Marvel finally tells the story of Natasha Romanoff, her upbringing and family bickering along with the usual Marvel action and comedy.
Marvel has finally given viewers the long awaited film of the story of Natasha Romanoff AKA Black Widow even though she has been a main Avenger since the beginning. If you have been waiting for this film for years like a lot of other Marvel fans you may be a bit disappointed with the film, however, it finally gives us a look into why Natasha is the way she is and how she came to being an Avenger.
The film gives us the backstory of Black Widow's role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it picks up where the 2016 film Captain America: Civil War left off after many of the Avengers go into hiding. Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is in exile in Norway when her younger, estranged sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) finds Natasha to get her help in releasing other black widows from being brainwashed by Dreykov (Ray Winstone) in the Red Room (a Russian academy for training female assassins). Natasha and Yelena team up to free these women from Dreykov's control whilst getting help from their adoptive parents mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) and father Alexei (David Harbour).
This film does lightly touch upon some darker themes that are brought up, specifically that Natasha, Yelena and the other women taken at a young age to be a part of this program all were forced to have hysterectomies meaning they can no longer have children; and also that Dreykov only takes young girls for this mission but never boys. However, when these are brought up in the film they are brushed off quickly with humour from the characters, especially between Yelena and Alexei who add humour to a serious subject. The film mainly focuses on comedy, a common theme in many Marvel films especially recent ones, this comedy is mainly brought up through the family dynamic that drives the plot of this film. Father Alexei is a former agent who squeezes back into his old uniform in a wish to be as famous as Captain America, and Yelena is an entertaining addition in the Marvel universe with the playful, competitive relationship between her and Natasha.
Black Widow is a great, fun addition to the Marvel films as a standalone film with Scarlett Johansson giving us one last performance of this fearless assassin, and Florence Pugh bringing strong chemistry to the screen with her characters relationship with Natasha. However, I would argue that they could have turned this into a series of films about Black Widow as she presents a powerful, strong female superhero, which there aren't many of in Marvel.
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