Black Widow

It has been almost two years since Marvel has released a new super hero movie to the theatres. In the meantime they have offered some stellar televison entries such as “WandaVision” and “Loki,” just to name a few. “Black Widow” is the first of the delayed big budget movies to be released (The latest James Bond movie has been “coming” for two years) and it was mostly worth the wait. Scarlet Johansson has played the Black Widow in several Marvel movies and even died in one of them, so this is a prequel. The action takes place right after “Captain America: Civil War” where Black Widow is a fugitive seperated from the rest of The Avengers. This really isn’t explained in the movie and I only knew this because I read it on line. To start with, the movie gives us Black Widow’s origin story. Young Natasha lives with her family in Ohio: Mom and Dad – played by David Harbour and Rachel Weisz – are actually Russian spies. She and her sister Yelena – played surprisingly well by the scene stealing Florence Pugh – are totally surprised when things start to fall apart. It turns out this is a fake family and none of them are actaually related; though nevertheless there are familial feelings that will be helpful later in the movie. Yelena and Natasha are trained in a place called the Red Room; where they are taught to kill, fight and all the good action picture skills for super agents. Fast forward about 15 years. Black Widow is now a famous fugitive after the Civil War, and has lost contact with her “sister.” Circumstances lead to a reunion, and once the whole gang is reunited in an effort to destroy the Red Room controlled by the evil Dreykov (Ray Winstone) and his hench-women, the film really takes off. Up to that point, there was lots of action but no heart, no famous Marvel humor. Florence Pugh is a breath of fresh air as the younger sister who feels overshadowed by her older sibling but is a force to be reckoned with in her own right. Florence is extremely entertaining and actually upstages the other, more experienced actors. I smell a movie or television series for her!! This movie has everything you want to see in a Marvel movie: action, humor, impossible situations, and interesting villians. However, this is one confusing movie. Several events from other back histories were alluded to and it was taken for granted that the audience remembered them. I, and I’m sure other viewers not steeped in the esoterica of the MCU, had no idea why Black Widow was a fugitive, what the Red Room was, and how she even became an Avenger. A little exposition might have helped. Because of the confusing plot, I can’t quite give Black Widow a Golden Apple, but it was a good movie and best watched on a large theatre screen.