Black Widow - Too Little Too Late?
If you’re thinking that this seems a little…off brand you are superficially right. I am going to talk about a movie but I promise I’ll bring it back around to something on topic. Just bear with me. And this post might have spoilers for Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies so be careful if you haven’t seen them yet.
For the Marvel movie fans it’s been a rough couple of years. After getting all three of the 2019 films over four months at the beginning of the year (Captain Marvel, Avengers: Endgame, and Spider-Man: Far from Home between March and July) we entered a long wait after COVID-19 delayed the 2020 slate of films. Fortunately the MCU television series (WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the currently running Loki) have held us over. But I, and probably many other, are ready for the first Phase 4 movie. Unfortunately that movie is going to be Black Widow (the previous movies, from Iron Man in 2008 to Spider-Man: Far from Home in 2019 were Phases 1-3. Check out the Wikipedia page).
Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited for Black Widow, but it’s hard not to feel like the film is getting shoehorned into the MCU, maybe as a response to the success of DC’s Wonder Woman a couple of years ago. I absolutely think that Scarlett Johansson deserves a standalone film and I’m thrilled to see her get it. But after all the chaos of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame plus the ending of Spider-Man: Far from Home, a movie set almost an entire phase ago seems a little disappointing. See Black Widow takes place after Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which was a Phase 2 film between the crossover films Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. It takes place after a movie that came out in 2014. In the timeline of the movie universe that’s more than 10 years ago.
But why is this a problem? Bother Captain America: The First Avenger and Captain Marvel take place much earlier in the timeline but I’m not complaining about those. The reason being that both of those films were necessary to create the movies going forward. Captain America needed to have his story told before the first big crossover in Avengers and Captain Marvel needed to be introduced before she showed up in Avengers: Endgame. The problem with Black Widow of course is that the titular character is dead, having been killed in Avengers: Endgame to help stop Thanos. That makes this movie feel sort of hollow. I, and probably many other people, want to know where the story is going to go after everything that happened in the last two movies and the Disney+ TV shows, but Black Widow is going to tell a story ten years in the past. Had the movie come out in 2015 after Captain America: The Winter Soldier I would have been much more excited. But now it just seems like it’s making us wait to see what happens next.
That being said there are two reasons to be excited. The first is that they could do something in the movie that ties into what is happening now. Introduce a character or start some event. The second is the fights.
I told you I was going to make this post topical to the blog. Fights. Johansson’s character often takes a back seat to the more powerful characters around her. The filmmakers have done an admirable job giving her something to do and a way to fight so she still feels like a necessary part (as opposed to Batman in Justice League where the filmmakers seemed to have a much more difficult time making him relevant when surrounded by more powerful characters) but the attention still seems to often be on other characters. But without those other characters she’ll hopefully have the chance to shine.
Who remembers 2010’s Iron Man 2 (oh man how is that more than a decade old?)? That movie had an excellent scene where Iron Man was flying around fighting Whiplash’s remote controlled armors and lack Widow and Jon Favrau’s Happy Hogan try to shut them down. While Happy is fighting the first guy Black Widow just rolls through all the rest of security (here’s the scene). I’m hoping that the Black Widow movie is going to have lots of scenes like that one and honestly that gets me pretty excited.
Edit - I read that Black Widow comes after Captain America: Civil War, not Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Although that makes it more recent than I thought when I wrote the post, I still think it would have been better if it had come out then.
I honestly feel like unless this movie adds something to the MCU where it currently is then then movie really needed to come out after Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But that being said I can’t pretend I’m not excited for the potential fight scenes.
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