
150 Word Review: ‘Black Widow’ (2021)
Scarlett Johansson's MCU farewell is a good time
I will spare you my Marvel movie list but Black Widow is closer to my #1, Guardians of the Galaxy, than my least favorite, Thor: Dark World. Postponed by the pandemic, Black Widow stars Scarlett Johansson as the grim Russian assassin-turned-superhero hunting the man who turned her into a killer. Spoiler alert: this thriller takes place before Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff sacrifices her life to save the universe in the mega-hit Avengers: Endgame.
This hunt leads her to the closest thing she ever had to a family, three undercover Russian secret agents. As Johansson’s pretend sister Florence Pugh is a scene-stealing riot. David Harbor stars as Red Guardian, a paunchy, tattooed Russian super-soldier, an unfortunate father figure, and Rachel Weisz is the brains. All three are funny and flawed and you’ll forgive their cartoonish accents.
Johansson’s swan song is non-stop acrobatic ass-kicking and CGI ‘splosions, but there’s plenty of humanity, too.
