Black Widow - Initial Reaction
Well, I looked forward to this movie for like 2 years. And tonight, I saw it, my first movie in a theater since The Invisible Man in February of last year.
I'm honestly not sure what I thought about it.
I would say that it had a lot of heart and that unlike a lot of Marvel movies, it had time to breathe. And when it did, it took advantage of that time to surprisingly effective character and emotional effect. The sisterhood aspect was particularly strong. As was Florence Pugh in general. She really surprised me with this. I've seen her work and I know how good she is, but I thought this might be over her head or at least out of her wheelhouse. Yet she was as convincing as anyone in the film, including Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, and Scarlett herself.
But the script. I mean, did this story even need to be told? And I don't mean from a "Black Widow shoulda had her own movie by now" perspective I mean a "was this story, this particular one, actually worth telling?" perspective.
Again the character and emotional aspects of the film work but the actual plot is convoluted, probably unnecessarily so, and almost ends up coming off like a really high-budget extended-episode of Agents Of Shield. I'm really not sure the MacGuffin, which seems dubious from the start, plays at all. And the resolution of the MacGuffin left me pretty limp. Some of the action scenes were good particularly a prison-break sequence, but even that was left feeling very distilled or maybe just never really inspired in the first place. The film goes to pretty achey lengths not to show a drop of blood to the Disney audience, despite the rather intense violence that occurs and the fact that both of the main characters were assassins. And honestly, some of the movie seems to contradict what we've seen in the previous films, even though Marvel is usually so meticulous about making everything fit together. One wonders, did they have too much time with this film or did they just not write a very good script.
I hope I will feel better about it in the morning or maybe after a re-watch but, I dunno, I came away feeling like Marvel did some of its best work yet in the emotional territory of this film but made a movie that simply didn't need to be made. Perhaps as a too-little-too-late apology to Scarlett.
I've been pretty excited for Shang-Chi but this film, in the wake of the already rather hit and miss nature of the MCU going back to Doctor Strange, has me a little worried about any future MCU films. Could it finally be unravelling? Or do I just need to take a deep breath and sleep on this movie?
Well, I looked forward to this movie for like 2 years. And tonight, I saw it, my first movie in a theater since The Invisible Man in February of last year.
I'm honestly not sure what I thought about it.
I would say that it had a lot of heart and that unlike a lot of Marvel movies, it had time to breathe. And when it did, it took advantage of that time to surprisingly effective character and emotional effect. The sisterhood aspect was particularly strong. As was Florence Pugh in general. She really surprised me with this. I've seen her work and I know how good she is, but I thought this might be over her head or at least out of her wheelhouse. Yet she was as convincing as anyone in the film, including Rachel Weisz, Ray Winstone, and Scarlett herself.
But the script. I mean, did this story even need to be told? And I don't mean from a "Black Widow shoulda had her own movie by now" perspective I mean a "was this story, this particular one, actually worth telling?" perspective.
Again the character and emotional aspects of the film work but the actual plot is convoluted, probably unnecessarily so, and almost ends up coming off like a really high-budget extended-episode of Agents Of Shield. I'm really not sure the MacGuffin, which seems dubious from the start, plays at all. And the resolution of the MacGuffin left me pretty limp. Some of the action scenes were good particularly a prison-break sequence, but even that was left feeling very distilled or maybe just never really inspired in the first place. The film goes to pretty achey lengths not to show a drop of blood to the Disney audience, despite the rather intense violence that occurs and the fact that both of the main characters were assassins. And honestly, some of the movie seems to contradict what we've seen in the previous films, even though Marvel is usually so meticulous about making everything fit together. One wonders, did they have too much time with this film or did they just not write a very good script.
I hope I will feel better about it in the morning or maybe after a re-watch but, I dunno, I came away feeling like Marvel did some of its best work yet in the emotional territory of this film but made a movie that simply didn't need to be made. Perhaps as a too-little-too-late apology to Scarlett.
I've been pretty excited for Shang-Chi but this film, in the wake of the already rather hit and miss nature of the MCU going back to Doctor Strange, has me a little worried about any future MCU films. Could it finally be unravelling? Or do I just need to take a deep breath and sleep on this movie?