Black Widow

If Black Widow had come out on time last year, it might have felt like a victory lap after Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. But while movie theaters saw few new movies the past 16 months, the Marvel Cinematic Universe kept chugging along on Disney’s streaming arm. So, Scarlett Johansson’s heroine finally gets a movie of her own (and a solid one), but after the universe has moved on.

It would almost be a pity, except the film is already sort of a throwback, and would have been even if it wasn’t delayed for 14 months. Set in the aftermath of Captain America: Civil War (which is set, and came out, five long years ago), it finds Johansson’s title Avenger on the run and trying to live off the grid. She soon crosses paths with her “sister” from her pre-S.H.I.E.L.D. assassin days (Florence Pugh). Hunted by the shadowy organization that trained them both, the two set out to find their surrogate parents/former handlers (David Harbour and Rachel Weisz) and free countless others who have been turned into assassins via mind control.

At first, this one feels like a darker entry in the vein of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The plot goes to some dark places. There’s less superpowered stuff, and the shootouts and hand-to-hand fights are (slightly) more real and rough. The humor is snider than Marvel’s usual banter, cutting the tension instead of setting the tone. Even the heroes wrestle with some terrible things they've done, and Ray Winstone is a terrific foil, expertly towing the line between scene-chewing comic book baddie and truly evil.

The film doesn’t sustain this, though. About halfway through, it loosens up and becomes standard Marvel fare, lighter and fun instead of heavy and dark. Mostly, that’s okay. The action scenes are a good time, and the cast is having a ball, with Harbour in particular getting a lot of laughs. The finale is a spectacle, combining some fantastical superhero mayhem with a few fun twists right out of Mission: Impossible. And Johansson carries it all well enough that one laments her character only gets to be the lead now (indeed, her character was rather underutilized prior to this, and her final fate in Endgame was dealt with a bit shabbily—but that’s another conversation).

Black Widow is the usual fun time offered by a Marvel movie, and that’s enough (being my first time in a theater in 16 months, that’s all it really needed to be for me). And yet, I can’t help but wish it had broken the mold a bit more, or at least stuck with its initial tone and saw it through. Since the film’s original planned release date last May, MCU streaming series like WandaVision and Loki have shown a willingness to be more experimental and strange, and the franchise’s upcoming film slate looks like a completely new direction. If Black Widow had done the same, it might have stood out and made more of a statement, rather than just being one last curtain call for the first era of the MCU.