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Thread: Black Widow

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    Flumph

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    I liked it, but after WandaVision, Falcon & the Winter Soldier and Loki, I kept thinking that maybe this would have worked better as a Disney+ series.

    Spoiler: Some thoughts
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    Especially since the best part was the four members of the family, and that could have used more fleshing out, particularly Alexi and Melina. I never really got why Alexi turned and ended up in jail, or why Melina suddenly decided to help bring the Red Room down after all this time.

    I could have used more David Harbour in any case. He was a lot of fun here. I really wanted to know more about his time as the Red Guardian.

    On the other hand, I'm struggling to think of other MCU villains that were as uninteresting as Taskmaster. The reveal was underwhelming, and the ability to learn other character's moves really didn't figure into things in any way that mattered. I was hoping it would have at least led up to allowing all the mental prep Alexi did to fight Captain America pay off somehow.

    So I guess it really didn't matter that Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out first as far as Julia Louis-Dreyfus goes. Still have no idea what her deal is. Does she have all those suddenly freed Widows working for her? I'm guessing we'll find out in Hawkeye?

    So yeah, enjoyable enough movie. The stunt work and action scenes were very good, some of the character work was successful, and I'm ok with Florence Pugh taking over from Scarlett Johansson, but the story and any other tie-ins to the MCU and Natasha's place in it were kind of just ok. They couldn't have sprung for a few cameos to give the character a funeral and a proper send-off this time?

    Edit: Speaking of cameos, I guess this is the first one filmed completely after Stan Lee's death?


    Not a bad movie, but the MCU has been better served in mini-series form so far this year.

    What do you think sirs?
    Last edited by Dire_Flumph; 2021-07-10 at 12:03 AM.

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    Default Re: Black Widow

    Well, I haven't seen it, but my brother says

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    He thinks ranks below Incredible Hulk plotwise.

    Not enough humor or action.
    He thought the red eye of Taskmaster I think reminded him of a Mobile Suit Gundam Zaku. He wasn't a fan of that feature.

    Maybe he expected too much since even the Disney Pluses like Wanda and Loki were great.

    Not enough Red Guardian as well.

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    I'm watching Black Widow now and I'll give you my thoughts on Black Widow later today.
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    It wasn’t eye-gougingly bad, but it wasn’t expectation-shatteringly awesome either.

    Spoiler: Thoughts
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    • The first half seemed rather slow
    • Too many of the beats at the beginning seemed predictable but that might just be me spending too much time on TV tropes
    • The mashup of family dynamics and super spy flick did not work well together. The family bickering drained a lot of the drama from the action bits, and the whole ‘our family dynamic was just a really elaborate cover’ undermined the family bonding bits
    • Not sure why Melina (? Nat’s ‘mother’) turned so fast just because the protagonists showed up
    • I would like to see more of Red Guardian, his boisterous bruiser bits were fun
    • There were a lot of fun super spy things happening off-screen that I would have liked to see on screen
    • I was happy to see the return of the face-changing masks
    • The whole, ‘you can’t control these women any more!’ bit seemed a little ham-handed, not helped by the fact that they’re fighting Natasha who we know makes it out alive.
    • Not clear how Natasha got away from Ross at the end. Was she just arrested and Steve broke her out of the Raft with the others?
    • Val only showed up in the end credits, which felt like letdown after she showed up in FatWS – as a non-comics fan, I still have no clear idea who she is and I'd been hoping for a reason to care




    Unrelated, I was surprised at how empty the theater was, though that might have been because I grabbed an early showing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post

    Spoiler: Some thoughts
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    Especially since the best part was the four members of the family, and that could have used more fleshing out, particularly Alexi and Melina. I never really got why Alexi turned and ended up in jail, or why Melina suddenly decided to help bring the Red Room down after all this time.
    Spoiler
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    Had the same complaint about Melina, but for Alexi – based on his griping in the helicopter he complained too much to his higher-ups about how things were run, criticized his higher-up’s hair and mostly petty things.


    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    Spoiler: Some thoughts
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    I could have used more David Harbour in any case. He was a lot of fun here. I really wanted to know more about his time as the Red Guardian.

    On the other hand, I'm struggling to think of other MCU villains that were as uninteresting as Taskmaster. The reveal was underwhelming, and the ability to learn other character's moves really didn't figure into things in any way that mattered. I was hoping it would have at least led up to allowing all the mental prep Alexi did to fight Captain America pay off somehow.

    So I guess it really didn't matter that Falcon and the Winter Soldier came out first as far as Julia Louis-Dreyfus goes. Still have no idea what her deal is. Does she have all those suddenly freed Widows working for her? I'm guessing we'll find out in Hawkeye?
    Second all of this.

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    It would have been nice if Alexi at least got to meet Steve.

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    I saw the movie and this is my review:

    Spoiler: My Thoughts Of The Black Widow (2021)
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    Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow has to confront her past from her family and evil organization that uses women as sleepers soldiers. What I like about the movie it has a lot of action and Taskmaster was debut in the movie. The only problem that I have with this movie is at the beginning of the movie, the pace of the movie was slow. Scarlet Johanson did an amazing just to pull a charismatic performance as Black Widow. So I'll give this movie an 8 out of 10 Stars.
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    I actually quite enjoyed it. Since I usually nitpick plot issues (which there were several of), I'm a little surprised by that, but none of them actually effected my enjoyment.

    Spoiler: Taskmaster
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    Maybe it's just cause I'm not a fan of the comics character, but this worked for me. I've heard some complaints about Taskmaster not being a good villain, but that's because she's not the villain at all. I think there was a missed opportunity to have it be the case that the problem wasn't just the commander either. The problem should have been the Red Room as a whole. But that would be a bit hard to make into 'here's your replacement Widow for the next series/movies.' Of course, we've always glossed over how many innocent (and not so innocent) people Black Widow (and Hawkeye, though it's left ambiguous if he was in on the murder the kid part of the operation) murdered, so maybe not.


    Spoiler: Melina
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    I was under the impression she never stopped working for the Red Room. She was just continuing her research on pigs where she was found.


    Spoiler: Red Guardian
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    I could totally buy 'pissed someone off and got punished.' But I'm sort of surprised it was tossed in a prison, rather than vivisected to figure out how to create more super-soldiers.


    But in the end, none of the potential questions interfered with my enjoyment of the movie.

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    I was literally only interested in this movie because Taskmaster was in it, so going by the spoilers that he wasn't the best part of the movie (far from it), guess I'll give this a pass.

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    One thing really confused me

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    So at the end, does she just surrender to Ross? Or it's implied she just led him on a chase and escaped again?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    I was literally only interested in this movie because Taskmaster was in it, so going by the spoilers that he wasn't the best part of the movie (far from it), guess I'll give this a pass.
    If that was your source of interest in the movie, then yeah, give it a pass.
    Spoiler
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    Because effectively, he's not in the movie. A character using his costume and possessing the same abilities is, but it's someone completely different and unrelated. They basically just used him because his costume would let them hide the character's identity.


    Wasn't planning on seeing this myself, but a friend invited me, so I went. I'd say it's decent. Not one of Marvel's best by any means, and there's certainly a few things that didn't make sense to me and I can see bothering other people a lot (Taskmaster being one of them, for the reasons in the spoiler above), but they didn't ruin it for me. I like the character dynamics between the main characters, and there's some fun turn-off-your-brain action going on at times. But beyond that, eh, not a lot for me to say about it, honestly. A pity it's not better, considering how long it took for them to finally give Black Widow her own film, but oh well, it's not like I was bored or anything.
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    I liked it! Not my favorite of the MCU or anything but definitely still solid.

    Biggest non-spoiler pro: As we got a tiny glimpse of in the trailers, the action was BRUTAL. Like Netflix Daredevil brutal. It was actually refreshing to get this kind of street-level hand-to-hand after the high-flying action-figure fights of the other MCU movies. Despite it's characters and tone, Falcon & Winter Solider didn't even come close to this. It made me even more excited to see what they'll do with Shang-Chi!

    Spoiler: Other Pros
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    - Yelena is absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to see more of her in the MCU.
    - Everything to do with Red Guardian and Melina - I hope too see them again too.
    - Natasha effortlessy escaping Ross like the clown he is.
    - The Family Reunion scene... just, all of it. The emotional beats were flawless here.
    - Finding a way to visually represent Taskmaster's powers in live-action.
    - Val's devious post-credits scene, setting her up to be even more of a manipulator than we saw in FATWS.


    Spoiler: Criticisms
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    For the first time ever the constant "Marvel quipping" and overall lighter tone that comes with that got to me a bit. I wouldn't have minded some, but this was supposed to be a darker film, one about brainwashed child soldiers-turned-assassin who had their lady-parts scooped out to make them even more efficient killers, and Natasha having to deal with their threat while being cut off from all of her superhero and superspy support. On top of which, she found out her crowning achievement - killing the guy behind it all (and blowing up his innocent daughter in the process) so she could join SHIELD - was a lie, making the heinous act she committed pointless. That should have devastated her, and coupled with her lack of resources and time, made her fairly desperate and reckless.

    Not only is this never a problem for her thanks to her magic equipment guy who can pull fake passports and helicopters and jets and bazookas seemingly out of his posterior, Natasha takes all the events that happen in this film in stride. In fact, none of the main cast seem fazed in the least by having been Soviet labrats-turned-discarded-remnants once their usefulness ran out. The quipping and banter really underscores that lack of stakes - Yelena on an operating seconds away from gettiing lobotomized is not the time for a line like "this would so not be a cool way to die."

    Now granted, it's a bit justified for her not to feel in danger since she was "in on the plan," but we the audience weren't, so defusing the tension before it barely has a chance to build just defanged many of those moments of the movie.

    My other criticism is Dreykov's plan. First off it's a rehash of the "bad guy can hide sleeper agents all over the world, stop him" conflict from Civil War. Second, his pheromone gambit was pretty dumb. He knew Melina had turned traitor, so expecting her not to tell Natasha and Yelena about his only defense (which in turn was his only defense because he sent Taskmaster out of the room) makes no sense, he should have anticipated that and had a backup plan. This is a guy cagey and paranoid enough to have stayed hidden from SHIELD for decades!

    I think that gambit would have had a lot more impact if it was something nobody but he knew about, and showed Natasha's intelligence by having the "get him angry enough to break my nose" counter-gambit to be something she quickly improvised in the moment rather, than being something she fully intended to do the whole time.


    Spoiler: Red Guardian
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    David Harbour was a treasure in this role.

    The most interesting thing about this guy for me - he keeps insisting he fought Captain America. But the unfortunate convict was right, he couldn't have, because Steve Rogers was frozen in the 70s/80s. Are they perhaps hinting at a MCU appearance of the interim anti-commie Cap, William Burnside? For having so little luck reproducing the super soldier serum, we are getting an awful lot of super soldiers it seems.


    Spoiler: Melina
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    It looks to me like they have Melina poised to have been the Cold War Black Widow. Excellent casting here again with Rachel Weisz. Again though, pretty dumb of Dreykov to not go back over her cell designs to make sure she didn't slip in some way to escape them from the inside.


    Spoiler: Taskmaster
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    I agree that Taskmaster was the weak link in this film, but that's okay - as this is clearly not the actual Taskmaster (i.e. Tony Masters), we still have the potential to get the real thing later on. This version of the character is reliant on tech, which could either be based on or passed down to a more comic-accurate version in the future.
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    I'm pretty sure that the real Taskmaster will make their appearance in their separate movie or TV show. I see the potential for the Taskmaster.
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    Looks like BW made a ton of money (for the pandemic anyway) even without releasing in China:

    https://variety.com/2021/film/box-of...nd-1235016977/

    Interestingly, Disney released official box office numbers from D+ Premier Access for this one, despite not having done so for previous Premier releases like Cruella, Raya or Mulan. No way to tell if and when they'll keep doing that.
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    After seeing this on Thursday, "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" was living rent-free in my head all of Friday.
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    Watched it, liked it.

    Was it the best of the MCU? No. But on the whole enjoyable. Action was good for the most part. No pointless laser shows with people looking peeved and screaming at each other. Punches, kicks, stabs, things that look like they hurt. Always fun.

    But that was kind of a hang up as well. What makes Daredevil’s action so good is that it remains pretty consistent. If we see him get hit then he got hurt. Until he gets special armor, or has to heal. He needs to avoid what will kill him. The fights make sense with what the audience expects from the actions taken.

    So when the movie tries to get down and dirty with clinches, guns, and knives all behaving realistically in what they do, it was distracting that as soon as people went in a vehicle suddenly cartoon physics seem to take over. That’s… not what happens when you shoot a car -or well anything- with a rocket.

    But that’s for the most part just nitpicks of the action.

    Spoilered are comments that are actually spoilers:

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    There were a few times when I did not think the characterization fit quite well. The most obvious one for me was Red Guardian, which don’t get me wrong, was a great character. But in his first appearance, we see him completely ignoring his shot/presumed dying wife and sending his kids to the Red Room. And he does it with no real compunctions. So when he tries to say that he actually cared about them it doesn’t feel true. Having him show a bit more compassion then being convinced to trust the villain would emphasize that he makes bad decisions rather than making him look like a monster.

    Others posted this as well but when Not-Sister gets captured and she makes her quips it does negate tension from the scene. She is returned to the Red Room, her source of trauma and she just seems so nonchalant about it. Though as an aside, if Not-Sister takes up the role of Black Widow I will be very happy. Having a more brutal, less glamorized action heroine that at least tones down some of the posing they had such fun mocking could be nice.

    But the real main weakness for me was the villains. Seeing Nat outsmart the big bad and make him break emotionally would’ve been more satisfying if we got anything really with him beforehand. Other than a scene or two in the beginning showing he’s the leader of the Red Room and then that he is still alive and killing his own agents I did not get much of a character from him. So it’s not as satisfying to watch him break.

    A lot of this movie reminds me of Winter Soldier in its construction and villains and whatnot. With the big spymaster conspirator using mind controlled super soldiers and assassins to implement their will on the world. Hell they both even end in a crashing air base. And I can’t help but feel that Winter Soldier just did them better. Bucky was more interesting than Taskmaster and Pierce was more interesting a puppet master than the main villain of this one.

    But the movie did focus on other things, like the foibles of reuniting with a messed up family and working through it. I think it did an ok job with that. Not as well as GotG2 in my opinion, but good. Was it enough to make up for the weak villains? No. Not for me. Honestly I don’t even remember what the villains plan was other than just generic “I control the world” dialogue.

    Still good. I enjoyed my time watching it. But it’s pretty middling as a MCU movie.

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    One thing to remember is that the Widows are given, not super soldier serum exactly, but a discount Red Room version that does make them sturdier than your average human. She's not going to be ripping apart logs with her bare hands like Steve - but getting away from a flipping car with just bruises, or recovering from a gunshot wound without weeks of physical therapy, is reasonable.

    Now, should the MCU have made that fact more explicit, absolutely. There are blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpses of syringes almost every time we see the Red Room in a flashback (see Age of Ultron for that) but they were way too subtle about it.

    In any event, it's likely that the primary quality of the serum - that it enhances your morality (good or bad) as well as physicality - was retained in this version, hence Natasha (and Yelena) being so well-adjusted after being deprogrammed.

    Spoiler: As for Red Guardian and Melina
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    I'm not sure why him not caring too much about his shot "wife" and traumatized "kids" doesn't make sense. Of course he doesn't care about them, the whole thing was made up. They were clearly riffing on The Americans, another cold-war era movie about a cluster of KGB operatives living in the suburbs pretending to be a nuclear family.
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    Spoiler: Red Guardians Feelings
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    It seemed clear to me that in the moment he was caught up in his ideology and mission, also he seemed very certain Milena would be fine as it was. It wasn't until he had to look back on it later after disillusionment and betrayal by the cause he thought he was dedicating his life too that he realized those years meant a lot more to him then he thought.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    One thing to remember is that the Widows are given, not super soldier serum exactly, but a discount Red Room version that does make them sturdier than your average human. She's not going to be ripping apart logs with her bare hands like Steve - but getting away from a flipping car with just bruises, or recovering from a gunshot wound without weeks of physical therapy, is reasonable.

    Now, should the MCU have made that fact more explicit, absolutely. There are blink-and-you'll-miss-it glimpses of syringes almost every time we see the Red Room in a flashback (see Age of Ultron for that) but they were way too subtle about it.

    In any event, it's likely that the primary quality of the serum - that it enhances your morality (good or bad) as well as physicality - was retained in this version, hence Natasha (and Yelena) being so well-adjusted after being deprogrammed.

    Spoiler: As for Red Guardian and Melina
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    I'm not sure why him not caring too much about his shot "wife" and traumatized "kids" doesn't make sense. Of course he doesn't care about them, the whole thing was made up. They were clearly riffing on The Americans, another cold-war era movie about a cluster of KGB operatives living in the suburbs pretending to be a nuclear family.
    It’s not that she picks herself back up. It’s that, flipping about with some broken windows and a dent is not what happens when you hit a car with a rocket. I mean literally. It’s a percussive force that would, explode, engulfing the car in fire, shrapnel, but most importantly a wave of percussive energy that tears everything apart.

    Again it’s one of those consistency things. If you’re trying to make me believe in this brutal fast paced action having scenes in which the physics of the situation are just blatantly wrong takes me out of the experience. It might not for you, and that’s fine. But for me, I was left a bit puzzled what tone they were going for when suddenly cars got turned into tanks when convenient.

    On Red Guardian I think you misunderstood me. It makes complete sense that he wouldn’t care at all.

    Spoiler
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    My issue is that the writing doesn’t seem to want to be consistent about whether he cared or didn’t.

    We return to him years down the line suddenly he tries to claim that he actually did care. Which anyone watching from the beginning would think is utter bull.

    However, the narrative seems to side with him. Since he gets the moments trying to make up with Nat and Not-Sister. He had this thing with his Not-Wife. Which for me, those moments didn’t ring true because we already saw in the beginning that he does not care for these girls.

    To be satisfying for me they had to pick a lane. Does he care or not? Because he seems to bounce between complete apathy to trying to express that he truly thought of them as his children when the plot demanded he had a nice scene with one of them, without the actual character growing to make these changes seem believable.

    He goes from apathy to caring with nothing to make him change from one state of being to the other. He just changes, which made his attempts to comfort the girls feel unearned. Or possibly unbelievable.

    But if we’re not supposed to believe him, they never go back to try and pay off that he’s untrustworthy and still potentially manipulating them. It’s all just “Ha, look at the doofus.”

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    Meh, rockets hit cars in spy thrillers all the time. And I don't even think the rocket hit the car directly, there was just an explosion and the car flipped. If you can buy it in a Bourne or Bond movie it shouldn't be a tough sell here with an actual (if partial) metahuman.

    Remember too that
    Spoiler: Taskmaster
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    their goal was to retrieve the GLASS vials of freedom gas macguffin in the case Nat was carrying, not to kill Nat. So they wouldn't have been trying to blow the car up in any case, as that would fail the mission. Dreykov needed that compound intact in order to counteract it.


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    He was in jail for a decade at least. Plenty of time to reflect. The final push would be how they reacted to him as adults.

    I don't think it was perfect, sure.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post

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    There were a few times when I did not think the characterization fit quite well. The most obvious one for me was Red Guardian, which don’t get me wrong, was a great character. But in his first appearance, we see him completely ignoring his shot/presumed dying wife and sending his kids to the Red Room. And he does it with no real compunctions. So when he tries to say that he actually cared about them it doesn’t feel true. Having him show a bit more compassion then being convinced to trust the villain would emphasize that he makes bad decisions rather than making him look like a monster.
    I read that scene completely the opposite way.

    Spoiler
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    My impression of the ‘please put me back in the action boss’ dialog was that he was trying to hide the fact that he was uncomfortable handing a pair of children over to be brainwashed and didn’t want to do it again, thus asking for something else to do and covering his discomfort with the whole thing with bravado. Note that when Child!Natasha pulls the gun and threatens to kill everyone he tells his boss ‘Let me handle this’ and steps in to talk her down rather then let the armed goons just fill her full of bullets.

    If he didn’t care about her there was no reason to step in.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    Meh, rockets hit cars in spy thrillers all the time. And I don't even think the rocket hit the car directly, there was just an explosion and the car flipped. If you can buy it in a Bourne or Bond movie it shouldn't be a tough sell here with an actual (if partial) metahuman.

    Remember too that
    Spoiler: Taskmaster
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    their goal was to retrieve the GLASS vials of freedom gas macguffin in the case Nat was carrying, not to kill Nat. So they wouldn't have been trying to blow the car up in any case, as that would fail the mission. Dreykov needed that compound intact in order to counteract it.


    Spoiler: As for RG
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    He was in jail for a decade at least. Plenty of time to reflect. The final push would be how they reacted to him as adults.

    I don't think it was perfect, sure.
    I have never seen a Bourne movie (don’t like shaky cam. If I’m watching an action scene I want to see the choreography) and Bond runs completely on cartoon physics. Except Casino Royale unless I’m forgetting something. That’s I think my issue. I’m 100% ok with cartoon physics and I’m 100% ok with gritty physics. It’s when they bounce between the two I’m taken out of the movie.

    But I think your argument here actually makes the scene worse. If they’re trying to do a snatch on some glass vials why would you use a rocket? On a bridge? Wow… I did not realize the poor decisions leading up to that scene until you pointed them out.
    Last edited by Dienekes; 2021-07-12 at 10:29 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post
    I have never seen a Bourne movie (don’t like shaky cam. If I’m watching an action scene I want to see the choreography) and Bond runs completely on cartoon physics. Except Casino Royale unless I’m forgetting something. That’s I think my issue. I’m 100% ok with cartoon physics and I’m 100% ok with gritty physics. It’s when they bounce between the two I’m taken out of the movie.

    But I think your argument here actually makes the scene worse. If they’re trying to do a snatch on some glass vials why would you use a rocket? On a bridge? Wow… I did not realize the poor decisions leading up to that scene until you pointed them out.
    The vials are in a protective case (the same one we saw earlier in fact), and Taskmaster
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    has a sci-fi heads-up display that would make that clear, because she uses it in that same scene to scan and detect the vials again. So they calculated the explosion to disable the car without destroying the vials, because AI targeting.

    My point in bringing that up is to explain why they wouldn't want to destroy the car entirely and therefore why Natasha was able to survive. Easy.
    Last edited by Psyren; 2021-07-12 at 10:35 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    If we are discussing the character of the Red Guardian

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    For me, he was a great allegory/representation of guys struggling to create open emotional bonds with their children, the kind of man who are bound by toxic masculinity of how a "man should act"

    He wanted his "daughters" to be strong, in dependant, capable. I truly believe that, and I also believe he stupidly assumed any emotional ties to him would be an impediment to that goal.

    Until Yelessa had her emotional breakdown, I don't think he actually understood what was the right thing to do, emotionally wise. Men like him are encouraged to push down their feelings and just express in broad acts of violence or sexuality (which he just can't shut up about), but when it comes to actually open up and show that he cares.. He struggled.

    But I loved that he actually did it. It shows there's hope for him yet. There's always hope for those who want to accept they might have been wrong.


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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    The vials are in a protective case (the same one we saw earlier in fact), and Taskmaster
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    has a sci-fi heads-up display that would make that clear, because she uses it in that same scene to scan and detect the vials again. So they calculated the explosion to disable the car without destroying the vials, because AI targeting.

    My point in bringing that up is to explain why they wouldn't want to destroy the car entirely and therefore why Natasha was able to survive. Easy.
    Psyren, the glass vials were rubberbanded together loosely in a steel box where they were not secured down meaning they could tumble and roll around within said metal box, in a car that was just shot at with a rocket causing it to spin through the air, and in the best case scenario the rocket was aimed at the bridge that was holding everyone up.

    Regardless of scifi tech the fact this plan in the end didn’t even work, I think we’re allowed to criticize the tactics here. Is it, catapults outside the castle hide the women and children in the crypts as the dead rise bad?

    No.

    But it’s not a great showing for the evil mastermind of the story.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    I liked it, but after WandaVision, Falcon & the Winter Soldier and Loki, I kept thinking that maybe this would have worked better as a Disney+ series.
    I am in agreement. There wasn't really massive plot holes or anything, and it certainly wasn't an awful film, but it felt...I dunno...a little flat? If you've seen the trailer, it feels as if you've seen most of the movie.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dire_Flumph View Post
    Especially since the best part was the four members of the family, and that could have used more fleshing out, particularly Alexi and Melina. I never really got why Alexi turned and ended up in jail, or why Melina suddenly decided to help bring the Red Room down after all this time.
    Yeah, the characters are not necessarily bad, but their motivations seem sort of all over the place. I *think* it was intended to be a shock to Melina that techniques she perfected on her pigs were used on people, but also that seems so ridiculously obvious that I have trouble buying that it would be revelatory.

    To me, the greatest weakness of the film is that they flinched from showing evil. We have exceedingly few villains in this show. Arguably, there is only one actual bad guy, and he poses no real threat save for that of his position. He himself isn't capable of matching any of our four protaganists, even one on one. He's evil, no question there, but he's only one part of the film, and the rest is all machinations without any motivations. None of the villainy is of the entertainingly fun sort, certainly, and the nature of most of the "bad guys" as pawns means one cannot really cheer their misfortunes or vanquishing.

    In addition, the show, despite being primarily about exploitation of children, does not really show this. I understand why, that's one seriously dark topic for a Disney film. But unfortunately, when you write your plot to center around that, and then don't want to show it on screen, you have to resort to telling instead of showing. This movie relied very, very much on telling instead of showing, which greatly contributes to the flat, slower feeling of the film.

    Red Guardian seemed...like he had potential, but he didn't actually get to do much. Maybe there was more plot or something that got cut? Dunno. I'm all for characters clashing and bouncing off one another, but it doesn't seem to connect to much of anything else.

    Val, for me, still seems like another random cameo that I don't care about in the slightest, and have no idea why anyone cares about her.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dienekes View Post
    Regardless of scifi tech the fact this plan in the end didn’t even work, I think we’re allowed to criticize the tactics here.
    Where did I say you weren't? But I'm allowed to disagree with your criticism.

    And (1) you don't actually know what the case is made of, (2) the vials were not free and loose inside, and (3) it's reasonable to expect that Taskmaster* can figure out a way to dramatically blow a SUV off the road without harming the objective they know is in there. If you can't buy it, fine, we can agree to disagree - but that's where I stand.

    *(or someone equipped with his powers and fancy gadgets)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    I am in agreement. There wasn't really massive plot holes or anything, and it certainly wasn't an awful film, but it felt...I dunno...a little flat? If you've seen the trailer, it feels as if you've seen most of the movie.
    IMO, it would have worked way better had it actually come out between Civil War and Infinity War.

    But we have Ike Perlmutter to "thank" for that - preferably thanked with something rather jagged and rusty.
    (See also the beginning of the Pitch Meeting:)

    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    It felt like a very uneven movie--some bits, like the opening sequence and the whole bit on the farm, were really good, and others felt bodged together, with way too much telling instead of showing. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn the script had heavy rewrites, and the exposition was added to try and weld them together. The climax was the real weak point of the movie for me, with seriously choppy editing.

    I think my main beef is
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    how thoroughly wasted Taskmaster was. Like, this is a "Deadpool in X-Men Origins Wolverine" level of wasted. I don't mean in terms of being faithful to the comics character, but even taken as her own character.

    On an action level, it must have taken a conscious effort not to have an extended fight sequence where Natasha battles someone who's using the combat styles / gadgets of every Avenger she knows. And on a character level.....Taskmaster is pretty much just a static prop to quickly and anticlimactically tie up Natasha's "red in my ledger" arc, who she defeats with the power of....saying "Hey, I'm really, really sorry about that whole knowingly blowing you up when you were an innocent child thing."

    I was seriously expecting that when the mind control was removed, Taskmaster would attack Natasha anyway, and would have to be killed (or at least defeated in a more resonant way) as a lesson in how sometimes you can't fix all the sins of your past just by saying you're sorry.



    Quote Originally Posted by Kareeah_Indaga View Post
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    [*]The whole, ‘you can’t control these women any more!’ bit seemed a little ham-handed, not helped by the fact that they’re fighting Natasha who we know makes it out alive.
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    That, and the total lack of care about getting the other Widows off the base before it exploded. It's one of the things that makes me suspect script rewrites, given how the nu-Widow corps barely show up and then vanish again until right before the end.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
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    Yeah, the characters are not necessarily bad, but their motivations seem sort of all over the place. I *think* it was intended to be a shock to Melina that techniques she perfected on her pigs were used on people, but also that seems so ridiculously obvious that I have trouble buying that it would be revelatory.
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    If that was their intent they did a really lousy job showing it, because one of my big hangups with that scene was that they showed up full well knowing Melina is still working for the Red Room, and she summons the Red Room to come get them…and somehow Natasha managed to turn her between her signaling the Red Room and the Red Room goons showing up.

    I guess Yelena did mention being one of the mind control victims in there, but a horrified, ‘you mean they used my mind control juice on one of MY girls?!!’ from Melina wouldn’t have gone amiss.

    Either way, that’s the sort of thing they need to show on screen.


    Quote Originally Posted by Azuresun View Post
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    I was seriously expecting that when the mind control was removed, Taskmaster would attack Natasha anyway, and would have to be killed (or at least defeated in a more resonant way) as a lesson in how sometimes you can't fix all the sins of your past just by saying you're sorry.
    That would have been way better.

    Quote Originally Posted by Azuresun View Post
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    That, and the total lack of care about getting the other Widows off the base before it exploded. It's one of the things that makes me suspect script rewrites, given how the nu-Widow corps barely show up and then vanish again until right before the end.
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    That irritated me too. Even just have Nat tell them to get out of the base after freeing them - it would have been less preachy and shown more situational awareness. Save the Captain-America-style ‘you can make your own choices now’ bit for after the day is saved and everyone is safely on the ground!

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    I never got the impression that
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    Nat turned Melina in the short amount of time between signaling Dreykov and his goons showing up. Rather, getting Dreykov to capture them and ferry them up to the Red Room was the plan all along. It's not like Melina had a shuttle of her own, and even if she did, it would've simply been shot down - capturing them all had to be Dreykov's idea.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Psyren View Post
    IMO, it would have worked way better had it actually come out between Civil War and Infinity War.
    Eh, that would have been a more logical time to release it, but they seem to have done all they can to make the era in the timeline as clear as can be. I don't think there's anything more that could be done in this film, and ultimately, it isn't that critical to the film. The same film, with the same plot, would probably not have been too substantially different.

    I think the show, not tell aspect is probably a much more significant weakness than scheduling, even if we'd all have preferred it sooner.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tyndmyr View Post
    Eh, that would have been a more logical time to release it, but they seem to have done all they can to make the era in the timeline as clear as can be. I don't think there's anything more that could be done in this film, and ultimately, it isn't that critical to the film. The same film, with the same plot, would probably not have been too substantially different.

    I think the show, not tell aspect is probably a much more significant weakness than scheduling, even if we'd all have preferred it sooner.
    It's not just the timeline though; having this come out when it did robbed a lot of scenes (if not much of the movie as a whole) of their tension. We know going in that not only does Natasha have to survive practically unscathed, she has to finish reconciling with Cap and Sam in time to end up in Scotland so they can save Vision and Wanda. We further know that
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    Yelena has to do the same so she can end up in Hawkeye, and furthermore she has to end this story just as likeable as Natasha if not moreso since we need her to replace Nat sooner rather than later. Without that foreknowledge, they could have had Yelena take a darker turn towards the end - or at least be a lot more uncertain - which would have made her ending up as an unwitting pawn of Valentina much more organic.


    Two scenes here in particular would have made her eventual fate in Endgame much stronger too:
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    First - watching the nameless Widow, a mindless puppet essentially, plummet to her death without any control/agency, sharply contrasts her own decision on Vormir to die in a similar way willingly. Second, us getting that glimpse into her time holed up with Clint in Budapest for days during her face-turn. In a way, Clint was there both at the start and the end of her life - the part of her life she had control over anyway, and thus was fully hers - and just as he saved her life in the beginning, she was able to save his in the end.


    Had all that come before Endgame instead of after, I do believe the MCU as a whole would be much stronger for it.
    Quote Originally Posted by The Giant View Post
    But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?
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