A few hours ago, I went to my local AMC theater to watch the first Phase 4 movie of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Black Widow. It was very enjoyable...and a lot deeper than I expected. Black Widow is clearly about family and redemption—with Natasha Romanoff (once again played fiercely by Scarlett Johansson) reuniting with the folks (a.k.a. Russian agents) she called family when she was young, and confronting a person from her past (now working as the mysterious assassin named Taskmaster) whom she did wrong when Romanoff was trying desperately to leave the life of a cold-blooded assassin behind before she joined SHIELD and the Avengers.
Just like every other Marvel movie, Black Widow was very entertaining and had top-notch special effects (I actually know someone who was a visual effects artist on this film... Well-done, Delon Ho). Ironically, it was the amazing CGI at the climax of Black Widow that somewhat had a negative impact on the movie. For the first two acts of the film, we see Natasha and her sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) try to outrun fellow Widows in cool action sequences that were shot on location in Budapest and Norway, respectively. (It was in these parts where this movie felt like the 2018 Jennifer Lawrence espionage flick, Red Sparrow. Not a criticism.) But by the end of the film, we see Natasha, Yelena, Alexei (David Harbour) and Melina (Rachel Weisz) make their way up to a giant floating fortress hidden in the clouds...something that you would obviously see in an Avengers or Captain America movie.
While Black Widow's change of tone from a gritty assassin film to a CG-heavy comic book movie could've been handled a bit differently, it was still an enjoyable flick. As mentioned at the start of this review, Natasha Romanoff sought redemption—and ultimately achieved it. It's after watching this film that Marvel fans should feel sad for Black Widow considering the fate that befell her in 2019's Avengers: Endgame. But when it comes down to it, Natasha's story was finally told alongside those of Captain America, Iron Man and Thor...and the MCU is better for it.
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