A Black Widow solo movie was an obvious choice to happen at some point….it’s too bad it happened way too late. With that said Black Widow is one of those MCU movies where I lost interest for quite some time until maybe a couple weeks before it’s release when I became interested. Black Widow unfortunately does very little to change up anything in the MCU, I’ll start with what I really liked because I certainly don’t think this is a bad movie by any means. The opening I thought was actually pretty well done combined with the cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit (which was actually used in the trailer for The Gallows) was pretty great and a very dark atmosphere to it….it’s just a huge shame the rest of the movie couldn’t live up to that. Florence Pugh gives a fantastic performance and is the reason why I would say to check it out if you want. She has so much power in her role and really delivers whenever she’s on screen, she continues to show why she’s one of the best actresses working today. I will give Black Widow this it definitely makes me excited to see Florence Pugh’s future in the MCU. Finally there’s a few action scenes which I liked nothing mind blowing but a lot of fun and then the end credit scene which I won’t spoil but I found it interesting. Now on to the problems I had with Black Widow, for starters the movie itself felt like it was playing way too safe to the point where it starts to dip into below average territory. The pacing was dreadful combine that with the running time that goes by painstakingly slow and it becomes a very uninteresting movie. The writing while it does have it’s moments is really nothing special at all, the biggest problem however is with the villain “Taskmaster” which is another case of the MCU taking a fantastic villain that has so much potential and completely failing. The only way I’m going to be able to talk about this is if I give some slight spoilers so skip if you haven’t seen it! Anyway the reveal of Taskmaster is completely ridiculous it’s a character who had a total of 3 lines in the entire movie, I am all for changing the character however said character must have actual development and build up which isn’t what happened here. It’s the equivalent of Roy Burns being reveled as the killer in Friday The 13th: A New Beginning a character who had a total of one scene (as far as I remember). So seeing this happen in Black Widow is very baffling to be quite honest, finally there’s the rest of the cast which all do a fair job but nothing absolutely spectacular Rachel Weisz I will say other than Florence Pugh is another standout! Overall Black Widow is one of the movies in the MCU that really could have been more, however they went with the safest option. Being safe is not always a bad thing and I get the MCU is going to have it’s not so good movies like any other franchise. However by the end Black Widow only leaves you with being excited for Florence Pugh and not much else.

Black Widow is now in theaters and on Disney Plus Premier Access!

5/10 C