The following contains spoilers forBlack Widow.
With the theatrical release ofBlack Widow, Marvel fans have been able to return to theatres for the first time in about a year and a half and watchthe newest MCU entry on the big screen. It’s exciting to see Phase 4 of the MCU kicking off in the film department after the Disney Plus shows started it with a bang. ThoughBlack Widowhas been criticized for not being timely and coming out after the main protagonist is dead in the main timeline (especially after fans had been begging for a Black Widow solo movie for years), it was interesting to be able to see a real Marvel movie and be reminded about what the MCU’s bread and butter is.
Black Widowwas a solid mid-tier MCU movie; it had a lot of great elements and explored some interesting themes, but it also fell flat in a lot of areas. One of these is that the themes they begin to discuss never get as fleshed out as they should be. The movie doesn’t take a lot of time to actually delve intoNatasha’s past trauma, or the implications of a lot of the themes that it brings up, which leaves it feeling a bit hollow. This could have been improved byBlack Widowactually being a Disney Plus series instead of a movie, and having multiple episodes to develop its characters and themes.
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The one downside of the MCU Disney Plus shows is that they show the potential for character development within the MCU and make the movies seem like they’re not doing enough work in that regard. Marvel has been criticized fornot developing characters enough in the past, and now with the option to make longer-form content on Disney Plus, if Marvel really wants to make a character-driven story, it might be wiser to shift it to the streaming platform. Of course, this isn’t to say that movies can’t have good character development - in fact, many MCU movies are well done in that regard - but it’s just that they now have the option to take things a little deeper in the form of a TV show.
Black Widowwould have worked well as a Disney Plus series, and would have been akin in tone and style toThe Falcon and The Winter Soldier. Having multiple episodes would have given Black Widow a chance tofurther explore the really interesting themes and ideasthat are brought up in the movie and are never fully fleshed out. Things happen very quickly in the movie, and some characters are greatly underused.
A Disney Plus miniseries would have had more time to explore these themes, and it would have felt slightly less out of place for a Black Widow prequel to be a sort of add-on miniseries on Disney Plus rather than a big theatrical release.It feels really untimely for Phase 4 to beginwith a movie that essentially goes back in time (and not in a funEndgameorLokikind of way) and takes place afterCivil War. Of course, moving one of only a few female-led MCU stories to a streaming platform rather than a wide theatrical release would be a problem in and of itself, but this particular story might have worked better on the small screen.
So what are some of the things that aBlack Widowseries could have explored? For one, it could have given more depth and development to characters who were severely underused in the film.Taskmaster is a really interesting idea for a character, especially the way they changed her story from that of her comic counterpart. However, she was never used to her full potential in the movie, and it left that part of the story feeling a bit hollow, because we never really delved into her situation or abilities. It would have been great to see more of her battle with Alexei, or any sort of deep resentment towards what Natasha did to her, rather than just immediately forgiving her.
Melina was also underwritten in the story, and was another character whose actions didn’t quite make sense. It would have been much more compelling to see herstruggle with her ideals and morality, rather than almost instantly being forgiven by her family and working for the side of the heroes. She had the potential to be such an interesting and complex character, perhaps one who at first truly believes that she is working for the side of good and the protection of Russia when she works for the Red Room (and then eventually changes her mind when she rekindles her relationship with her family), but instead she is seemingly convinced right away that she should fight against Dreykov.There’s no atonement for past actions, which is especially strange considering how upsetting it is for Yelena to learn that the mind control she was under for years was Melina’s invention. That sense of betrayal and them working to rebuild their relationship would be such a compelling plot line that the movie simply didn’t have time to explore.
It just seems like so many plot points were rushed in the film and so many potentially interesting character moments were scrapped in favor of action scenes. Actions scenes are somewhat necessary to Marvel movies, especially one like this, andthey were well done inBlack Widow, but after seeing the Disney Plus shows that take the time to have characters talk through their traumas and relationships with each other, it’s a little jarring to go back to watching Marvel movies that don’t get as in-depth as they perhaps should with the characters. This was supposed to be Natasha’s movie, and yet we never got a full view of her feelings towards her past and what happened to her; if anything,we learn more about Yelena in this moviethan we ever do about Natasha.
A lot of these elements could also have been explored in the medium of film, of course, if they wrote it carefully. They wouldn’t necessarily need a whole series to explore the aforementioned ideas and to delve into their characters, and it’s clear they were on the right track because many of the best moments in the film are simple character moments (such as thescenes exploring Natasha and Yelena’s relationship, or the scene in which Alexei attempts to comfort Yelena after she storms away from the table andthey sing “American Pie” together). It simply would have been much easier for them to dedicate time to both the characters and the action scenes if they’d had more time to tell the story. It will be interesting to see what the MCU looks like going forward now that the Disney Plus shows have become an option because they might expose Marvel’s weakness in character building within the confines of the films.
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