Black Widow: Eaten Alive - SPOILERS

Let's start this off right. If you haven't watched the Black Widow and expect to, then turn away now as this review will easily have spoilers. Scroll down if you're ready to read.

Was that enough time? Ok good. So right out of the gate, this was the first Marvel movie I really had no interest in seeing. And being that this is the first Marvel film since Endgame, there actually was some pressure to perform. For me, I already knew who Black Widow was. I knew her story and worse off, I knew her ending in the MCU. For me this really hurt the film before it even began; I knew she would be ok because the film takes place after Civil War but before Infinity War. Being that she's in the movie post Infinity War, needless to say, she's going to live. Because of this, the stakes weren't really high. It was hard to get emotionally involved worrying about the character, unlike Endgame where I cried when she died. 

Photo from Polygon

All that aside, the movie started off great. I was ten minutes in saying to myself, "Wow, I'm loving this actually." The introduction to The Taskmaster was well done. The character was foreboding and literally kicked Black Widow's ass in their first meet up. A nice, unexpected piece. Usually the hero automatically wins, and that gave me hope that this would be a more down-to-earth, gritty movie. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. The first half of the movie I was super invested in: the pacing was great, the action was on par with some of the best fighting chorography that I've seen, the writing seemed top notch. Then, almost like a light switch being flicked off, all that was thrown out the window for the "Michael Bay" effect. This isn't an official term, rather a Tim term for a movie that consists of "pow pow, boom boom, explosion, chase, explosion, pew pew, explosion". Basically the entire Transformers saga of films. "Let's not worry about script, character development, or even sense. As long as things blow up, the audience will like it". And that my friends, is the latter half of Black Widow.

Specifically the prison scene was engorging with all that. Little sense for the whole scene to exist at all aside from the "Michael Bay" effect. Black Widow is that, a Black Widow; master assassin...that attempts to break someone out of prison like a bull in a china shop. She and her sister could have had a stealth plan, I could have gotten behind that, but where would the explosions be then? I digress.

Photo from The New York Times

Then there's Taskmaster. Oh dear Taskmaster. I had an issue with Taskmaster as soon as I watched the trailer for the movie years ago now. Right away, I really didn't like the costume design. Yes, yes I understand they are going for some form of realism, but in the MCU we've accepted the Red Skull, aliens, mutations (not mutants...yet), so in that aspect, I didn't understand the choice. But I thought, whatever. It's a small gripe. Until....the movie never really used Taskmaster after the first appearance. Sure, SHE's there in the movie, but she's never utilized. And for those of you that have not seen the movie yet, but know the comics, yes you read that right. She. As in they changed Taskmaster's gender. Look, I'm all for girl power. I love Captain Marvel where many don't. I love Gamora, Mantis and I'm really looking forward to Jane taking up Thor's mantle later this year. But was changing Taskmaster's gender needed? Changing Taskmaster to a female added absolutely nothing to the character. Even in the MCU changing the Taskmaster's origin story, it could have simply been a little boy rathe rather than a little girl. I suppose the audience was supposed to feel more connected to the characters as a whole because a vast majority of the movie were females. Like the moment near the end where Black Widow's sister held Taskmaster's hand. I assume that was meant to be heart felt, but for me fell flat. There was no lead up to that moment. No moment of Taskmaster's reckoning. No arc for Taskmaster at all. Like Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker, they simply didn't earn that moment. Most of the characters fell into this trope of being 1 or 2 dimensional. They all lacked some real substance and felt cheap or fake with the exception of Black Widow herself. As always, Scarlett Johansson delivered. She was emotional, empathetic, fragile and strong. Just as he character called for. The rest, well, although I know they are all great actors and actresses, they were easily second banana here. Most showed no heart or soul in their characters and that makes me at least, feel as though they don't matter. 

Photo from The Global Herald

The movie did a poor job of telling the viewer when in time the story took place as well. I watch most of this stuff. I know the comics fairly well so I was able to piece together when in the MCU timeline this roughly sat. As for the average viewer, I could easily seem some scratching their heads. There's so little talk about the overall MCU. It almost felt like the movie was designed to be completely stand-alone like Joker from DC, but then it realized it really wasn't stand-alone and had to keep reminding the audience that Black Widow is/was an Avenger. They must have mentioned that at least 4 times to the point where I found myself internally saying "Yeah we know she's a part of the team". The story didn't intertwine with anyone else's story until the after credits scene, which felt very, very shoe-horned in place to me.

All in all, I enjoyed about half the movie. One thing I will say is watching this Marvel movie has got me back in the groove of wanting to watch MCU content. I was feeling very meh about all the new content and now I'm finding myself looking forward and past this movie. 

Overall score: 5 out of 10 stars

Pros:

- Fight choreography was incredibly well done. 

- Action pacing of the movie was really well done.

- Added new characters to the MCU, whether we needed them or not.

Cons:

- Virtually no emotional involvement. 

- Had no real tie-ins to the the overall MCU.

- Character arcs were flimsy at best and generally non-existent.