Review of the film “Black Widow”. Poor our Natasha – review addiction

Of all the original Avengers cast, Natasha Romanoff is perhaps the most unlucky. Even Hawkeye in the films got several bright emotional scenes and a couple of great jokes, and the Black Widow, a character without exaggeration of a cult, had only a short romance with the Hulk and a martyr’s death. The rest of the time, as Scarlett Johansson justly noted, the spy played the role of a walking adornment. It wasn’t until MCU architect Kevin Feige finally defeated his former boss Ike Perlmutter, a notorious sexist and conservative, that Widow finally got her solo album. And then the picture lay on the shelf for a whole year due to the pandemic, and now it was released according to a hybrid model, which almost always guarantees a box office failure. And the worst irony is that in her first and last named film, Natasha again got lost against the background of the rest of the characters.

Natasha’s main hobby is to overcome

The period of the split of the Avengers. Romanoff openly opposed General Ross, for which she was outlawed. Well, not the first time. Things have been collected, a quiet place in Europe has been found, you can lay low and think about what to do next. But just a couple of days later, the avengers come to the soul, and by no means the government, but a mysterious super-soldier who can defeat the heroine in close combat for one or two times. And soon Natasha learns the terrible truth: the “Red Room” program, which turns orphan girls into super-killers, still works, despite the fact that Romanoff eliminated its creator a long time ago. Rather, I thought that I had eliminated it – in fact, the sinister General Drakes is more alive than all the living and cherishes truly Napoleonic plans. Now, in order to bury the ghost of the Cold War once and for all, Natasha must unite with her named sister Elena and her adoptive parents – former Kremlin agents with pribabakh.

From “Black Widow” Since the announcement, they have been waiting for branchy cranberries, but, paradoxically, they are rather stingy with them. The evil Russian general in the story has long been out of the system and does not even try, as in some Call of duty, to return the Motherland to its former greatness – all purely for personal gain. No one calls the prison in which one of the characters vegetates “Gulag”, there is not a single war bear in the frame, the Cyrillic inscriptions do without ridiculous mistakes, and even in the original the actors do not please with funny pearls – everyone speaks broken but understandable Russian ( except for the Red Guard, it is impossible to understand him without subtitles), and the crowd was completely recruited from native speakers. The national flavor, as it is seen in Hollywood, clearly breaks through only in the scene of family reunion, where Natasha and her adoptive relatives whip vodka almost from their throats. Well, then I’m sorry. In general, those who were waiting for “Black Widow” to laugh at earflaps and balalaikas will remain disappointed. As well as those who wanted to see a funny Marvel blockbuster after two years of stagnation.

Alexey’s relationship with his adopted daughters is far from healthy. But this is the trick

Kate Shortland’s film is desperate to fit into Marvel’s darkly serious lineup alongside “Another war” and recent “Falcon and Winter Soldier”… There are relatively few jokes, violence, on the contrary, has been brought to the maximum limits allowed by a teenage rating, and all key characters are traumatized and reflexive to one degree or another. “Black Widow” is only one half of a spy thriller, while the other is set aside for a drama about a dysfunctional family and a crippled childhood. Guess which of these parts triggers the most emotional response. Hint: not action-packed. Although the fighting episodes are made very sensibly. There is more hand-to-hand combat in Black Widow than in any other MCU film, and the stunt work in individual scenes is truly admirable. Well, when you can see it, because along with the gloom, the picture inherited from “Confrontation” an annoying shaking camera. And yet, Marvel is no longer able to surprise anyone with special effects for $ 200 million. But the psychological torment of girls with a dark past is something fresher.

Florence Pugh from “Solstice”… Her Elena Belova hides the pain behind sarcasm and bravado, but she breaks down, it is worth pushing a little on the mental wound. This is a complex, multifaceted image, and it is a pleasure to follow the actress in it. Obviously, the film was started, among other things, to introduce Elena as the new Black Widow, and the creators coped with this task – Pew will certainly become one of the main stars of the next phases of the MCU.

David Harbor and Rachel Weisz, too, predictably steal every scene with their participation. The Red Guardian (he is the same in the original as “Red Armyman” and “Red Guardian”) is the most authentic Russian man in American cinema, even though now do “Peculiarities of National Superheroism” with him. Yes, some of Alexei’s phrases seem to be taken from old anecdotes about the KGB, but his passion for bikes, tattoos, beard and emotionality so naturally add up to the image of “daddy” that you don’t even want to find fault. Weiss is also amazing how good she is in the image of the slightly sociopathic scientist Melina. In one scene, she can be truly creepy, in another, touchingly unhappy, and in the third, charmingly comic. However, what else can you expect from an actress of this caliber?

Taskmaster is another example of how Marvel leaves only horns and legs from its own famous villain

But Scarlett Johansson, with all the diversity of her talent, looks like a pale shadow against such a background. It is becoming more obvious than ever that Natasha Romanoff is in her performance of charisma, sorry, like a stool. The tragic past of the heroine does not make her more interesting in the present, although this, it would seem, is the whole point. The same Elena Belova, by her example, shows how trauma determines a person’s worldview, how it affects a sense of humor, and so on. And for the red-haired spy, it all comes down to a frown face in several variations. And it’s not Johansson’s fault at all – it’s just that Natasha is written more primitive than Xena from the 90s series. Feelings of guilt and highly abstract righteous anger create an illusion of character and an illusion of motivation, but what works with a creak John Wicke, misfires in Black Widow. Looks like the secret is really in Keanu’s personal charm.

The film wastes Ray Winston’s talent just as ineptly. The Briton could play a great villain, but instead is forced to be a walking caricature. Already only the lazy did not notice that Drakov is more like not a retired general, but a typical music or film producer. Overweight, greasy, boorish, cynical, confident in his impunity. His phrase about the fact that little girls are the most inexhaustible resource on Earth, as if written specifically to make the viewer shudder with disgust. But that’s all. The Black Widow’s archenemy is just an old, nasty man in glasses and a suit. Symbolism is symbolism, but isn’t that demeaning?

And in general, “Black Widow” – in a sense, one continuous humiliation of the title character. After so many years and her own death, Natasha finally received a solo album, and he is not even about her. Almost nothing in the film is truly praiseworthy relates directly to the Widow herself. He does a much better job at introducing Elena and the Red Guard than at revealing Natasha Romanoff, although there seems to be no other chance. Basically “Black Widow” turned out to be an unforgivable average for the return of the MCU after a two-year hiatus. There is not much to scold her for, after all, Marvel’s quality standards are still quite high, but she does not pull the title of the main summer blockbuster, even in the absence of noticeable competitors. No matter how fiercely Kevin Feige fought for the place of “Widow” on the big screen, on stream services she looks like her own. As if this is not a theatrical release at all, but a two-hour special of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. The most famous Russian spy in pop culture, damn it, deserves more.