Black Widow was a movie. Choices were made. Not entirely sure I liked all of them, but still, at least we finally got the movie that’s been promised forever. We finally stopped getting jerked around by the studio. We got something we’d been asking for pretty much since her intro in Iron Man 2.
The film itself was okay. There was more than one point that the movie startled a laugh out of me. I really loved the vibe of it and getting to see more about Natasha here in the MCU. I loved seeing Alexei and Malina and Yalena and all their interactions. The science-y bits were kind of cool, if absolutely terrifying in both scope and practice. Ray Winstone, the bad guy was a snooze-fest and I’m still kind of pissed about what we learned about Budapest. Rick Mason was amazing and I love the actor they cast for it and I hope we get more of him. I was also amused by Valentina’s cameo.
Here’s where I got angry. This movie was treated, in large part, as an afterthought. It should have had a bigger emotional impact and it didn’t. Like it made me laugh a little, but other than that, it fell flat. . The major reason it fell flat was because I already knew what was going to happen to Natasha ultimately and just having that knowledge, robbed this movie of a lot of its strength and emotional impact. We should have gotten this movie before Infinity War at best and definitely before Endgame. It would have had a much bigger impact on the fans. Because they didn’t, we got cheated out of what would have been a much superior experience. We got cheated out of any kind of sequels with Natasha in them.
That makes me angry. I was already furious about Natasha’s end in Endgame and seeing this movie just made that anger worse. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get more livid at Endgame. Then I watched Black Widow and discovered there were still depths to descend in the anger escalator of Endgame feels.
So yeah, it was A Movie. Choices were made. I just wish that those choices hadn’t been at the expense of the legions of Natasha fans or the character herself.