Ned Liu

Messy. Lazy storytelling and over-the-top flashback make the first half of the movie without a focus. Excessive love stories has very little or nothing to do with the plot: a love rectangle was introduced and only to be resolved in a ridiculous blow-in-the head. The only good thing about the movie is Thena’s storyline and even so, it is not that convincing. Just terrible writing. This must’ve deviated considerably from Chloe Zhou’s original concepts.

The movie built up very well at the beginning. Taskmaster real scary. Sitting at the edge of the seat and I had great expectation for the final fight, maybe some family combo fight even. NONE of that happened. I feel there r so many materials in the family they could’ve used, - mom and dad in their old age try to redeem; Nat and Yelena walks out of their childhood shadow. They could’ve brought these out in family combo fights/ near death situation. Instead very few shots of the family actually fought. They just fought a few sidekicks and threw some sticks to the engines, twice. Mostly just Natasha fought. Taskmaster was so weak in the red room. Never ever once worried for them in the final fights. Wasted all the expectation built up in the first half of the movie. The movie is awfully similar to Cap. America 2. A villain who can’t fight, mind control a powerful antagonist with mysterious origin to dominate the world. Protagonists went up to a flying ship and sunk it down to the ground. Cap. 2 works but black widow doesn’t. Nevertheless before the red room, the movie was very nice. 3/5