Dir: Cate Shortland (12, 134 mins)
After a very long pandemic induced wait, the fourth phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe begins. Granted, there has been the off-kilter Wandavision, so-so The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and enjoyably Doctor Who-esque Loki on Disney+ since Avengers:Endgame, but the new wave has begun. With a prequel.
Scarlett Johannson’s athletic assassin Black Widow has of course – spoiler alert! – been endgamed herself, but this, the first Marvel film to focus solely on a superheroine, gives her a fitting sendoff. The action is top notch, but it’s the family dynamics and the interplay between Johannson and younger ‘sister’, played by Florence Pugh, that really makes Black Widow worth watching.
Set after Captain America: Civil War in the MCU timeline, this sees Johannson on the run struggling to connect with anyone apart from fixer O-T Fagenbale. Her Avengers superhero family has broken up, so she finds herself reaching back into her past and the spy family she had as a young girl: David Harbour’s Russian supersoldier father and Rachel Weisz’s scientist and also handy Widow mother. After stealing some secrets for Ray Winstone’s dodgily Russian-accented Dreykov back in 1995 in Ohio in an action-packed opening, the family is scattered to the winds. Johannson and Pugh graduate in female assassin training regime the Red Room, whilst Harbour is put in prison and Weisz continues to do Winstone’s bidding, despite the Black Widow herself thinking she had killed her former torturer years earlier.
Also on her trail is a Terminator-esque warrior, capable of mimicking opponents’ fighting styles and using them against them. Mixed up in the bonecrunching fights and CGI destruction, however, is a sweet dysfunctional family story, given extra weight by the acting calibre involved. Pugh and Johannson spar brilliantly together, both physically and emotionally, and Harbour’s egocentric Alexei desperately holds on to his belief that he was Russia’s Captain America, the Red Guardian, with melancholic pathos.
Often very funny, as well as moving, Cate Shortland’s direction adds depth and resonance to the events, as well as delivering thrills in predictably kinetic set pieces. There’s a telling nod to Moonraker which Johannson quotes verbatim, Roger Moore’s opening parachute fight referenced later in the ridiculous but exciting freefall finale, and grit at work in the plot’s references to gaslighting and exploiting women. The Widows are manipulated by Winstone’s hand, used as weapons until they are deemed no longer expedient, or until they rebel and try and have a voice of their own.
Pugh and Johannson own the film, however, anchoring the explosions and making this a thoroughly enjoyable sendoff for the assassin with red in her ledger – and again illustrating Marvel’s confident storytelling. This is not another Nikita retread, but something more expansive.
In cinemas and streaming on Disney+ now
words KEIRON SELF