Black Widow was a great movie. Most people wanted everything from the solo film for Natasha Romanoff, brilliantly portrayed for over a decade by Scarlett Johansson. It was a great film to look into the Red Room and the program that made Black Widow. It was simply too late.
Many fans, including myself, enjoyed the movie, but we got angry that it came so long after it should have. Unlike haters, most fans liked Captain Marvel and her subsequent appearances throughout the Marvel Universe.
However, there is understandable anger in the fans of Natasha when she was overshadowed for the first Marvel solo woman-led movie. The longest-running female superhero in the MCU, most people felt that she should have that honor. Since that did not happen, the best we can judge the movie given to us entirely too late.
Between Captain America: Civil War and Avengers: Infinity War, the movie opens with Nat on the run after breaking the Sakovia Accords and helping Cap, Bucky, and crew escape team Iron Man. Heeding the warning Tony gave her that Ta’Challa had turned her in, Nat fell back on her spy training.
As she disappeared from the public, her past contacts came back to her, and she ended up revisiting the fake family she had growing up as a Russian agent in America back in the day. As we see their escape after being discovered, we get to see the softest side of Natasha yet, one that not even Steve ever brought out of her.
We also see her get destroyed when her faux father and mother let her and Yelena, her pretend baby sister, turn her to the Red Room. Having come from there already, Natasha knows exactly what she is going back to. She tried to protect her baby sister from going but failed. Eventually, she defected and turned into the S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent MCU fans know and love.
The movie shows audiences that before Infinity War and Endgame, Nat reconnected with this first family she missed. We then see her looking blonde and chic; off to rejoin Cap and break some friends out of jail is heartbreaking and sad instead of enjoyable because, again, it came too late and is really a tragic sendoff to a powerful character.
Now, as Scarlett Johanssen is suing the company for the joint release of Black Widow on movie screens and on Disney+ premiere, the fandom waits to see the result and stews over all of the missteps and disrespect given to the beloved character.
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