Black Widow (2021)
Black Widow Didn’t Kill Herself
The key to cutting through the nonsense surrounding Black Widow, and focusing on what makes it great, is a brief, striking frame from the opening credits montage. It follows a spectacular rolling action set piece, in which a typical mid-90s Ohio family is revealed to be undercover Russian spies during a S.H.I.E.L.D. operation. The Romanoffs (“parents” Alexi and Melina, youngest daughter Yelena, and pre-teen Natasha—who will someday become the titular Avenger) narrowly escape to Cuba, where they rendezvous with Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the head of a Hydra-lite criminal network.
The family is separated, and we get glimpses into the process that reprograms the girls into beautiful, dead-eyed “Black Widow” assassins. Accompanying Malia J’s eerie cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” are images of political unrest, war, and Dreykov, popping up throughout history as one of those anonymous officials sitting at big meeting tables and in group photos with world leaders. One of those photos is a two-shot with Bill Clinton who, in real life, was an associate of late globalist pimp Jeffrey Epstein.
Whether or not you believe that Clinton (or any of the other high-profile elites named in the ongoing scandal) traveled to Epstein’s private island or did anything monstrous while they were there, the inclusion of this image in the first ten minutes of a Marvel blockbuster isn’t just a pop-culture touchstone; it’s a thesis statement: Black Widow takes place in a world recognizably our own, far from mutations and mysticism, alien hordes, and flying metal men. This is a sex-trafficking drama disguised as a maguffin-heavy popcorn movie.
Some might say that’s not in line with the first three “phases” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. They’d be correct. But Black Widow absolutely adheres to the spirit of Stan Lee’s original vision for Marvel Comics, wherein relatable characters use incredible abilities to grapple with the human condition and issues of the day.
A lot of the film’s press has centered on concerns tangential to the movie itself, which, if you’re of a conspiratorial mind, could be seen as an attempt to derail people from watching Black Widow—or watching it with an eye to focusing on inconsequential things. I’d like to look at a few of these distractions, so if you’re interested in a more conventional review of the movie, scroll down past the numbered list.
Black Widow came out too late. Pandemic delays aside, there’s no arguing that Black Widow’s release is oddly timed. The story is set after the events of Captain America: Civil War, which was several movies before Natasha Romanoff’s (Scarlett Johansson) death in Avengers: Endgame. Some people cannot let go of the idea that the movie is “too late”, I have to wonder if that’s simply another excuse to pile on.
One only has to think about the fact that Black Widow’s initial release is just a blip in cinema history and consider that they can watch the film in whichever order they’d like moving forward. Were people outraged at The Godfather Part II when asked to invest in an origin story for a character that had died in the previous film? Maybe, but we don’t listen to their lunacy, either.
Black Widow’s director has no track record. It’s true that Cate Shortland’s filmography is sparse, and that there’s nothing in her string of acclaimed indie dramas to suggest she has any business directing a quarter-billion-dollar comic-book movie.
But this is precisely the Marvel formula: nab creators who have proven themselves adept storytellers for relative pennies and watch them spin box office gold. Prior to directing the studio’s largest films (including cinema’s top-grossing movie ever), The Russo Brothers’ claim to fame was the TV sitcom Community. Captain Marvel’s co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck came out of the art scene as well. And Guardians of the Galaxy’s James Gunn cut his teeth working for schlock-meister Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Entertainment.
So let’s not short Ms. Shortland just yet.
Black Widow hypocritically rejects sex appeal. In a Collider interview last month, Johansson seemed to dismiss her character’s early depiction in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began in Iron Man 2. Subsequently, much has been made of the fact that the women of Black Widow have traded in skin-tight cat-suits with plunging necklines for outfits that don’t accentuate their curves.
I understand both sides here.
On one hand, Johansson has matured as a woman and wants to be valued as much for her talents as her (ahem) assets. On the other hand, her attractiveness opened a lot of doors in Hollywood, giving her the opportunity to showcase a truly award-worthy talent. This has always been a difficult needle for the movies to thread with her: Johansson’s remarkable turn in Lost in Translation came after a five-minute opening scene of her static rear end encased in sheer underwear on a bed.
For what it’s worth, I think all the actresses in Black Widow are damn fine, beauty-wise and in terms of what they invest in their characters. If so-called fans are so desperate for some easy T&A, I suggest they look up scene compilations from Under the Skin and leave film discourse to the professionals.
Black Widow hates men. Late last month, Indiewire tweeted that “Black Widow not only passes the Bechdel test, it puts men in their place.” The resulting Internet firestorm was predictable, but only partially without merit. With loads of announcements in the last few years about the female-centric gender-swapping storylines planned for Marvel’s Phase 4 and beyond (Jane Foster taking up the “mantle” of Thor; Riri Williams stepping into the Iron Man role; Hawkeye’s daughter allegedly snapping the family bow; and a She-Hulk series in the works), it’s easy to read misandry into many aspects of the present-day MCU.
Having watched Black Widow, however, I can say that the film is not anti-man; merely anti-bad-man. True, Alexi (David Harbour) is portrayed as a muscle-bound idiot who’s constantly being put down by his brilliant “daughters”; true Dreykov is a gross, physically abusive and manipulative sociopath, but they aren’t portrayed as being cut from the same cloth. Alexi’s heart is bigger than his brain, and there’s a touching moment between he and Yelena that speaks to the special bond between fathers and daughters. And at no point is Dreykov presented as an aspirational icon, or accused of representing every member of his sex.
The biggest giveaway, though, is the fact that the two men we don’t see on screen, Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, are referred to in appropriately glowing terms. It’s clear that they represent everything that Dreykov and his ilk are opposed to, and Natasha’s sadness that their “family” was shattered at the end of Civil War is key to what drives her in this film.
To be clear, there are recent examples of Disney and Marvel movies that go out of their way to disparage men. Black Widow is not one of them.
Black Widow ruined Taskmaster. This is a similar complaint to the treatment of The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, who instead of being a formidable villain, as he is in the comics, turned out to be a kooky drunk actor.
The Marvel Comics version of Taskmaster, from what little I’ve read, is an imposing force who can mimic the fighting styles and powers of any opponent. In the film, the character is a sort of programmed assassin whose instructions and abilities are uploaded via neck port (shades of The Matrix). And when Taskmaster is unmasked, well, I’ll just say the revelation is not exactly comics-accurate.
Had I more of an investment in the source material, this change might have rubbed me the wrong way. As it stands, I think the portrayal is fine, and offers some fascinating possibilities for future movies. This is not ruining a character. Joel Schumacher’s depiction of Bane in Batman and Robin is ruining a character.
Zach Braff is a pervert. This one goes back a couple of years but is fresh in the news because, well, there’s a new movie out. Florence Pugh (who plays the grown-up Yelena in Black Widow) is in a long-term relationship with Scrubs creator Zach Braff. Since practically the dawn of their public life together, trolls have hurled insults at the couple regarding their two-decade age gap. The concern from fans, I can only guess, has something to do with the “problematic” stereotype of older men (especially Hollywood types) pursuing younger women. Fortunately, Pugh has repeatedly stood up for her relationship, asserting her own agency as an adult, and telling busybodies to screw off.
Incidentally, the Pugh/Braff story has nothing to do with the quality of the film at hand, and everything to do with media outlets generating content tangential to a pop event in the hopes that consumers will click on absolutely any trash they can generate.
Now that I’ve established what Black Widow is not, the question remains, “Well, what the hell is it?”
Some would say it’s a Xerox of Captain America: Winter Soldier (which would have made the list, but since it’s actually the crux of my main argument, I left it out). Both movies feature heroes on the run from shadowy government agencies; a super-powered villain with a tragic secret connection to the main character’s past, and a climax involving a floating fortress crashing spectacularly to the ground.
Where Black Widow has the advantage (yes, I wholeheartedly believe this to be the better film) is in its real-world grounding. I said earlier that it is a sex-trafficking drama disguised as a comic-book movie. Winter Soldier was a comic-book movie disguised as a political thriller. It introduced conspiracies to the MCU, and featured Robert Redford in a Watergate-worthy role, but at the end of the day the sum and substance of the plot boiled down to Hydra infiltrating S.H.I.E.L.D. and supermen fighting on highways, elevators, and exploding helicarriers. I’m still convinced that the praise surrounding that film has more to do with comic book fans’ desire to make the world see their beloved medium legitimized as “sophisticated” than with any actual sophistication embedded in the work.
Black Widow, on the other hand, is clearly the work of an indie director. The fight scenes are fairly pedestrian, and the action set pieces aren’t as jaw-dropping as in Marvel movies past (though I won’t pin that broader problem on this movie specifically). Cate Shortland excels at staging (relatively) quiet moments between her exceptionally damaged characters and at the fleeting moments of righteous indignation that manifest in bursts of interpersonal violence (whether it’s Alexi’s fighting his way out of a Syberian prison, where he was dumped after his usefulness to Dreykov had run out; or Natasha’s climactic encounter with Dreykov, which poorly evoked Robocop’s “Prime Directive” while effectively recreating a PG-13-friendly riff on the motel room scene from True Romance).
I will say that there’s a moment in which Natasha takes on a roomful of Black Widow assassins that looks like it was lifted straight from a comic book cover. I could just see a still from this fight rendered as a Clayton Crain illustration with, “In a Web of Widows!” splashed across it.
The action set pieces and comic-book silliness (a red gas that de-programs the Widows; non-powered characters surviving spine-shattering falls) are largely pushed to the side in favor of a more personal story that fills in some of the gaps in Natasha’s past, while also asking several new questions that might be answered in future Marvel films and TV shows.
(Oddly enough, many detractors have criticized Black Widow for not being integral to the sprawling MCU; these are likely the same fans who for years bemoaned the fact that solo movies like Captain America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok were too entrenched in big-picture Avengers stuff that they didn’t feel like solo movies at all.)
My biggest complaint is that Black Widow is too short. Of all the bloated, sky-beam-heavy, time-tripping pop extravaganzas Marvel has put out in recent years, why couldn’t this movie have been given the three-hour treatment? The film brings light to some of the MCU’s shadows and, in the process reminds us of the very real problems of human trafficking, global political corruption, and the need to strengthen families (conventional and not). Pay just enough attention, and you’ll come away with several questions regarding S.H.I.E.L.D.’s (or was it really Hydra all along?) complicity in the war Natasha wages here. I’d like to think this movie represents a bold shift toward more mature storytelling in Phase Four’s big-screen attractions, but the trailers for Shang-Chi and The Eternals don’t inspire much confidence.
I’m open to being proven wrong, of course. But if this really is the beginning and the end of Marvel’s foray into stories that aspire to be more than just innovations in mergers, licensing, and CGI, I’d say “too late” is right on time.
Want to hear a contentious counter-point to all of the above? Check out Earth’s Mightiest Critics’ recent round table review of Black Widow on YouTube!
