Review of Black Widow
midlandsmovies • July 11, 2021
Black Widow (2021) Dir. Cate Shortland
Set after the events of Marvel’s Civil War, Black Widow is the 24th film in the MCU and after so long clamouring out for her own solo film, does Marvel’s heroine finally get her dues? Well, not quite.
Having been delayed due to the pandemic, Black Widow brings us back into the cinematic fold after the current exploits on Disney + in the spin-off TV shows. We dive straight in with an explosive opening where a young Natasha Romanoff and her surrogate suburban family (who are Russian spies) are chased by SHIELD operatives before escaping to Cuba on a plane.
But after this fantastic and thrilling opening, things take a turn for the worse with Ray Winstone’s arrival as the undercover family’s boss. He reminds us that is pure comic-fare as he delivers the broadest and most stereotypical Russian gangster since Kenneth Branagh in Tenet. Or his co-star Cate Blanchett in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull now I think about it.
So Natasha and her sister Yelena are whisked away for mind control assassin training in a Soviet ‘Red Room’ before she defects and reunites back with her sister (now Florence Pugh) during her on-the-run period after Civil War’s Avengers’ split.
The film is fast paced but leaves little breathing room at the start and with black tactical suits, rural hideaways and a dark family history, there’s a dash of Batman Begins. No bad thing. A city-wide vehicle chase is a crash bang wallop of an action sequence and Pugh and Johansson are great in their sisterly roles but are often restricted by the Marvel formula from going anywhere other than predicted.
The sisters head to a prison to break out their father (David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov who as Red Guardian is the Russian super-soldier counterpart to Captain America) and the proto-family reunite with the return of Rachel Weisz as their ‘mother’ Melina Vostokoff (also a Black Widow in her past) and all the members’ old secrets are divulged.
Interestingly, the score of the film is of note with its Russian chanting and Dark Knight-y ominous soundscapes. There’s also a hint of thrilling Bourne-esque staccato strings to intensify the fugitive on the run set-up. Sadly, the other similarity with Bourne is some shocking editing at times.
The second Bourne film (and Taken 2’s chaotic editing) have been broken down many times before, and unfortunately Black Widow uses multiple cuts/angles of someone simply walking into a building to set up a scene which seems just silly to me. This mad editing is often for no real reason and is a distracting flaw when the movie frankly doesn’t need it.
And as we enter the film’s second act, the pace slows, a hysterectomy joke seems badly misjudged (and tonally strange) and as their rotund dad tries to fit into his old costume, this middle section sags like his own man boobs.
As she tackles the dull hench-woman Taskmaster, the generic plot continues as expected as Natasha and family try to destroy the Red Room programme and free the women it has enslaved into a life of killing against their will. And the fact that smelling Ray WInstone stops you being able to give him a dry slap is the strangest thing in the MCU to date.
So with Wonder Woman beating her to the line for a solo franchise film, is Black Widow worth this overly long wait? Sadly, not massively despite many things to like. It’s mostly inconsequential given it’s a prequel, yet may have worked in its real time-line, surely after Guardians 2 & before Ragnarok as an antidote to their cosmic offerings.
The action scenes are a highlight though, the end free-fall sequence was far better than the trailer hinted at, and Florence Pugh and Scarlett Johanssen are ever-watchable here as they are in most things they tackle. I know the film couldn’t be Red Sparrow (the rather excellent but certainly adult 2018 drama where Jennifer Lawrence joins a Russian school of assassins) but something more substantial seemed missing from the whole shebang.
It feels all too-little too-late as an entry in the Marvel franchise and will sit neatly in the “not bad” section of their filmic behemoth universe being neither a covert operative catastrophe or super spy success.
★★★
Michael Sales
With a number of acclaimed films under his belt including Cosmo, Gone Fishing and The Morgue Party, Jonathan Hawes launches a new short, once again in his favourite genre of comedy. Midlands Movies Mike Sales speaks to the writer/director about his latest project, his influences and his plans for the film.
Up! (1976) Dir. Russ Meyer Well, bi-Adolf Hitler BDSM is not something (a) I thought I’d ever see 5 minutes into a movie and (b) ever expected to write in my lifetime to be fair but this spicy start is pretty standard for the work of exploitation filmmaker Russ Meyer. Up! is a kind of r*pe-revenge softcore p*rn film (there’s gonna be a fair bit of self-censorship in this review so apologies in advance), the type Meyer is known for. I’d describe the plot in more detail but it’s mostly a convoluted and incoherent mess of double-crossing, murder, violence and lots and lots of humping. In short, a man called Adolph gets murdered and a woman investigates (kinda) the circumstances but as she does so, a group of locals blackmail, attack and screw each other with the murder mystery barely mentioned throughout. With so little narrative, it could be argued if it’s essentially p*rn? To be fair, not far off. It’s about extreme as you can go without simply making a s*x film. Is that a…no, it’s a belly button hole. Bookending the film (and also seen at various points throughout) is a Greek Chorus - simply a busty fully nude woman of course - who delivers dialogue like “Pummelling the scrotum with joyous supplication” and other such poeticisms. This artistic flourish is mostly pointless - the actress herself saying the words were tough to learn because it was utter nonsense. On a technical level, the editing is surprisingly well done and the 4k image is frankly fantastic. Someone somewhere must be putting together a post-modern take about the beautiful landscapes and cinematography of Meyer’s * ahem * output. But it definitely does have a kitsch artistry. It has certainly provided plenty of cinematic influence though. Elements of Tarantino grindhouse sensibilities are on show - Meyers likes bosoms as much as Quents likes feet - and there’s even a leather gimp early on. I can also see how its had an impact on Ti West X’s with a focus on sexuality and the body as well, more obviously, Anna Biller’s feminist-twist The Love Witch (2016). Suffice to say it’s not for the weak of heart. I think in this day and age you can’t go into this completely blind to its style, period and context though. It's an X-rated Carry On style that was bad taste then and it’s bad taste now. It revels in its sleaziness without a single hint of shame or apology. Simply saying 'deal with it'. The main negative though is the absence of plot - if the film can even be looked at like that - which is barely present. This is a shame as the whole thing could do with a bit more coherence rather than endless shagging. But it’s far from titillation, it’s mostly clowning - albeit a very adult version of it. More saucy than sexy. Trying to review this through modern sensibilities is almost impossible. It’s as offensive can be from the first scene through to the final credits - heck even this 4k menu is simply one of the film's many s*x scenes. But there are some progressive themes as it doesn’t shy from confronting sexual freedom, bisexuality, gay sex, BDSM and consensual exploration. There's moments of comedy thrown in and I enjoyed a frankly hilarious 5-minute monologue explaining the culprit’s intentions, which was a ludicrous way to deliver a slasher-style ending. I suppose the main thing about Up! (and Meyers’ work overall) is there’s a sort of love it or loathe it quality about the whole shebang. But it’s so unlike anything being made today - for good or bad - that it’s never anything other than unpredictably fascinating. More explicit than most Meyers films - in fact more than any film - it’s a lewd, rude and crude (s)exploration with a satirical edge and campy enjoyment bouncing from every frame. ★★★ 3 / 5 Michael Sales Severin Films releases Russ Meyers' UP! (1976) and MOTORPSYCHO (1965) on 28 April 2025 in newly restored and scanned 4k with hours of new and archival Special Features https://severinfilms.co.uk/
On the 24th of April, the Midlands Art Centre opened its doors to Gobby Flicks Productions for a night of live comedy. Proceeds were raised towards the production of new short comedy films, directed and written by women.
Ti West’s The House of the Devil makes a wonderful companion piece to his film The Innkeepers. Both maintain the director’s referential approach to horror, incapsulating it in a slow burning 90 minutes that manages to build and maintain tension while cheekily winking to the audience and showing the mechanisms behind the scares.