Black Widow

The result is a film that is fun to watch, but very little else.

What ensues is a film that isn't interested in planting seeds for future Marvel movies -- which is actually a refreshing change of pace.

Almost completely lacking in Black Widow is any sense of outrage over the grotesque violations of human rights and human dignity at the root of the whole premise of the film.

More women is its only decent idea. Otherwise, it's business as usual. Otherwise, it's all formulaic bish-bosh, smash-crash action scenes broken up by lame jokes and lame philosophising along the lines of: "Your pain only makes you stronger."

Shortland does a solid job with the material, but even she isn't able to entirely gloss over how Natasha randomly keeps disappearing in her own movie or how what is supposed to be her story frequently focuses on other characters.

I appreciate the way that Cate Shortland adapts herself well to an action film... This is one of the individual [Marvel Cinematic Universe] films that I would keep.

It took too long to get here, but now that it’s done, Widow couldn’t have asked for a better send-off.

Black Widow” may be the most mumblecore entry in the franchise. Romanoff (how do they get assigned last names?) is the equivalent of the adult who just lost her job or got divorced then must return home to deal with some unresolved trauma

What director Cate Shortland does so well with Black Widow is the balance of tones within the story, something that Marvel has struggled a little bit with their latest TV projects.

We liked the cast, but it didn’t live up to the potential of telling Natasha Romanoff’s backstory.