Back from the dead
BLACK WIDOW
Cert 12A ★★★
In cinemas and on Disney+ now
At least a dozen dead characters were brought back to life in Avengers: Endgame so there must be a shortage of peril in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.
But unlike that 2019 film, at least they haven’t resorted to time travel to give Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff a belated solo movie.
Black Widow is a two-and-a-half-hour flashback for a character who was still toast when Endgame’s credits rolled.
The main action takes place after 2016’s Captain America: Civil War as the outlawed Avenger uses her time on the run to confront her past. The film is a curious blend of Roger Moore-era Bond (there are knowing references to Moonraker), knockabout comedy and a dark drama about female subjugation.
An opening flashback to 1995 reveals a young Natasha was part of a sleeper cell of Russian agents hiding in suburban Ohio with fake parents (David Harbour and Rachel Weisz) and an orphan who unwittingly played her younger sister Yelena.
When we jump forward 21 years, Natasha is on the trail of Dreykov (Ray Winstone, still rubbish at accents), the Russian general who turned Natasha and her “sister” into chemically controlled assassins after they fled America. After reuniting with Yelena (Florence Pugh), they track down their fake mum and dad and set off to take down Dreykov and his cyborg assassin Taskmaster.
There’s some amusing banter for Pugh and Johansson, and Harbour hams it up as nicely as a former Soviet superhero who has gone to seed.
But the attempts to add shade to Natasha’s character are always interrupted by the next action scene.
The finale, another airborne scrap with things blowing up in the background, is well staged but familiar.
Black Widow is an entertaining diversion and an opportunity missed.
‘‘ The outlawed Avenger uses her time on the run to confront her past