Review Tuesday: BLACK WIDOW [2021]

 

BLACK WIDOW

When something happens in the current day, it ties into the past of Natasha Romanoff... and her family.

Since I have been catching up with my MCU, I decided to watch Black Widow. It’s two and a quarter hours long. It appears to take place after Civil War. They mention that Ant Man is in jail and Cap is on the run to help with the placement in the timeline. 

 

This is kind of a back story. They explain that Natasha isn’t THE Black Widow, but A Black Widow. A force of female assassins created by some Russian dude named Dreykov. So the movie is her backstory as well as Natasha trying to take down that organization. Well, she's dragged into the muck because her sister has come across an antidote for the mind control used by Dreykov on his army of assassins. So Dreykov is after the sisters, while the sisters are after him. Fairly simple plot, but with all the layers, it comes to 2 1/4 hours of action.

 

My verdict? It was fun. Of course, it’s a movie about female assassins, so it’s some serious girl power. But most of them look pretty good, so it’s fun to watch. Scarlett looks pretty amazing in it. Rachel Weisz plays her “mother” and Olga Kurylenko is even in it, even though I don’t think they used her to her fullest abilities. Florence Pugh plays her sister Yelena, and does an amazing job. In fact, I think she stole the movie. She was equippied with jokes about her vest with many pockets, because girls love that stuff, and made fun of Natasha's super-hero poses. Yep. It was entertaining. But it also felt pretty long. Movies now must have layers of plot and, as a result, have what feels like a series of endings. 

With all the discussion about the lawsuit that Scarlett Johansson is filing about the way Disney rolled out this film, I was curious if it had the legs that other MCU films had. Historically, when Scarlett is in a good ensemble cast, the movies do well. However, her solo works are usually lackluster at best. Could this have been the first real block-buster in a post COVID19 world? Honestly, I don't think so. No matter how hot Scarlett is in a movie, I just don't believe people want to sit in theaters or even spend the $30 to get it on Disney Plus. I mean, INCELs wouldn't even pay to see Under the Skin that was was nude through most of. And now, knowing that movies in this era have no staying power in the box office, and movies hit the cable networks pretty quickly, I was not surprised this movie under performed. I DO think that going forward, as long as studios are rolling out films in multiple formats that the actors and actresses will need to have new stipulations in their contracts. In this case, Scarlett was getting a piece of the take from ticket sales. When the movie was simultaneously rolled out on Disney+, it was sure to reduce the ticket sales, hitting the star right in the wallet. Of course, I am not crying for her, with her net wort of over $100 mill.

More on IMDB

 

 

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