Black Widow

One of the biggest problems facing an action movie prequel starring a well known character is the fact that you know they just cannot die. No matter what peril they face the worst that might happen is a deep scrape or maybe a fractured finger. Predictability is a great way to sap the tension from a story but what if.......what if you lace the rest of the film with characters so likable that it would feel like a slap if anything happened to them? Black Widow does just that and does it very well indeed.

It's 2016 and in the aftermath of the Sokovia disaster and it's fallout the free Avengers have split up and gone their separate ways. Natasha Romanoff (Scarlet Johansson) is hiding out in Norway and living a quiet life, learning crappy Roger Moore Bond films off by heart, until she's attacked and nearly killed by an unknown warrior. A clue found in the aftermath of battle leads her to a safe house in Budapest where she's reunited with Yelena Boleva (Florence Pugh), a woman who was her sister until their deep undercover family was called back to Mother Russia from America 21 years previously. Now they are going to work together to destroy a face from their past but they can't do it alone. They'll need help from the people who completed their family of four, Dad, a super soldier called Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour) and Mam, a spy by the name of Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) who knows all too well the hell Natasha & Yelena have both lived through.

Complaining about a CGI heavy climax in a Marvel film is like moaning that air is too airy. So let's not do it. It happens, it's big and loud and silly and it's very much the lesser part of the movie. After a 90's set prologue that feels like an action version of TV's The Americans and a godawful cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit the film sets out its stall, letting us know fast this one is going to be a standalone film, that the Avengers are nowhere to be seen. Natasha is capable of looking after herself as we've learned, she doesn't need help from gods or men with metal defences. She's not the only capable one, her sister is a hardy buck too and the second we meet her it's not hard to see how Florence Pugh is going to fit into the MCU's ongoing plans, with her open, expressive face (used so well in Midsommar) and her believable ability to snap and stab. When they meet it's business as usual with a tired ol' smackdown but it's the scenes that come after when they start to get to know each other again that give this film it's real thrills. 

The best parts of the MCU have always been the quieter, chattier moments. Sam and Cap getting to know each other in the Winter Soldier, the after party Mjölnir fun in Age Of Ultron, Thor and his new friends in Ragnarok, basically every time Peter Parker opens his mouth in the Spiderman films. Here they come in the form of two chats around tables, one between sisters and one as a family, complete with embarrassment and cringe courtesy of Dad and his inability to keep schtum. It's dad who's Black Widow's secret weapon. David Harbour's Alexei is a joy to behold. Pure untamed id, like the Hulk but in human form. The fact that his American super soldier counterpart has become famous and he hasn't is rotting him, left him insecure, he's out of shape, he looks like a wild man, he acts before he thinks and everything that comes out of his mouth is gold. He's a great addition to the party. Just wait for the earpiece joke. It's proper belly laugh stuff. Oh btw, he readies for battle in Russian wrestling style, like Zangieff from Streetfighter II, a pose that will make people of a certain age grin like fools.

His macho, unreconstructed ways give us an insight into the horrible backgrounds of Natasha and Yelena, when the latter gives him her entire gynecological history to shut him up during a helicopter ride. What starts as a joke ends in horror and hints at a grittier directional change from the usual family friendly franchise fun. The violence here feels that little bit more brutal, people are made to atone for the collateral damage created by years of heroics, their ledgers are written in blood, the film starts walking down the darker paths seen in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier and then.........that old Marvel formula kicks in and it all ends in the usual CRASH BANG WALLOP we said we wouldn't mention earlier. It's a shame. All that goodness dulled by a big dose of bland. 

Black Widow is out everywhere from tomorrow. It's a film that should have been made years ago. Natasha Romanoff deserved it. As it is it's a fine goodbye to Johansson and an entertaining hello to Pugh and Harbour.