"Black Widow" a solid, better-late-than-never solo outing

Black Widow (2021)

Natasha Romanoff, otherwise known as Black Widow, may have sacrificed her own life in the climactic moments of “Avengers: Endgame” without any take-backs, but she returns one last time for her long-overdue solo outing. The existence of “Black Widow” almost feels like an afterthought, as the end product doesn’t completely justify itself with a sense of purpose. Fortunately, director Cate Shortland (2017’s “Berlin Syndrome”) and screenwriter Eric Pearson (2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong”) are mostly free from the connectivity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to focus on where Natasha came from, what makes her tick, and how her past informs the future. Perhaps Marvel fans will just be excited to be back in a theater for the first theatrical Marvel blockbuster since 2019’s “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” but as the inaugural film in Phase Four of the MCU, “Black Widow” is just a solid one. Much like its titular heroine, it’s steely but vulnerable and not too serious to forget when to laugh at itself.

From the start, “Black Widow” doesn’t look like an in-house Marvel movie. A wispy summertime opening in 1995, Ohio, that introduces young Natasha (Ever Anderson, bearing quite the resemblance to her adult counterpart) and “sister” Yelena (Violet McGraw) turns into an urgent getaway to Cuba. Their “parents,” Melina (Rachel Weisz) and Alexei (David Harbour), aren’t really their parents but undercover and have played the part. These early moments are powerful, as we begin to realize these girls have been robbed of their innocence, childhood, and humanity to become killing machines at some point. Then there’s a chilling opening credit sequence cued to Malia J’s haunting cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” So far, so good.

Jumping ahead between “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War” after Natasha has violated the Sokovia Accords designed for the Avengers, the film finds our trained assassin on the run and deceiving the U.S. Army, led by General Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt), and living in Norway. When Natasha unknowingly holds a package with an antidote for an experiment—aka a McGuffin—her off-the-grid life is interrupted by Taskmaster, an ace killing machine with the ability to mimic their opponent’s fighting styles. Off to Budapest, Natasha reunites with her younger sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh), also a trained Black Widow. Eventually, this leads to reconciling with their fake parents and taking down Dreykov (a suitably detestable, if one-note, Ray Winstone), the puppet master behind the Red Room assassin program (and no, not the one from “Fifty Shades of Grey” or “Twin Peaks”).

“Black Widow” is probably the closest an MCU movie has ever come to “The Bourne Identity,” not only narratively as a globe-trotting spy thriller but visually. The plot is straightforward, involving guilt from a mission that ended in collateral damage, but this is really about Natasha and her “other” family (this time, not the Avengers). Many of the action set-pieces are basic, but a few do stand out when the kinetic excitement and choreography of the stuntwork aren’t rendered bland and perfunctory by messy point-and-shoot cinematography and choppy, frantic editing. The marriage of handheld camerawork and fast-cutting is surely an art form, one that director Paul Greengrass has perfected with control in his “Bourne” movies. More dynamically shot and staged sequences include Taskmaster’s first attack on Natasha at a stop sign that continues to a bridge, to Natasha and Yelena’s reunion in a Budapest apartment that turns into a rooftop chase and a motorcycle chase ending in a subway station. Also, it’s refreshing to find a female director behind the camera like Shortland because cinematographer Gabriel Beristain never frames Johansson in a way that sexualizes her or seems to be giving her a Pap smear. 

Scarlett Johansson is endlessly watchable and the fierce, grounded center—the straight man—that she has always been in the “Avengers” movies. Even if Nat has always lacked special powers beyond agility and wits since “Iron Man 2,” there is a quiet, stalwart complicatedness to this private, no-nonsense character that always felt grazed and left open for more exploration. Her story here does provide additional closure and poignancy to the end of her journey in “Avengers: Endgame”—which made her feel expendable, considering she was never able to physically have children—but it’s impossible not to feel that she’s being outshone by the bigger, more fun personalities around her. 

In fact, another Black Widow steals the thing. That would be a bigger issue than it is, but the “sibling” chemistry between Johansson and Florence Pugh’s Yelena is one of the movie’s most valuable selling points. Who knew Florence Pugh (2019's "Midsommar") could be so funny? She has the comic timing down, particularly in a running joke where she mocks her sister for her many landing poses (and her points are valid). Already proving her dramatic chops and clout as one of her generation’s biggest talents, Pugh is exceptional in locating unexpected layers in Yelena, a stubborn little sister who can bicker but misses the reality of having a family. As surrogate parents, David Harbour is very funny and just the right amount of buffoon as Alexei/The Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz gets to project a maternal warmth and even tap into a looser, more comedic side as Melina. O-T Fagbenle also shares a few nice, flirty moments with Johansson as former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Rick Mason, Natasha's Q-of-sorts handler. 

When it’s being a Russian family dramedy where the family happens to be a fake family of vodka-swilling Russian spies, “Black Widow” entertains and hits its more human beats with an affecting pathos. While a story with the subjugation of female agency and body autonomy embedded into its DNA doesn’t exactly call for the studio’s breezy, on-brand humor, it’s not humorless, either. Besides a just-right visual gag involving a helicopter low on gas, there are welcome flashes of levity that are never awkwardly placed but natural and character-based. More than ever, too, this film’s post-credit Easter egg is actually poignant before it even tries to set up more to come. It may be the end of the road for Natasha, but her better-late-than-never standalone story at least passes the baton to others, by blood or not. 

Grade: B -

Walt Disney Studios is releasing “Black Widow” (133 min.) in theaters and on Disney+ with Premier Access on July 9, 2021.