inmate and having the same super-soldier serum that's kept Steve Rogers and Bucky looking like gym rats for 80 years. And of course, he's always wrong while his assigned wife and daughters are always right. Alexei seems more like a live-action version of Homer Simpson than a superhero (Natasha is Lisa and Melina is Marge). It's appropriate that the family lived in Ohio; the city isn't mentioned but I'm guessing that it was Springfield. There are some genuinely funny moments (Melina announcing that she's "clearly injured" and Yelena's excitement over her multi-pocketed vest) but none of them are related to the stale sitcom cliches.

Some of the problems are just dumb. For instance, the late-stage reveal of the villain's identity -- the story's big twist -- is as predictable as hot summers. Also, Olga Kurylenko, who's five years older than Scarlett Johannson's Natasha Romanoff, portrays a character who Scarlett Johannson's adult Natasha Romanoff attempts to kill as a child. The problem is that Kurylenko is five years older than Johannson, and obviously so. What's more, Natasha doesn't dye her hair until after returning to (and leaving) Budapest -- the city in which she most feared being discovered. There's also a scene in which Natasha fights Yelena to a draw. But given that the former has more experience -- Yelena's trained with the Red Room while Natasha's trained with the Red Room, with S.H.I.E.L.D. and fought robots (Ultron clones), supersoldiers (Bucky) and alien invaders (the Chitauri and Thanos' minions) -- her little sister should've been light work. Most perplexing is the fact that Melina speaks broken and heavily-accented English for the majority of her screen-time, which makes her a strange choice for an agent tasked with posing as an American soccer mom.

Where the movie really loses its individuality is in the spy/assassin elements. There is an homage to the James Bond franchise in the form of a scene of Natasha watching Moonraker while mouthing all of the dialogue. But the many superspy elements in Widow aren't even cliches; they're more like specific pieces of other movies in the genre strung together in order to fill the runtime. Widow is closer to a late 80s rap song packed with samples than an actual film.     

Here are some of those samples:

The protagonist is a female Russian assassin (Salt, Anna, Red Sparrow); a Russian sleeper cell in suburban America is exposed (Mile 22); a spy uses a high-tech face mask to deceive other spies (almost every Mission Impossible movie); the villain explains his plan to the protagonist (a disturbing number of James Bond movies); two assassins fight in a kitchen using household items (The Bourne Supremacy); a female assassin is out to get lethal revenge on the man/men responsible for the death(s) of her family (The Rhythm Section, Peppermint); two sisters, at least one of whom is an assassin, have a connection to the same light-skinned Black guy (Ava); Olga Kurylenko is a cast-member (Quantum of Solace); there's a villain wearing a mask featuring metalic teeth (the character "Jaws" actually has metal teeth in The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker); a "good spy" pilots an out-of-control helicopter (Spectre, Mission: Impossible -Fallout); there's a Russian prison break (Ghost Protocol); a female spy is killed remotely from a small detonation to the head (M:I III); there's a motorcycle chase (M:I 2, Rogue Nation, Fallout); there's a Russian spy indoctrination program (Red Sparrow); female spies are recruited from the dregs of society (La Femme Nikita, Point of No Return, Ava); a female assassin suddenly remembers who she is (The Long Kiss Goodnight); a fugitive assassin causes mayhem in Russia (The Bourne Supremacy); a spy retrieves a list of other covert operatives located around the globe (Mission: Impossible); a female assassin brutalizes and/or kills several men (Ava, Atomic Blonde); a young girl is trained to be an assassin (Hanna); and a female assassin who has a strained relationship with her sister and mother enthusiastically kills several men while sparing a woman who tried to kill her (Ava). Incidentally, cast-member Rachel Weisz is married to current James Bond actor Daniel Craig.

While Widow does feature a cast with diverse ethnic backgrounds, it also includes the troubling Hollywood tendency to tease interracial romances between Black men and white women that never actually pay off (The Long Kiss Goodnight, The Force Awakens, The Rise of Skywalker, Suicide Squad, Into the Spider-verse). There's certainly more romantic chemistry between Natasha and Rick Mason than in the proposed 'ships between Sam Wilson and Bucky or Finn and Poe Dameron. Speaking of how the movie treats Black men, the film is full of statements about destroying the patriarchy, acted out with plenty of violent confrontations showcasing women remorselessly beating up on dudes (contrasted by the fact that every time a woman lays a finger on another woman, she's wracked with guilt -- even though all of the women involved are assassins). But given that the story takes place in Hungary, Russia and Siberia, a scene featuring Yelena beating down a Black male surgeon with no compunction is particularly problematic; these are places where Black men are significantly absent from the upper levels of the reigning power structure. And the writers conveniently look past the fact that Melina -- a white woman -- is the person who developed the brainwashing chemical in the first place, and has been actively facilitating the human trafficking that the film rails against. 

We both know that devoted MCU fans will be compelled to check out the movie no matter what anyone else has to say about it. But I advise everyone else to just skip this one. You should definitely skip the $29.99 streaming fee (on top of a Disney+ subscription). It'll be available on Disney+ without the extra fee in October, anyway. Hopefully, the next MCU flick, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, debuting this September, lives up to the promise conveyed in its trailers.

The big question is: Now that Natasha's off the hook for the many murders that she committed -- and attempted -- during her career as an assassin (which includes the guys on the boat in The Winter Soldier), will Hawkeye get an excuse too? 

The best lines go to Yelena:

"I mean, the clue is in the name. Dreykov kills you, one of the big ones comes to avenge you."

And Alexei:

"Really? Family? Well, where are they now? Where is that family now?"