Goodbye Black Widow, hello new funnier Black Widow!

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Big screen MCU is back! After the painfully long wait of two years, the Marvel train has returned. Following the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, I was always curious what would be next for the MCU. Much of the recent Disney+ shows have been about closure or moving on from the events of the last Avengers movie, but the original plan was for this film to kick off what’s next for the MCU. The funny thing about it, I actually think the break helped give this movie a little more air to remind fans of the MCU (like me) what we enjoy from the many entries that came before.

While we all know the outcome of Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff, it didn’t make this movie less enjoyable to me. Something I originally was slightly skeptical about. It doesn’t lean into the idea of this being this prolonged mourning for Natasha, instead it felt like a greater exploration into her past and the relationships in her youth that kept her from becoming a blood thirsty monster for the rest of her days. It’s the supporting cast of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh, Alexi Shostakov (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) that elevate this movie from what could have been a little dry to being a fun time. Seriously, Yelena is hilarious and I can’t wait to see more of her in the MCU.

Some may complain of Marvel continuing to ignore there villains but in this case it didn’t really bother me. The main bad doesn’t take much to understand so it would have been a waste to spend screen time exploring that. The movie also doesn’t do much in the world of “new things.” There aren’t really new powers, or new toys to speak of. The antagonist is a literal copycat of fighting styles of other characters. So you aren’t getting something you necessarily haven’t seen before, it’s more if you are in for the story.

In terms of what kind of Marvel movie you are getting here, think more of the slightly grounded Captain America movies over say The Avengers or Guardians. The fight scenes are less about blasting people and more close up fights. Some of the fights are actually quite brutal where if they were allowed to include the blood it would be a damn mess in some scenes. Story wise beyond Black Widow herself, it does leave room for some interesting possibilities that could come back to the MCU. As I mentioned earlier, I expect a lot of fun things from Yelena Belova.

As to where this movie falls in the greater rankings of the MCU, I wouldn’t say it’s in my top ten, but it’s not in the bottom ten either. It rests somewhere in the middle. Which to me is something I can easily stand by recommending. For the MCU faithful, the drought is over. Welcome back to the big screen MCU!