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Black Widow 2020

Dogboy said:
Actually, I would argue this most closely resembles the whole star wars writer thing where they didn't want to pay them because "They bought the assets and not the liabilities." Disney is having something of a problem when it comes to contracts and paying people.
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True, though my greater point was that Scarlett Johansson frankly has far greater clout than Alan Dean Foster and the other writers Disney has screwed over.
 
Reminder to all that capital denying labor what they're due is capital denying labor what they're due, no matter how rich or poor that laborer is, no matter how narrow or wide the paycheck. Because if capital can get away with shorting ScarJo, they can definitely get away with shorting you. Whereas if they can't, well it still probably won't help you much, but at least it sets precedent for labor rights.
 
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Finally got around to watching this the other day. Top line: 6 or 7/10, good for a Marvel movie.

Standouts:
- Florence Pugh's work as Yelena was pretty exceptional. While she had some big dramatic bits, I felt the parts that hit best were the vest bit, and the not necessarily subtle but certainly not necessarily in-your-face hints that she was actively suicidal after her experiences. Also her trying out the Natasha 3-point landing had me laugh out loud. The grave scene was also touching and felt pretty real.
- The confrontation with Dreykov. Sure, Ray Winstone's Russian accent ended up somewhere in South Africa, but the whole set of scenes managed to feel pretty viscerally disturbing, especially his comment about the biggest excess resource in the world being little girls. Really sold me on the fact that he wasn't doing this just for personal power, but out of a very real and actively malicious misogyny. He also really sold the 'petty little man who lucked into immense power' bit. My only complaint was that the 'severing the nerve' thing was way less bloody and brutal than it should have been, which lessened the hardcore-badass feel they were going for.
- I felt like the arms dealer/black market guy/whatever O-T Fagbenle played was a nice touch. Friendly, actually concerned for Nat, no hints at romance, and legitimately proved himself a friend to her by burning himself to get her supplies, even if money was involved.
- I think they managed to walk the line between mean-spirited and genuine pokes at a deeply flawed man with Red Guardian, unlike the treatment of Thor in Endgame.
- I'm kind of torn on Melina. It felt like she didn't get anywhere near as much characterisation as the other three main cast members, and there's a pretty abrupt shift from her being all for the Red Room/fully indoctrinated to being all-in on the opposite side, and it basically happens off-screen. They could probably have cut a bit of Red Guardian's screentime to do some work there, maybe?
- The 'secret' flying base got an actual eye-roll and sigh from me.

Definitely worth a watch if you enjoy MCU stuff or spy movie stuff.
 
It's now streaming on Disney+ without having to pay $30 to watch it, so now is a good time to see it if you haven't.
 
Gul Damar said:
Except I won't, lacking any desire to do so.
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I mean, it's a weirdly specific level of disinterest to have no intention of seeing a movie but continue watching a thread about said movie and occasionally interjecting unprompted to announce your intent not to see it, but you do you, dude.

Personally, I enjoyed it well enough. Winter Soldier was one of my favorite MCU movies, so I enjoyed getting to see another film with a spy thriller theme and Natasha playing a prominent role. If those things aren't your bag, then by all means, skip it.
 
Finally saw it (got the blu-ray as a late gift) liked it.

My only issue is why didn't Tony know about the flying fortress? YES, it's cloaked etc etc, but this is Iron Man we're talking about.
 
Tony was dead at the time and before that doesn't know the guy existed. Everyone thought he was dead, including Natasha.

Yes, Tony Stark is capable but he didn't have a plot derailing omni-sensor that let him find everything in the world with a press of a button
 
Sucal said:
Tony was dead at the time and before that doesn't know the guy existed. Everyone thought he was dead, including Natasha.

Yes, Tony Stark is capable but he didn't have a plot derailing omni-sensor that let him find everything in the world with a press of a button
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Black Widow happens before the snap because we see Yelena get dusted during a flash back in Hawkeye.
 
Shanejayell said:
Finally saw it (got the blu-ray as a late gift) liked it.

My only issue is why didn't Tony know about the flying fortress? YES, it's cloaked etc etc, but this is Iron Man we're talking about.
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I'm not sure how Tony is relevant to anything happening in this movie. For one thing, this is post-Civil War, so Nat and Tony aren't talking to each other. For another, why would Tony be looking for it? Has he ever expessed an interest in the Red Room? For a third, do we have any reason to think that he had the infrastructure to do that? Sure, post-Blip he apparently had a network of satellites that could deploy killer drones, but that's years later.

Also, it seems like a recurring theme from the time period that this movie takes place in is that Ross and the government resources that he controls are too obsessed with hunting down and punishing heroes that didn't fall in line to pay any attention to what thr actual bad guys are doing, which is why Natasha and her family have to be the ones to deal with this. And Tony put himself and what few of the Avengers didn't defect with Cap under Ross' control.
 
Shanejayell said:
Tony's whole deal in IM2 is "I've privatized world peace!"
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Yeah, but he was wrong. When in the entire MCU has Tony actually seen a threat to world peace coming and headed it off? Loki and the Chitauri? Nope. Hydra? Nope. Ultron? Caused by him. Zemo? Played Tony like a fiddle. Killmonger? Nope. Thanos? Nope.

Like pretty much all attempts to privatize a public service, Tony's attempt to privatize world peace was a dysfunctional failure.
 
Didn't Natasha exposition-reveal that Generic Misogynist Fake Russian Guy despite all his bluster about being a powerful player, deliberately kept an extremely low profile so that most people didn't know he existed or at least thought he died in the bombing back in Nat's SHIELD days? That despite his boasting their destructive potential he actually very rarely used the Black Widows as to avoid attention from everyone?

Also Russia is a big place, lots of airspace to keep a flying fortress hidden, with a very small staff of a handful of doctors and a slightly handfuller of goons and brainwashed Widows so not exactly a wealth of HUMINT to be spreading tales about it's existence.
 
Yeah, it's pretty heavily implied, if not outright stated, that while Evil Russian Spymaster has a lot of potential power - in the thousands of agents around the world - but that he's such a cowardly, pathetic, paranoid failure that he can't use it. He's also so obsessed with the Widow program that everything revolves around maintaining/expanding it, to the point that the Widow program is a means and an end all in one, with no goal beyond 'continue the Widow program'.
 
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