Black Widow review: Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh play sisters in a family-focused backstory for Natasha Romanoff
3 years, 5 months ago

Black Widow review: Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh play sisters in a family-focused backstory for Natasha Romanoff

ABC  

After a two-year absence, the Marvel Cinematic Oppression – sorry, Universe – returns to the big screen with the long-awaited, long-delayed Black Widow, a semi-standalone instalment that sees Scarlett Johansson's Russian ex-spy cut adrift from her Avengers cohort following the events of Captain America: Civil War. Making her blockbuster debut, Australian director Cate Shortland establishes a personal feel in the film's 1995-set prologue, in which a young Natasha Romanoff and her little sister Yelena Belova frolic in the dappled sunlight of suburban Ohio, where kids swing from trees and fireflies circle the sky in a digital reverie. With its harrowing images of child trafficking spliced into geopolitics' greatest hits, all set to one of those gloomy, slowed-down covers of Smells Like Teen Spirit that seems designed for every YA movie trailer circa 2012, Black Widow throws down a bold opening gambit, at least for a Marvel film – a Red Sparrow for the Epstein era, or Lilya 4-ever by way of James Bond. Natasha and Yelena eventually find their way to busting their long-vanished father out of a remote Russian prison, where a now-bearded and tattooed David Harbour is busy arm-wrestling fellow inmates and reminiscing over his days as the Red Guardian – a Cold War superhero who fancied himself Captain America's fearsome nemesis.

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