Black Widow

Black Widow is a 2021 espionage thriller from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe that is directed by Cate Shortland. In the film, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) a previous assassin, fights against her past while escaping from the events that took place in Captain America: Civil War. The film is centered around Natasha’s childhood in the Red Room and how she and other girls were conditioned to be deadly spies.

In the beginning of the film, Nikolai’s son and Belova pretend to be two ordinary american girls until their glorious mission is complete and they have been returned to the Red Room, a brutal place of torture and manipulation. As the years go by, Natasha is relentlessly pursued by General Ross and the memories of her years spent in the Red Room area are there too.

Her quest makes her cross paths with Yelena who tells her the Red Room is still operative and is under the evil leadership of Dreykov (Ray Winstone). The sisters then set out to put an end to the program and save its victims. They are assisted by their former ‘parents’, Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz), a Dreykov loyal scientist, Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), the poorly aged yet adorable Soviet superhero Red Guardian. Natasha’s attempts at probing into the past of the program leads her to experience layers of trauma and guilt, especially because it also questions her relationship with Yelena.

Anchored by handling of the visceral action, poignant moments for characters, and ideas related to control, family and redemption, Black Widow is an efficient standalone piece of work but strongly acts as an epilogue for Natasha Romanoff in the MCU.

Cast & Crew

Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: Johansson delivers a nuanced combination of an action star and an emotional woman, making it easy to grasp Natasha’s pain.

Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova: Pugh is definitely the best thing about the film by infusing Natasha’s sister with humor, cuteness and being a great warrior trapped in a bad story.

David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian: The father picture that Harbour has created is remarkably lovable yet not entirely ideal, bringing humor and emotion to the super-soldier from the Soviet Union.

Rachel Weisz portraying Melina Vostokoff: Weisz does a great job portraying a character that is determined to redeem herself while being torn between allegiance.

Ray Winstone playing Dreykov: Winstone does a great job depicting a disturbing antagonist who has complete control over the Black Widows and is also being controlled by him.

Role of: Cate Shortland

Written by: Eric Pearson

Executive Produced by: Kevin Feige

Musical Score by: Lorne Balfe

Major Themes

Family and Forgiveness: The most vital topic Black Widow emphasizes is family, or the sort of family members one wishes to embrace. Natasha, Yelena, Alexei, Melina — these individuals are parts of a family embraced by somebody else, and that’s very powerful.

Control and Liberation: The movie critiques and unmasking such forms of power, for instance, Dreykov’s nature in the thrall of Black Widow program. The purpose of both Natasha and Yelena isat a higher level and is greater than merely one’s self-gratification narrative.

Trauma and Redemption: Natasha’s story, which begins with a youth growing up in the red room, where she becomes a weapon and is forced to kill very valuable people to save herself. The entire narrative is an evolution of Natasha, a redemption arc.

Empowerment and Agency: On the other hand, the film also captures the plight of oppressed women who rose to the occasion and are now defiling these systems.

Visual storytelling and visual expression unique to the film

The visual aspect of the film presents a weird contrast of a spy thriller’s realistic subtle dark look with the classic action exotic look of the Marvel films. Hybrids of fast-paced action are brought into light by director Cate Shortland and cinematographer Gabriel Beristain in sequences like: the Budapast car chase and the final aerial combat. Natasha’s double life is portrayed with a stark contrast in tones in which Red Room is dark and industrial and the rest is cozy and satirical, echoing the family reunion scenes.

The outfit’s designer ,Jany Temime, shows how important the clothing is to the character’s growth, as Natasha comes out of her assassin suit and dons her white combat suit, which indicates her new role – a hero to look up to.

Film review and rating.

Black Widow has a decent audience rating on IMDb, sitting at a 6.7/10. This mixed reception stems from the film’s pacing issues and the fact that the third act was littered with CGI. It is almost an expected compliment and praising when it comes to the performance oppression of Florence Pugh and the growing feelings on screen for Natasha’s past however many of the critics pointed out that it felt odd because of how the character was portrayed previously.

There was a fairly positive response, a large number of people admired the directors approach to an emotional story and their focus on making it feel realistic as well as working on the dynamics of Johansson and Pugh. The film delved deeper into the MCU aspects with feminist tags and trauma added in.

Fearless Reviews: A notable portion of the audience expressed their opinions regarding the villain being quite superficial, and tad lacking in character development. It was noted the second act of the film did suffer from slight pacing issues. In addition, due to Black Widow being embedded in the MCU timeline, some plots were left hanging.

Viewer Review

The character widely known as Natasha Romanoff has been long overdue a standalone feature and so the fans praised Black Widow for allowing her to shine alongside the Avengers. Moreover, it goes without saying Yelena Belova stole the heart of the audience with her sarcastic humor interlaced with her lesser known bitter past. On the contrary, a number of people complained about the film first hitting the screens during the latter half of Black Widow’s storyline and not her introduction itself.

Final Thoughts

The movie that I will be shedding light on today is Black Widow, which chronicles an emotionally profound yet characteristically explosive journey of Natasha Romanoff and the transgression that she has achieved in her lifetime. And while it is not perfect, it does justice to her storyline as well sending off one of the X-Men characters the people enjoyed most within the MCU universe. The picture does not only showcase Black Widow’s story but also enhances the franchise and ensures the character will live in the MCU universe.

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