The Questyen

I think she's going to end up being fantastic in the MCU but I didn't care for the humor in her post credit scene here (not her fault it is the writers fault) in what was otherwise a moving scene for a character we might not see again and didn't get the huge funeral scene like Stark did. I liked her appearance in Falcon & Winter Soldier.

RichC2

I'm still confused by how Samba TV ratings really work.

Decker

​​​​​​​^ That is totally fair criticism.

rocket1312

I've been pretty down on the MCU the last few years and I've never liked Johansson as Black Widow, so color me surprised to find I really enjoyed this one. It's certainly far from perfect. I thought the big action set-pieces stunk*, and I wish the movie had delivered, tonally speaking, on the promise of the first 30 minutes, but overall I had a lot of fun. The family stuff was great. I thought this was the best version of Natasha we've seen and Yelena is a great addition to the MCU.

Oh, and at OldBoy getting so bent out of shape over William Hurt and his 30 seconds of screentime. After reading his comments I thought for sure he must have had a featured role. What were you, high?

* The end sequence was what it was. The MCU demands a cgi orgy, so that's what we get. But was anyone else as utterly underwhelmed by the prison break as I was? Maybe I just enjoy a good heist scene too much and my expectations were out of line? Furthermore, given all the talk of a red ledger and making up for collateral damage, did the destruction of the prison via avalanche strike anyone else as kind of gross? I know there was nothing onscreen to indicate that everyone died, but that was the gist I got. That it was all played off as a joke didn't sit right with me.

Decker

I really liked the opening "The Americans" sequence. Thought that was very well done. And the car chase in Budapest was great as well (though enough with car chases in Budapest, they're so overused -- damn tax breaks).

Agree that the other set pieces were less impressive.

Josh-da-man

I haven't kept up with Marvel Comics for a long time, but I'm assuming that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character is

dex14

That’s what it seems. And there are many



Hazel Motes

It's 2021 and as much as cinema has evolved, the super villain is still explaining his entire diabolical plan to the protagonist as soon as he thinks he has won.

Decker

While that is always a fair criticism, in this case it is easily explainable since Dreykov knew he was safe due to the pheromone lock and Natasha didn’t.

Decker

Hey look he’s still listed fourth in the Google search for Black Widow cast :

DJariya

https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/bl...-stark-cameo-/

One of the writers of Black Widow said that a version of the script had a Tony Stark cameo. However, it sounds like it would have been just recycled footage from Civil War,.

Draven

I forgot to mention this earlier but I liked the Russian version of the Quinjet - it was neat to see another country’s take on what SHIELD has.

Runaway

It was really stupid that they lost the ability of speaking without a (fake) Russian accent, as soon as there cover was blown and it was weird that in the flashback Red Guardian was a highly skilled super spy and years later a nearly mentally challenged brute. Although I have to say I liked the funny Red Guardian a lot more.

rocket1312

The accent thing made me laugh too. Although it makes sense that they would still speak with an accent when not "in character," I didn't understand why Red Guardian was suddenly speaking in broken cartoon English. Doesn't he use the phrase "make toilet" at one point?

Runaway

It makes no sense at all. The only reason for speaking with a foreign accent is, you just can't speak without it. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't choose to speak the way he does, he just never learnt to speak without the accent.

rocket1312

British actors speak with American accents in movies all the time and then go back to speaking with their own accents. I know it's not exactly the same, but maybe Red Guardian learned English as a second language and was only then forced to speak it unaccented for their mission. Mission over, accent comes back. The point is I can spin that part of it in my brain. The losing fluency part is what I don't get.

Runaway

I have to atone. I just remembered watching an Interview with Christopher Lambert on the Highlander DVD. The Interview was in French and he pronounced "Highlander" with a French accent. I just find it strange to pronounce a word "wrong" if you can pronounce it wright.

Perhaps the time in prison changed Red Guardian so much, he forgot he was a smooth secret agent, who is fluent in English.

devilshalo

This list forgot to include Scarjo's ass. Cate Shortland really like those low shots of that ass in leather. 🍑
I guess if Rogers' is America's ass. Nat's is Russia's?

dhmac

I saw it in the theatre and, well, I think this may be the worst MCU movie yet. Nothing in it worked for me. The tone was all over the place, the drama scenes were dull, the attempts at comedy were lame, and the action was poorly filmed with too much shakycam along with the usual MCU problem of frequently having a big CGI mess on the screen. I was hoping this would be sort of like a female James Bond movie in the MCU but instead there were times that it felt more like a Lifetime Movie of the Week. (Especially those family scenes which did not work at all.)

No other MCU movie has utterly failed for me this much aside from "Thor 2: The Dark World". And like that one, this may be the only other MCU movie I avoid seeing again.

Runaway

I think it's the "most" MCU movie yet. Marvel has a formula they use for every movie. The best movies use the formular as a framework and build around them. So all of their movies have a certain familiarity which is part of the appeal and success. You have movies as different as Captain America: The Winter Soldier or Guardians of the Galaxy and still have the same feel to them.
In my opinion Captain Marvel was the first one which relied to much on the formular and couldn't add to the MCU. Black Widow is raw framework. They added all the parts people like about the MCU, but not a quantum more. The framework is strong enough to save the movie from being bad, but just being OK, isn't what one is expecting when watching a MCU movie.

Kmical

I thought the "Crimson Dynamo" was a very effective buffoon in the movie.

I gave his character props for his late-move rendition of "American Pie".

It showed he remembered the details from their time as a family.

mwbmis

Thought it was pretty meh overall. I really liked the first 30 or 40 minutes, and Pugh was good, but for me the two least interesting characters were the hero and the villain. That's not a good sign. I thought SJ gave a very bland performance, and I never cared anything about Winstone. For the me the movie would have worked better if Weisz was the villain.

There may have been a lot going on, but I was mostly bored by the third act. Given that the characters were basically indestructible no matter happened there just weren't any stakes.

OldBoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocket1312

Oh, and

How am I bent out of shape? I just said I don’t like him in this role in the various, already stated, short scenes he’s in. That’s all.

rocket1312

You really didn't like the movie and it was one of the primary points of criticism in your review. I went in thinking he must have a semi-featured supporting role to even be worth mentioning, but realized that his involvement was pretty much a single scene that could have been played by literally anybody and that I would have missed it if there had been a longer wait at the popcorn line. That was funny to me.

Decker

It’s weird the Hurt who was, legitimately maybe the most famous, biggest movie star in the 80s, is now just doing Marvel cameos on the big screen. He’s done some notable TV work but hasn’t really done any significant movie work since his first appearance in the MCU besides General Ross.