It took it’s own sweet time getting here, but as it turns out, it was well worth the wait. Scarlett Johansson takes Marvel’s eponymous near-superhuman spy around the world for one last outing (after the whole … well, you know … Thanos business).
And it’s one hell of a swan song. The movie takes the Black Widow across the world with the help of a fella who seems to be able to conjure experimental fighter jets out of thin air, but seems to have trouble getting hold of a decent caravan, and the family of Russian agents who’re her family … after a fashion.
The plot is … unsurprisingly unlikely, the characters have just the right amount of depth: enough to keep you rooting for them, but not enough to get in the way slow down the on-screen carnage. The stunts are fantastic, and like all Marvel movies, it doesn’t take itself too seriously (DC, take note). The only cringeworthy bit about it was Ray Winston’s accent, which meandered between Russian Bond villain and Phil Mitchell from Eastenders.
The Black Widow didn’t have that Marvel blockbuster feel to it; felt more like something that could’ve played out on the Disney+ channel over a six-part series. Still, well worth seeing IMO.
Now, taking a classic piece of Manga fiction and turning it into a Westernised action flick is always going to be a “swings and roundabouts” proposition. The advantage is that you have a classic story to work with. The disadvantage is … that you have a classic story to work with. As long as you stick to the original plot and keep most of the classic set pieces from the original, then the fans will give your efforts a grudging approval at the very least, and thunderous applause if you’re very lucky (or very good). The problem is that something that is essentially a cartoon may not translate well into a live action movie. Ghost in the Shell gets away with it … just. They’ve changed enough of the sequence to make it worthwhile for the affeciandos to see it, but kept enough of the original to delight them. Not bad, not bad at all.