Black Widow
Full Disclosure: I am a very casual Marvel fan. I was raised as a DC boy, so that’s where my heart lies, but my lack of knowledge on the Marvel Universe as a whole has let me throughly enjoy and invest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am able to go into every new movie and every new character with a fairly blank slate, and not really care about how close or not close to the comics they are. All I want is a fun movie, and more often than not, Marvel makes fun movies. Thankfully, Black Widow is no exception.
Mild Spoilers for Black Widow to follow.
Black Widow takes place right after the events of Captain America: Civil War where the Avengers have essentially just broken up. Natasha Romanoff is hiding out when she inexplicably gets caught up with the current Black Widow program that she had long thought was shut down.
The idea of having Natasha going after the man behind the program that has ruined so many young women’s lives is a palpable one, but unfortunately nothing much comes from it, at least not emotionally. However, the movie more than makes up for it with the family dynamics of Natasha’s fake Russian spy family, featuring Florence Pugh as her sister and Rachel Weiz and David Harbour as her parents. Pugh is a recently freed Black Widow, Weiz is the engineer and planner of the group, and Harbour is the only Russian Super Soldier to ever exist.
The whole cast completely gels together, having both sincere interactions and hilariously inane and stupid arguments. Harbour easily gets the biggest and best laughs of the movie while also believably fucking some shit up from time to time. But Scarlett and Florence are the heart of the flick, with Pugh in particular standing out. She is just so present and intense and funny, often in the same scene. Her and Scarlett have a great back and forth, and I’m excited to see her pop up in the future elsewhere.
The stunt work of Black Widow is surprisingly practical. Don’t get me wrong, there is CGI out the wahzoo, but I was pleased to see real cars and motorcycles being driven and crashed, as well as real explosions and stunt people doing what they do best. OG stunts just hit different, baby. The fights are particularly gnarly here too, with Natasha both beating and being beaten harder than we’ve ever seen. There is one early fight between Natasha and her sister that had me flinching. It’s not John Wick level brutality, but for Marvel it was pretty cool.
The main physical threat here is The Task Master, the brutal lead henchman of the man behind the Black Widow Program. The Task Master has a mean as hell look to them, with a full face helmet giving a particularly cold and brutal vibe to the character. They beat the hell out of both Scarlett and Florence a few times over, making for a formidable physical challenge.
As for Scarlett, our girl kills it. She’s got this character down, and she handles the action and humor with grace and ease and really it’s nice to see her finally get her own movie, even if it’s not as emotional or cathartic for the character as it should have been.
That’s a minor quibble though, as Black Widow is a very satisfying entry into the MCU, albeit one of the more low key ones. But still, it was just nice to see a new Marvel movie again. I get it if these flicks aren’t your thing, but if they are, then you are going to have a great time with Black Widow.
Mortal Kombat
Spoilers for Mortal Kombat to follow.
Like many of you, I was the perfect age for Mortal Kombat when it came out in theaters in 1995. I loved the games and was stoked for the movie, and to my 9 year old brain it was everything I wanted and more. Nostalgia does a lot of heavy lifting when I watch it now, but I also genuinely believe it’s a fun video game movie that knows exactly what it is and has plenty of fun with its ridiculous premise and characters.
So, how does Mortal Kombat’ 21 fare?
Well, let’s talk the negative first. The fight sequences aren’t as mind blowing as the trailers would have you believe, there are choices made by the filmmakers that are straight up baffling (there is one scene in particular where Sonya Blade demands to see another characters mortal kombat birth mark that’s on his chest, and when he lowers the collar of his shirt the birthmark is almost completely covered up by the shirt still. Did no one say to the actors “hey we can’t see the thing, let’s do another take”?) and most of the acting is just straight up bad. Oh, and there is no actual tournament in MK’21, just some babble about the bad guys wanting to skip to the end and claim victory over Earth.
But you know what? I really didn’t mind any of it. I wasn’t expecting something “fucking awesome” per se, and a lot of these weird choices add to the film’s overall charm (it didn’t hurt that I watched this with 5 of my very best and vaccinated friends with proper inebriates assisting). The film’s limited budget also means we get some cool practical effects and costumes, which I’m always about, but even some of the CG sequences aren’t so bad (Sub-Zero’s ice knife looks legit and cool AF). MK’21 also moves at a brisk ass pace, forcing the viewer to just go along with the silliness instead of thinking about it too much. High class low rent filmmaking at its best really. Also, every time the movie sneaks in classic video game lines like “Flawless Victory!” or ”Kano Wins!” the results are laugh out loud great. Oh, and the gore is quite good.
“I get it, Jordan! It’s so bad it’s good!” No. I don’t really like that way of thinking when it comes to movies. Ridiculous is a better word for it, I think, which to me is most definitely a compliment.
So we have a Mortal Kombat movie with no mortal kombat tournament, fight sequences that leave a lot to be desired, and some genuinely questionable filmmaking choices. But shit, I just can’t be mad at this movie though. I had fun! I had a lot of fun, and truthfully, what the hell else do you want from a movie called Mortal Kombat?