Movie Review: Black Widow (PG13 – 143 minutes)

 

After so many delays, it was an absolute delight to see Black Widow in a theater nearly full of Marvel fans. 

In case you are a casual Marvel Cinematic Universe fan who only saw Endgame – do yourself a favor and watch all twenty plus movies – but beside that you may be wondering how Black Widow can be starring in her own movie when she is clearly dead, having sacrificed herself to ensure the survival of her found family.  This movie takes place between Captain America Civil War and Avengers Infinity War.  In case you forgot, after the events of Civil War, Nat had bucked against the system, turning against General Thunderbolt Ross and his Sokovia Accords to help Cap and Bucky get to Siberia to stop all the other potential Winter Soldiers.  After a cold open highlighting Natasha’s seeming idyllic childhood in Ohio – a cover for an undercover Russian sleeper cell - we go forward to Ross being miffed and trying to hunt her down. 

Natasha, haunted by her past and troubled by her future, is trying to live off the grid when her ‘sister’ sends her a package from Budapest, bringing up memories of the mission we have she and Hawkeye mention a couple of times.  Nat heads to Budapest, encounters Yelena, and together they step back into conflict with the ‘Red Room’ system that trains Black Widows as assassins and killers while dodging the Taskmaster – a baddie who can replicate everyone else’s fighting style. This is a cool trait as it often pits Nat against various Avenger fighting bits. The Red Room has stepped up its game and found a way to remove nearly all of the human element from their agents while remaining very difficult to find. Nat and Yelena find their former ‘parents’ to get the information necessary to bring down the Red Room and its shadowy leader, Dreykov.

Directed by Cate Shortland, the movie certainly feels like an MCU movie with a great balance between action and comedy.  The scenes with the family unit reunited are charming and fun even though they layer over the horrible things the members were responsible for accomplishing.  I did think the actual mechanisms of the Red Room were glossed over a bit, but if you truly dug into that process, it may need to slide into R Rated territory, and that is not really MCU fare. What I liked best about the movie was Scarlett Johansson playing the ‘straight man’ to center and ground the film while everyone around her got to be bigger and a little more zany.

Scarlett has been playing this character since Iron Man 2, and here, really gets to allow Black Widow not only to accept her own history and fate but make peace with everything she has done. It gives her sacrifice in Endgame even more weight.  As a producer on the movie, she made the right call in allowing everyone else to step up and shine.

David Harbour and Rachel Weisz as Alexei and Melina respectively were great, as expected.  Weisz gives Melina a chilling coldness as she talks about the mind control technology she has perfected and casually tortures one of her pigs.  I knew Harbour would be fun and charming, and he is – but he is also good at the action and emotional scenes.

By now you have heard that the true standout in the movie is Florence Pugh as Yelena. She is fantastic in the action sequences, and completely sells herself as the next Black Widow. What I was not prepared for is how funny and entertaining she is. Her interactions with Natasha are brilliant – balanced between sibling love and rivalry. I expected Harbour to steal his scenes, I was not prepared for Pugh to steal the entire movie. It functions to set her up for future MCU appearances, and I cannot wait to see more of her character.

Ray Winstone is an interesting choice as Dreykov. He’s so incredibly cockney that the Russian accent feels very forced, but he certainly can play a villain.  I wanted him to be the voice of Rocket Raccoon from the beginning, so it is a bit of a treat to see him in the MCU, even if this villain is not as developed as he could have been. Likewise, the other slight disappointment is Olga Kurylenko as Antonia, she could have been given a lot more work to do and while her character was fascinating, it felt almost tempered, and I would have liked to see that character cut loose.

Overall, I certainly enjoyed the movie from start to finish and it was even more wonderful to see it in a theater where no one moved once the credits started rolling, because we all knew to stay put and wait for the end credits sequence.

8 out of 10 – Pugh has done wonders for the sale of pocketed vests, I’m sure.

Movie Review: F9: The Fast Saga (PG13 - 145 minutes)

 

What a fantastic flick to welcome folks back to summer blockbusters in the theater. If you want to hear me and a couple of other LAMB members rave about this highest level of quality nonsense, be sure to give the LAMBCast episode on F9 a listen: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/lambcast/episodes/2021-06-28T12_24_53-07_00

I could try to start this review with a quick summary of what happened in the previous 8 movies and who all these characters are, and what brought them to this situation, but honestly – it is not at all necessary. Suffice it to say that Dominic Toretto leads a ‘family’ of street racers who started in The Fast and The Furious in June of 2001.  In that movie, twenty years ago, they were stealing DVD players from trucks while driving. Now, 9 movies later, they are basically a group of international spies, hackers, geniuses, sharpshooters, hand to hand combat masters, and Corona drinkers (that part hasn’t changed).

The cold open gives us the visualization of the story that Dom has told us before, his father getting run into the wall while racing in 1985 and him going to jail for beating the other driver with a wrench.  We then get some fun credits and jump to present day where Dom and Letty enjoying married life with his son (with Elena), little Brian, completely off the grid and away from everyone else.  Well, Dom is enjoying being off the grid.  Letty seems very dissatisfied. They are suddenly visited by Tej, Roman, and Ramsey who bring news that Mr. Nobody’s plane has been brought down in a generic south American country. He had some dangerous cargo and sent a distress call that only our Fast Family would receive.  Dom refuses to go help, but Letty sets out to join the others. While reviewing the footage, Dom notices a duplicate of his cross necklace, and suddenly decides to join the mission.

During what is an insane opening action set piece that feels absolutely built to be added to the Fast and Furious bit of the Universal Studios tour (just give them their own ride in a full soundstage like the Transformers ride – they need it!), Dom realizes that his long-lost brother, Jakob, is his new foe.  Jakob steals the piece of tech and escapes by jumping his car OFF A CLIFF TO BE CAUGHT BY A PLANE WITH A MAGNET. And that is before Dom drives his cliff into the remains of a bridge to catch a cable and SWING LIKE TARZAN.  Just in the first action set piece!

The movie only continues to get more exciting from there, finding ways to bring back additional members of the Fast Family – including my favorite, Han, who died a few movies ago. It also gives both Mia and Letty, and even Ramsey more to do this time around. Director Justin Lin has outdone himself with this one, and I can’t even begin to speculate where the tenth movie will go. This one felt appropriate in a way as a near-finale because it brought back so many people, established Jakob, and then rehabilitated Jakob (I can only assume he will join the family next movie) – it even worked in a touching tribute to Paul Walker and gathered everyone for a barbeque and Coronas at the end. It is near perfection.  Oh, and they drive a car in space – THEY DRIVE A CAR IN SPACE.

I will say that I felt Vin Diesel as Dom was more invested in this one. While it may feel strange to say, this movie benefits from being Rock-less.  The Rock is a star, and he didn’t really ever fit in with the Fast Family as his nature is to outshine everyone around him. With him not in this movie, the family could retrieve their group chemistry and truly place Vin back at the center, where he wants to be. John Cena as Jakob is much more capable of joining an ensemble and working towards a group goal.

Jordana Brewster has always asked for more stunts and Michelle Rodriguez has mentioned in the past that she would not return if Letty didn’t get more to do. Both have action set pieces in this movie and more family scenes as well. It returned each of them to being some of my favorite characters.

Ludacris continues to shine as Tej, and he and Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey were wonderful in working out all the details of the completely insane plans. I loved Ramsey’s non-driving during the action set piece in Edinburgh. I also enjoyed the two of them teasing Tyrese’s Roman through most of the movie. Tyrese once again is exceptional and definitely provides the audience viewpoint in this insane world as he sums up the action from previous movies, to the point of mentioning how completely ridiculous some of their adventures have been.

Charlize Theron returns as Cipher – so far the only villain to not eventually be turned to joining the Fast Family, which I hope she never does, because after all, she did kill Elena.  She’s delightfully evil in this as she tries her hardest to out-bad-guy Thue Ersted Rasmussen’s Otto, the generic money-behind-the-villain’s-plot. She easily succeeds.

The return of Sung Kang as Han while eating a bag of chips was fantastic – I can only assume that Gal Gadot will return in the next one as Gisele just fell off a car and these folks have proven to be nearly impossible to kill. 

Michael Rooker shows up as Dom’s dad’s racing buddy Buddy. Helen Mirren returns for a bit as Queenie Shaw, the matriarch of the insane Shaw clan.  Don Omar returns briefly as Santos. Shea Whigham returns as Agent Stasiak. Even better was the return of Shad Moss (Bow Wow) as Twinkie and Lucas Black as Sean from Tokyo Drift. They have now been completely returned to the fold to the point that they got to join the barbeque at the end.

I love these movies – I love the inclusive cast, the international feel, and finally in this one it feels like the tone is completely understood and accepted by everyone involved – they all embrace the over-the-top nonsense joy. I think this might be my new favorite in the series.  It doesn’t matter if you have never seen any of the other movies because characters keep reminding everyone what happened previously, at least enough to let you enjoy the action of this one. Grab your family and some Corona and some popcorn, turn off your brain and hit the NOS button for an absolute summer tentpole blockbuster.

9 out of 10 – losing one point for not bringing Gisele back from the dead yet…fingers crossed for the next one.