Reviews

Written: July 10^th, 2021

  Okay, I have a confession to make. In my initial review that I posted on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram; I may have over exagerrated the greatness of this movie.

  I love Marvel movies. As you can tell by all my reviews, I have seen every single Marvel movie opening weekend, most of the time even the night before opening day.

  The pandemic threw a lot of things our way and I almost had to miss this one. But thanks to them pushing the movie release back, and my getting a vaccine, I was able to go see this in theaters, the night before opening day.

  My initial feelings on this movie can be summed up in what I posted before: "All Marvel fans need to see it. It was a perfect blend of Jason Bourne and Marvel. The casting was perfect, the storyline was intriguing and entertaining, and there was plenty of humor to make this different from any Mission Impossible-Kingsman-007 movie. Watch the movie. Enjoy a well done strong female lead character movie."

  The acting really was exceptional. The casting was perfect in for every character. Even the stunts were so life-like that I was feeling REALLY sorry for the stunt doubles!

  But now we need to talk about the rest of the movie and how I cannot understand why Marvel was so hell-bent on releasing this movie as the first movie of the new Phase 4 storyline.

  This is one of the toughest reviews I have written. Not because I don't know what to say, but because I don't want to say it. I love the movies. And I have been REALLY looking forward to this one. A movie about a strong female character in Marvel is rare. Captain Marvel was okay. I admit that I'm not a big fan of Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, but the movie was excellent and the storyline was on-par with other Marvel movies.

  But this was not like that. It was like someone took a Jason Bourne movie, added superpowers, and gave the lead to Black Widow. She is an ex-spy who finds out that the organization she was trained by is not only still operating, but the person behind it, the person she thought she killed, was still alive and was now mind-controlling all the girls in the Black Widow program. So she sets out, with some help, to take down the organization and find a way to locate all the Black Widows around the world and disconnect them from the mind control they are under.

  David Harbour as Red Guardian was funny, amazing, and perfect for the part. He was my favorite part of the whole movie. I even enjoyed the gender swap they did for Taskmaster. Did NOT see that coming and I loved it. Hope to see more of that character later. Rachel Weisz was beautiful and talented and perfect for the role. Watching her look all old and frumpy in her farm gear only to turn around and wear a Widow suit and...wow! Florence Pugh was perfect as Yelena Belova. Like I said, the acting was superb. Which is great and sad at the same time, because I REALLY wanted movie to work. But I cannot, for the life of me, understand why they even made this movie in the first place! It did nothing for the story of Black Widow.

  Sure it explained a lot of what she went through. But why does that matter? Think about it. She died in Endgame. Even the End Credit scene shows her tombstone. So where is the connection to future Marvel movies? Phase 4 was supposed to be about the Secret Invasion. When Skrulls were found to be secretly replacing heroes and villains in an attempt to conquer Earth.

  Did they explain any of that in this movie? No. Did they hint at or leave it as a possible idea regarding the future? No! They truly failed a HUGE opportunity.

  Back in February I posted on TikTok a theory about this movie. A theory that, if Marvel had just taken a minute or two in the mid-credit scene to show us, would have been epic. Not because it would prove my theory right, but because it would have been a simple two-minute scene that leads right into the other movies AND into the Phase 4 Secret Invasion storyline.

  You can watch my theory by clicking the link above, but here is how the mid-credit scene for Black Widow should have been done, instead of that waste of time they gave us.

  They should have shown Black Widow, with blonde hair and wearing her new vest, approaches the quinjet when a Skrull steps out to confront her. The Skrull tells her they were sent by Nick Fury and that she is needed to somewhere right away. Black Widow says no, but then the Skrull shape-shifts into an exact copy of her, and steps closer, saying "I can find Steve Rogers get to the Avengers better than you. I'm afraid this is urgent."

  See?! So simple. Just a quick scene to show that Natasha was replaced by a Skrull before helping break the other Avengers out of The Raft and long before Infinity War.

  Even better would be a second mid-credit scene where they show us Black Widow fall to her death in order to give Hawkeye the Soul Stone in Endgame. The camera slowly pans down to the bottom of the cliff where we see the body of Black Widow dead on the ground. Suddenly, the body shifts and we see that the Skrull in the previous scene has died in order to help stop Thanos.

  That would have told all us fans that Black Widow, the real one, is still alive and out there and that she didn't really die. That even the Skrulls are trying to help stop Thanos and it leads into the idea of who else is a Skrull besides Black Widow, Nick Fury and Maria Hill.

  But this movie did none of this. It tried to fill in the gaps of Black Widows background and the end credit scene will lead into the Hawkeye streaming series. Which also made me upset. With the success of Wandavision, Loki and Falcon & Winter Soldier; it appears that Marvel is caring more about their streaming shows than the movies. The end credit scene was cool IF you watched Falcon & Winter Soldier, but if you didn't...well, are you a Marvel fan? And also you now have seen something that you won't understand.

  So why was this movie made? Why did Marvel push for it to be released so badly? They wanted it to be seen in theaters so badly they pushed back the release date several times. But...why?

  I admit to being worried. The paranoia in me says that this movie will not live up to the hype Marvel touted and they will use this as a reason why they should not do any more female-led movies. But I also feel like that doesn't add up with the movies already slotted for future release. So then why did they not take this opportunity to use the first Marvel movie in the Phase 4 storyline...to ACTUALLY introduce the Phase 4 storyline?!

  If anyone out there has an idea/theory or actually KNOWS for a FACT, the answer to these questions, PLEASE message me! Like..is she coming back from an alternate timeline? Is the reason Scarlett has been only doing Zoom interviews because she is filming in Doctor Strange 2 and not because she is pregnant? I just don't know.

  Otherwise, you should still go see this movie if for no other reason than to support the amazing acting skills of all involved. Turthfully, the acting was superb. It was just the storyline and what it lacked that made this just another spy movie. Nothing truly special and nothing necessary for future Marvel movies. But still amazing acting!

  That's it. That's all I've got. Is this movie worth seeing again? Maybe once I own it on Blu-ray. I just hope I'm wrong. I hope that something important happened in the movie and it connects to the others yet to come, but I won't know until they are released.

  That's my hope.