QANON Marvel.
What a relief. The last movie I had seen in a theater was the underwhelming Wendy in early 2020. It was good to be back and watching a popcorn blockbuster no less, Marvel’s long delayed “Black Widow” starring Scarlett Johansson as the title hero. Critics deride these movies, but having been deprived of watching them on the big screen in a dark room with a bunch of other people for so long, their pleasures are more apparent. I wanted action, funny quips, ridiculous set pieces, and just enough pathos to be interested in the characters. I got that. “Black Widow” is a mediocre Marvel movie about one of their lesser superheroes. That’s fine. Marvel understands (unlike say D.C. sometimes) that not every movie should have apocalyptic stakes. After the end of the Infinity Saga, it was a good idea to scale back the ambition and start anew. “Black Widow” does just that, ridding itself of aliens and magical superpowers, and focusing on martial arts and relatively plausible special effects. Not that a flying fortress is plausible its just more plausible than an infinity stone.
“Black Widow” holds a strange place in the pantheon of Marvel movies. It has been released after the end of the Infinity Saga but contains the origin story of a character that was first introduced in “Iron Man 2” and that has appeared multiple times, with major roles in the Captain America and Avengers films. In the last Avengers film, Endgame, the character died. The main plot of this story takes place between “Captain America: Civil War” and “Avengers: Infinity War”. After taking the time to explain all of this, I can now inform you that it doesn’t really matter. Somehow any standalone Marvel movie can exist by itself. There are references to other events in other movies but I don’t think you really need to know what they are to get what is happening immediately on screen.
Black Widow’s story may be summarized as follows. She has no biological family. She was kidnapped by the Soviet government at birth to be a part of a program that trains/brainwashes girls to become deadly assassins called Black Widows. Her first mission occurred when she was ten (give or take?) and placed in a fake family of other spies that acted as a sleeper cell in the USA. After that mission ended, the family was separated, Black Widow did a bunch of stuff, defected to the Avengers, and after betraying the USA in “Captain America: Civil War” (go Team Iron Man) headed back to eastern Europe to lie low for a bit. There she is contacted by her old “family” and pursues revenge against the man and/or organization that indoctrinated her.
Her family is made up of talented actors that make their first appearances in the Marvel universe. First is David Harbour playing Alexie aka The Red Guardian who was Natasha’s fake father. He is the Soviet version of Captain America, except the government got jealous of his abilities and imprisoned him in a gulag. Then there is Florence Pugh (graduating from great movies to blockbusters) who plays Yelena Belova. She is Natasha’s fake sister that has recently taken the antitoxin that reverses the brainwashing. Finally there is Rachel Weisz who plays Melina, Natasha’s fake mother. She is the scientist behind the brainwashing serum. In one scene they have a fake family dinner and engage in fake family fights. It’s interesting to watch.
The evil conspiracy herein deserves to be delved into a little bit. There is this secret Soviet organization that is so powerful that it has outlived the Soviet state. It kidnaps and trains girls from a young age to be martial arts assassins and employs them covertly around the world. Such girls work for shady elites that use their skills at infiltration and coercion to control foreign governments. Does this sound at all like QANON to anybody? There are distinct parallels. QANON says that the world is governed by a secretive elite that worships Satan and runs a global child-trafficking scheme. The only thing really missing here in Black Widow is the pedophilia. The absence of sex doesn’t quite make sense (and I believe Black Widow was introduced way back when with super sexual wiles) because if an evil super secret organization is going to take the time and effort to kidnap and brainwash girls exclusive to boys, why would they use them only for violence. But hey, Marvel is a Disney corporation. Otherwise the sheer ridiculousness of the evil scheme is on the same level as QANON. I wonder sometimes whether a company like Marvel should exert some more thought in how it constructs the reality and philosophical outlook of its blockbusters given just how many people around the world are bound to see its movies. Have you seen the trailer for “The Eternals”. Isn’t Marvel basically creating a new religion? Is it okay for this company to make and market nonsense to hundreds of millions of people? I think it probably is okay, by the way, I’m just asking out of curiosity.
A notable absence from “Black Widow” is any preaching about feminism. This is very welcome. It could have been done in all sorts of places, but instead of the movie “telling” us all about it, it instead just “showed” us and had enough trust that the audience would get it. This is the first time I have seen in which thirty girls in a room perform a martial arts battle royale brawl. I had fun watching it and was grateful that no-one in the movie told me that I should have fun watching it. The movie was directed by Cate Shortland who has proved handily that a woman can make a corporate work of art bereft of individual style as well as any man. She’s got a long and lucrative career ahead of her in this business.
The stupidest thing in the movie is its main set piece. There is plenty of talk in the movie about how the secret organization cannot be found and is not on any map. Turns out, people can’t find it because its a sky fortress that, I don’t know, hides behind clouds or something. It is at least nice to know that our enemies are just as capable of wasting a gigantic amount of taxpayer money on ridiculous bullshit just like the Americans did by building that flying aircraft carrier in “The Avengers”. But I am being unfair here. As it concerns the flying fortress, Marvel follows that sage movie wisdom of “Bridge on the River Kwai”: If you build it, it must be destroyed. The best action in this movie involves Black Widow’s aerial escape from an exploding sky fortress. I must admit, it was pretty cool.
The last thing to mention is Scarlett Johannson’s lawsuit against Marvel. Her deal involved her getting a portion of the box office receipts of “Black Widow”, which would have ran in theaters for many months before being released on DVDs or streaming. However, due to COVID-19 pandemic, Marvel changed the plans for the movie’s release, making it available to stream on Disney+ on the same day of its wide release in theaters. On Disney+, one can rent “Black Widow” for thirty dollars and presumably Scarlett does not get any portion that. It seems to me like she has a case and since the damages may very well be in the millions of dollars, it warranted a lawsuit. I would be very interested to hear how this one turns out.
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