In the comics she’s gotten versions of knock off Russian super soldier serum. MCU? no, she really should be dead.
She should be dead in the same way James Bond, Ethan Hunt, John Wick, and Dominic Toretto should be dead.
Somehow it seems worse with her and Jeremy Renner’s arrow-guy character. They are fighting along side an actual god. At least Natasha has a gun and not a bow. But if something (no spoiler) can hurt a super-soldier-serum person, it should kill Natasha. The James Bond, Ethan Hunt, John Wick, and Dominic Toretto films have an an internal logic.
Just watched it with some friends (streaming). I thought it was…ok. It had some well-done action sequences, and some good character bits.
I really liked Florence Pugh/Yelena, and thought she kind of stole the movie, which is probably for the best …she’s going to be the new Black Widow in Phase 4, right?
The bit with Taskmaster…I did not see Taskmaster’s identity coming at all. I’m a comics geek, so I was properly misdirected by my knowledge of the comic book version. I’m perfectly fine with the MCU version, but it seemed like kind of a weird waste to have a Olga Kurylenko in what was essentially a cameo with no lines. Maybe she’s going to be a relatively major character in Phase 4?
I agree, there were several scenes where, even by action movie standards, it seemed like Black Widow should have been pulverized. It was hard for me to maintain suspension of disbelief.
The movie also seemed a bit disjointed to me. It also seemed to very heavily rely on the audience remembering character and plot elements from Avengers, Age of Ultron, and Civil War. I think of all of the stand-along movies, this one relied by far the most on audience familiarity with the broader MCU, to a fault. I realize they didn’t want to spend half the movie rehashing character and plot points from previous movies, and off-hand I can’t think of a good way to organically incorporate that without getting bogged down in flashbacks and exposition, but…like I said, it just felt a bit disjointed to me.
Overall…like, I said, ok. But, again, I really liked Yelena, and…I’m looking forward to seeing her as the new Black Widow, if that’s the plan, in Phase 4. So, as a set up for that, at least, I think the movie succeeded.
It was a well-made movie, but the hand-to-hand combat scenes were poorly choreographed, shot and edited. Cate Shortland is a good director, but she’s not that good an action movie director. It’s a shame.
The old Russian dude in charge said something like, “Begin the Taskmaster Protocol” or something like that and then they showed the Taskmaster.
I’m fine with them ret-conning Taskmaster for the MCU, but I just wish they had done more with her powers of mimicry. Did she have anybody other than Cap and Hawkeye in her bag of tricks?
ETA: Can we drop the spoiler tag, yet?
Black Panther. She was copying Black Widow as they fought also.
Yes, TM does the Black Panther claws out pose, and in the first fight between TM and BW they trade the thighs-around-the-head takedown, then confront each other in identical stances (or as Yelena would point out, poses). TM also uses a sword, and is presumably copying someone for that - maybe Clint-as-Ronin? Beyond that, without a voice-over or inner monologue or comic book text boxes, TM could have been using a dozen different characters’ fighting styles, and there wouldn’t really be any way for the viewer to pick that up.
I agree, though, the movie short-changes TM. It should have been a much bigger and more explicit tactical challenge to defeat someone who can mirror your every move and has the moves of Captain America, Hawkeye/Ronin, Black Panther, etc. It also would have been a good time to slip in a reference to Shang-Chi - or Iron Fist, or White Tiger, or any number of other second- and third-tier Marvel characters who haven’t turned up in the MCU yet. (At the goofier end of the MCU, Taskmaster would be shouting out their fighting styles and moves as they used them, but Black Widow seemed aimed at the more self-serious end).
I have no familiarity with these characters beyond what is shown onscreen in the movies, so regarding Taskmaster (who I didn’t even know until reading reviews afterwards that that was the characters name) I predicted who she would be pretty early on. I didn’t think there was any way they’d have the lead in a Marvel movie that we are supposed to root for actually kill a little girl on purpose. Since Drakov survived the explosion I thought it pretty likely the girl did as well and since we haven’t seen her pop up on screen and the identity of Taskmaster appears to be a secret, pretty obvious that is who that character will be.
Saw it yesterday. I liked “The Americans” feel at the beginning. Too bad the whole family subplot basically turned into an extended joke. The action was OTT as usual. I would have preferred a more Jason Bourne type action but if course that’s not gonna happen in a Marvel movie.
Is Black Widow super powered? How is she surviving several multi story falls without missing a beat? If she is, how did she get them?
I could forgive the OTT action, but honestly I found the “downtime” scenes pretty boring too.
6/10 One of the weaker Marvel movies
This is a common thing in superhero movies and Marvel movies in particular; people, even those who are not supernaturally gifted, take levels of physical damage that are visibly preposterous to the point of briefly removing you from your suspension of disbelief.
I know, it’s just never been this blatant. I never went “holy shit how are they alive after that” before.
I tend to agree, having them avoid such impacts with an unreasonably cat like grace, or going meta like they did for the 3 point landings, would have been preferable to just taking multiple hits that, if they don’t break bones, leave you limping for a week. They could have toned down the action a bit and given the drama a bit more breathing space for my taste.
BTW, I loved the poser gag, and judging by the re-posts on youtube, I’m not the only one.
Saw it via Disney+.
I was surprised about how forward in time it takes place. I was expecting something farther in the past. But they did a good job with where it was.
The relationship between the two leads was great. The initial hostility (with the trope of two heroes have to fight when they first meet to establish their capabilities) and then a nice arc of development between them. Including the stinger at the end.
The action was way, way over the top. I want to buy whatever cars she had, because to be able to walk away from all the various explosions and crashes was unbelievable. I did enjoy the action, but there’s a limit where more explosions, more crashes, more whatever doesn’t add to the movie-watching experience.
I liked the martial arts. It felt more like a desperate struggle to survive than an overly scripted dance.
I loved daddy spy. I hope he gets minor roles in other movies.
I loved the new protagonist and hope she’s in lots of upcoming movies. They better keep her dry sense of humor.
I thought it was a middle-of-the-pack Marvel movie, which is pretty good. The plot did seem a bit scattered, and there were some character choices that were a bit convenient, but overall the plot was fine.
For the action stuff, I’m just going with the idea that she was given some kind of super-serum-style treatment during the widow training at some point.
Which makes sense, since she was trained/conditioned by the same group that supposedly gave the serum to Red Guardian.
Opening weekend was really good. Maybe better than if there were no pandemic. While it made only $80 million in theaters, it made another $60 million on Disney+. Without taking into consideration new subscriptions, this is probably equivalent to a $200 theater-only opening for Disney/Marvel.
There’s a bit in a recent comic where Taskmaster is fighting someone, and every panel says something like, “That One Kick Daredevil Does!” or “That Time Captain America Threw Me Out of a Window!” At the end of the sequence, he thinks to himself, “If I’d actually trained in these styles, I’d probably know what all these moves are called.”
I’m not terribly current on Marvel Comics, but I remember Taskmaster having a series where he was a sort of anti-hero, maybe a decade or so ago?, and it had a similar sort of humor, that I enjoyed.