Black Widow

I have nothing against strong female characters who can have men for dinner, as long as they are believable and have some logical basis in the story, but when the core of the villain organization is skinny teenage girls (in other words, 40 kg in wet clothes) who are supposed to take over the world, I do have a problem. Not to mention that the pheromone idea is straight out of my own teenage attempts at literature when I was trying to write science fiction stories. So I'm thinking, Kevin Feige, do you want to hire me as a screenwriter? A little extra money would be nice :o) (26.07.2021)

I was thrilled, about halfway through. Black Widow starts as an unexpectedly dark and adult comic book movie, presenting broken and hesitant heroes and heroines instead of jokes, and surprisingly gritty action that doesn't deny that the creators took inspiration from Jason Bourne and Mission: Impossible. It's also humorless, and for a while it felt like the most mature Marvel movie ever, unafraid of themes you wouldn't quite expect to find there. But then, somehow, it breaks. Halfway through, it's as if the makers decided that their audience probably doesn't actually crave something like this and went back to their old ways of playing it safe, give or take. Black Widow does even that well, and when you take away the not-so-good contact action scenes and the weaker Taskmaster, it's at least a solid job and an inoffensive Marvel average. It just felt a little too little when they went with a more mature yet fully functioning style in the first part. I don't want to make it sound like Black Widow is a bad movie. It's a well-done comic-book routine, but as a viewer, I'm not completely satisfied with that anymore. Especially when Scarlet Johansson and her crew managed to show me that they can do better. (08.07.2021)

After almost two years, a Marvel movie finally hit the cinemas and the result is nothing to write home about. For me, a pretty useless movie about a useless character. The first hour is surprisingly solid, it's well paced, the action is kept down to earth and the fights have decent choreography – they're Bourne style so I enjoyed them. I'm also pleased with Florence Pugh, whom I like a lot, and the Taskmaster's entrance is awesome. By the second hour, however, I felt that perhaps the director had been replaced, the action goes by the wayside, and so does the fun goes, the humour is completely absent, the Taskmaster goes by the wayside! (it's reprehensible to sideline such an interesting villain like that!), and the finale was perhaps the weakest of all the action scenes, so I'm quite disappointed. I rate the first half as 8/10, the second half is about 5-6, and in the end I'm rounding up more towards 6, because for Marvel I found it unbalanced, the effects aren't too dazzling either, it felt a bit like it was going half throttle and quite possibly the first Marvel movie I definitely won't watch again. Story 3/5, Action 3/5, Humor 1/5, Violence 0/5, Fun 3/5 Music 2/5, Visuals 3/5, Atmosphere 3/5, Suspense 3/5. 6/10. (20.07.2021)

Never trust doomsayers. A true blue Marvel movie, targeted at ladies, but not at all dumb. The introduction is awesome, dark and uncompromising, then it gets into the old rut, but the second half is more than just good too. Infantile humor made at the expense of Harvey Weinstein and tops it all with a family-flavor sauce made by Disney. The ending is strangely cut short (it lacks elimination of Ross or an explanation of whether or not it was Kapo who helped), but due it being set during the Civil War, that is more or less understandable. The biggest surprise the Widow holds is David Harbour and the whole over-the-top prison escape. We want a series spin-off with Crimson Dynamo! And Florence Pugh steals the whole show in the end. Such a poser. (12.07.2021)

Es ist unglaublich schade, dass es nicht gelungen ist, Black Widow einen Monat nach Wonder Woman 1984 in die Kinos zu bringen, das hätte eine tolle weibliche Combo sein können. So wirkt es nicht mehr ganz so. So sind in der Zwischenzeit Captain Marvel und die Serie WandaVision durchgezischt, denn der Beginn von Phase 4 des MCU fällt in die Zeit des Misstrauens in die von Covid gestörte Medienwelt. Dennoch ist die Begegnung mit Scarlett Johansson als Solodarstellerin, die von Florence Pugh und Rachel Weisz tatkräftig unterstützt wird, ausgesprochen unterhaltsam. Die Action ist traditionell ironisch überdreht, Fans des Kalten Krieges kommen auf ihre Kosten, und der Reiseführer empfiehlt diesmal Budapest. (12.07.2021)

The first half is great, it has a dark intro, raw, tight fights and great eye candy FX moments (the chimney scene, WOW!). I almost wouldn't be afraid to say that the first ten minutes not only form a decent backdrop for the origin of a character we don't really know much about, but it also has the emotional edge and directness that was so very good in Winter Soldier, for example. But once it swings into the second part, it becomes more of a comedy, because as it’s usual with comic-book films, few and far between don't go "check all the boxes" style – or rather, they have to please everyone. And so suddenly, the deadly serious-looking film becomes almost a merry-go-round, and it's completely buried from the higher rungs by the insanely over-the-top finale. Florence Pugh is the best, the characters are OK overall, just a bit messily put together. It still has the hallmarks of a bombastic high budget film, but in this version it could have come before the battle and not after. (12.07.2021)

I'm sorry to say it, but this is the most useless Marvel movie for me so far. I don't feel like it contributed at all to the MCU - it was created simply because the fans wanted a Black Widow solo film (and to find out what was in Budapest so that there would be peace) and Scarlett Johansson after Endgame probably didn't mind either. It's such a wasted chance, the film stays in its lane from start to finish, and although the action scenes are pleasantly and deliberately exaggerated (it's no coincidence that Natasha is watching Moonraker) and the main characters and heroes seem even more indestructible than Jason Bourne or any Terminator, which makes sense when I couldn't form any relationship with most of the characters during that fast ride, and in the end I didn't care what happened to anyone. Unfortunately, this also applies to Taskmaster, who is suddenly just there, and according to the creators we should be afraid of him, but we can't be, because it is clear to us that this is not the type of film in which the villain could win or at least come to a draw. There are jokes in Whedon’s style, and you can forget about any tension. If Black Widow can bring anything to the MCU in the future, then perhaps only the return of Florence Pugh and David Harbour. They would both make me happy. But there was no need to tell this Black Widow story. (07.07.2021)

Marvel flieht nun nur vor seinen Schulden aus der Vergangenheit und stiehlt alles Mögliche vom Die Bourne Identität bis zum unterschätzten Bond-Film Im Geheimdienst Ihrer Majestät, und das in einer so faden und dummen Ausführung, dass es selbst die treuesten Fans des gesamten Superhelden-Franchise enttäuschen muss. Es ist nicht so ein billiger, wenig sympathischer Hauptcharakter wie Captain Marvel, aber dennoch ist es ein unnötiger Film und reine Popcorn-Unterhaltung. (14.07.2021)

Nach dem niederschmetternden Endgame hatte ich mich sehr auf ein Wiedersehen mit "Natasha" gefreut, so dass ich einen abendfüllenden "Schwarze-Witwe-Film" sehr begrüßte. Was das Schauspielensemble angeht, so ist dies ein anständig besetzter Marvel-Film, bei dem jeder der vier Hauptdarsteller an der richtigen Stelle sitzt und die Nebenfiguren überzeugen. Visuell glänzt der Film vor allem in der zweiten Hälfte mit flotter und schön arrangierter Action, auch wenn es ein paar "Over-the-Top-Momente" gab, die man bei ähnlichen Filmen mit Vorsicht genießen muss. Vom Drehbuch her ist Black Widow im Vergleich zu den MCU-Teams etwas weniger vielschichtig, aber die Filmemacher haben sich trotzdem einige überraschende Momente einfallen lassen. Ich lobe auch die Abspann-Szene und bin gespannt auf den Nachfolgefilm. Schwächere vier Sterne! (18.07.2021)

Scarlett Johansson und ihre Figur haben sich endlich einen eigenständigen Film verdient. Es hat mehrere Jahre gedauert, wir haben gewartet, und in der ersten Hälfte habe ich mir gesagt, dass sich das Warten gelohnt hat. Doch die zweite Hälfte glitt in Schaumschlägerei, witziges und nicht witziges Sprüchedreschen und schwächere Action ab. Insgesamt Durchschnitt, trotzdem waren die Umstände günstig, wieder Kino, sogar Sommerkino und ein Filmwochenende der FilmBooster, also waren die Eindrücke schließlich positiv. (01.08.2021)

After a two-year cinematic hiatus in the MCU, we got to see another Avengers solo film and I'm actually quite pleased. It might be the twenty-fourth time of basically the same thing, but in many ways it's still a very good mainstream production. A strong female element is very much present, but I can't say I mind that in any way. On the contrary, I think that the whole crew around Feige know how to work with those contemporary paradigms with due flair and grace. The first half delights with a very dark thriller atmosphere, which is appealingly reminiscent of the second and third Captain America films. Despite the top-notch action sequences, Black Widow doesn't avoid the expected schematic quality in its second half, where its initial cheesiness is replaced with the typical Marvel formula that ultimately places this solo effort in the broader MCU average. Which is certainly not a bad thing. [65%] (07.07.2021)

Black Widow currently holds the title of the "weakest Marvel movie ever". It is sloppily narrated, doesn't make much sense, and its terrible special effects set the entire superhero genre back 20 years or so. In fact, it's not even a superhero movie, just a run-of-the-mill action flick whose action scenes look truly pathetic. The typical Marvel humor is completely absent, which might not be that big of an issue. What's worse is that Black Widow has virtually zero connection to the MCU, rendering the film basically pointless. Scarlett got what she wanted from the Marvel big shots and got to star in a solo movie for which she was duly paid, only it was so forced that this entire film seems virtually irrelevant to the MCU, and it makes me sorry because Black Widow got an awesome send-off in Endgame. (21.07.2021)