Here's yet another movie I've been trying to avoid for this year. I have already shared my disdain towards the MCU in my "Shang-Chi" review, so I won't go into depth again. While I was somewhat interested in "Shang-Chi", I had zero interest for "Black Widow". Not only did the trailers look generic, but why should I spend time on a story about a dead character that will have no impact in the future of the MCU? Well, curiosity got the better of me and after two-and-a-half hours later, I instantly regretted watching it in a second-run theatre.
Positives:
- Natasha's character arc. Even though her character arc could have been more impactful and resonating if the film was far more serious or take bolder steps in its story, I do think that Natasha has a reasonable arc that the movie gave her when it comes to reconciliation, regret, and confronting the sins of the past.
- The family unit that consists of Natasha, Yelena, Alexei, and Melina. Not only do all four have believable chemistry, but they do come across as generally likeable and you want the family that is once broken to fix their relationship. Personally, David Harbour's Red Guardian was the best character in the film in terms of character and enjoyability.
- The acting. Regardless of whether the character is done well or not, the acting is pretty solid all around. While the Russian accents do seem a bit silly and over-the-top at times, the performances never once feel phoned-in.
- The cinematography by Gabriel Beristain. While the conversations is constantly given close-ups, Beristain is good at having some scenic shots, panning, and scale during the action set-pieces.
- The score by Lorne Balfe. The action music is pretty generic, but the dramatic work is not that bad using both Russian themes and an orchestrated approach.
- The stunts involved during the action. While the action sequences have their fair share of problems, the same can't be said about the effortless stunt choreography. It's both brutal and kinetic that it's a shame that the stunts were just in a better movie.
Negatives:
- The story. While the premise of Natasha trying to shut down the Red Room once and for all is fine along with the established character arc, the problem is that the story both doesn't take risks and feels overstuffed in order to satisfy her arc. Aside from knowing that her death won't occur for another few years, the film just doesn't have the guts to have huge moral consequences to strengthen Natasha's arc. Aside from one Widow, none of the brainwashed female assassins are killed off by the heroes from their life-or-death situations, let alone any of the major characters. The story is also trying to tackle a lot of themes, not only the ones relevant to Natasha's arc, but also the role of women in the film and how the villains use and treat them, while pushing a feminist and female empowerment agenda at the same time. These themes are fine to include in this type of movie, but it gets too crowded in the narrative and it also hampers any boldness potential the film could have had for the sake of pleasing a tent-pole crowd. On top of everything that's been established, the film feels completely pointless in regards to the rest of the MCU. The only thing that is important is the post-credits scene that teases Yelena hunting down Hawkeye. Only a minute of this movie's runtime actually matters in the future of the franchise and you have to seat through the entire film and credits to get it.
- Too much exposition. A lot of the film's backstory is exposition from the context of the opening scene, the Budapest mission, the villain's motivations, development of the other characters, etc. It's nowhere near as bad as "Mortal Kombat", but it's ridiculous that the film never shows you any of these things. The birth of Taskmaster and Yelena's torture in the Red Room would have been powerful moments in the film, but we never get to see it.
- The tone and humour. If you think "Shang-Chi" had an awkward juggling of tone, this goes the next step beyond. The beginning scene is so hokey and wholesome before the dark, gritty opening credit sequence that includes a montage of human trafficking and little girls enslaved to being assassins all while a depressing rendition of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" plays in the background. If the film continued the dark tone that the opening credits carries, that would actually be sick! But of course, we get the typical Marvel formula that's not overly-serious or dramatic in order to put in fun, lighthearted humour for the whole family. While the humour isn't as painfully used in "Shang-Chi", the jokes rarely hit and they really clash with the supposed darker storytelling. There's literally a scene where Yelena describes her sexual organs being removed as part of her experience being in the Red Room to Alexei as a joke. It's this corporate mandated decision making that makes me not a fan of the MCU.
- The villains. Firstly, there's Taskmaster, a silent, badass assassin who is hunting down Natasha. This is one of the worst portrayals of a comic-book character I've seen in a while. Not only is the design lame and the abilities to copy various superhero's completely wasted, but the decision for the character to go from a snarky, self-centred mercenary in the comics to being a tortured, brainwashed daughter of the villain is mind-numbing baffling. It also doesn't help that Natasha also manages to save Taskmaster in the end rather than having her be killed to show the unfixable consequences that Natasha's actions has caused. There's also Dreykov, a made-up villain played by Ray Winstone. Wintstone is great at playing this cold and cunning villain, but Dreykov comes across as a generic bad-guy who wants to be evil and treat woman like objects just because. If the film played up the more sympathetic end of how he uses the assassination attempt on his and his daughter's life as motivation, it would have been interesting. But we just get an exposition dump of a villain who, while acted well, is very forgettable in regards to the franchise he belongs in.
- O-T Fagbenie's Rick Mason. This character isn't even a character at all. All he does is point Natasha to the next objective by giving her a necessary thing or vehicle that she's able to call. His connection to Natasha comes out of nowhere and his ability to just summon the things she needs is just lazy. It doesn't help that Fagbenie doesn't really offer much in his performance other than the guy looking after Natasha.
- The direction by Cate Shortland. Shortland offers no unique style to the film whatsoever. While I get that she was trying to approach a Bond-esque spy thriller for the film, the issue is that the film looks too overproduced, stock, and lacking flair that makes it a distinct spy movie. It just looks like the typical Marvel movie from a cheap director-for-hire. While things do get more visually unique in the third act, the film just has this grey, generic look to it that does its best in feeling grounded despite the fact that the film carries a literal sky fortress in its narrative.
- The overuse of CGI. For a character who has no special abilities, why does this film need $200 million to produce? While the effects are ok, there's a lot of times where it's fake-looking and it starts looking like a "Fast and Furious" movie in regards on how silly it looks and unapologetically bad it is.
- The action sequences. A huge issue with the action is that the film is awkwardly edited by Leigh Folsom Boyd and Matthew Schmidt. While not as horrendous as "Mortal Kombat", the editing still comes across as choppy and rapid-fire, which makes some of the action confusing in regards to what just happened or the sudden appearance of a random person or element. Even if you look past the editing, the action itself is just not that exciting. While I appreciate some of the more brutal beatdowns and the stunts used in said action, the set-pieces themselves are just uninspired and generic due to the lack of style, stakes, tension, and creativity. This is a movie with Taskmaster as a villain and the action is just bland to look at. Not only does the action in "Shang-Chi" blow this out of the water, but even action from bad movies such as "Snake Eyes" and "Mortal Kombat" were better in their creativity and execution.
"Black Widow" is just as bad as of a MCU film can get. While Natasha's character arc is solid, the family dynamic of the main characters is well done, the acting across the board is good, the stunts pulled off nicely, Beristain's camerawork offers some sense of scale and iconography the film desperately needed, and the dramatic score by Balfe is pretty decent for the overall franchise, the rest of the film is either bland, generic, or just straight-up bad. The story refuses to have stakes or consequences or even being relevant in the MCU, there's too much exposition scenes to "flesh out" context and characters, the tone and humour is at its most distracting in regards to how the film wants a serious approach while being goofy at the same time, Taskmaster is just awfully done in every single way, Dreykov is just generic and boring, Mason is the embodiment of lazy writing, the CGI is overused and poorly rendered at times, the action sequences lack freshness and coherency with iffy editing by Boyd and Schmidy, and Shortland's directing feels soulless in being a corporate blockbuster and failing to inject life in the spy genre. If I hadn't watched "Mortal Kombat" prior to this, it is easily the worst film I saw this year, but just being the second worst isn't a big achievement, especially for a MCU film.
Verdict: 4/10. A bland entry to the MCU blockbuster that is a key example for what the films constantly suffer from. Just watch the post-credits scene online to set yourself up for "Hawkeye" and skip this nothingness of a movie.
No comments:
Post a Comment