Black Widow

[Paul Farquhar]

Her superpower is that she has turned off falling damage.

Slow Fall​

Beginning at 4th level, you can use your reaction when you fall to reduce any falling damage you take by an amount equal to five times your monk level.

And explosion damage and car crash damage.

Evasion​

At 7th level, your instinctive agility lets you dodge out of the way of certain area effects, such as a blue dragon’s lightning breath or a fireball spell. When you are subjected to an effect that allows you to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, you instead take no damage if you succeed on the saving throw, and only half damage if you fail.

 

[Stalker0]

That said, as long as there's some semblance of a nod toward how Natasha could survive a fall that incapacitated another Red Room trained Widow - I'm content. And while the incapacitated Widow seemed to fall straight down off the toppling chimney, Natasha bounced off a number of things on the way down. It's not enough for reality, but it generally is enough for superhero genre reality and the suspension of disbelief.

I think my issue (which is really more of a nitpick) is that they really emphasize how brutal the landings are with sound work.

in that early scene, nat lands HARD, the sound makes it sounds VISCERAL. Normally in those types of scenes it’s a bit of “bang bang clang” and we move on.

it was the audio equivalent is hearing dishes falling and breaking next door, but then going over and seeing everything is fine. The audio set my expectation that nat suffered a truly brutal fall, but then the scene went back on that.

 

[MarkB]

Well, she was the fake-daughter of a Russian supersoldier and an unethical neuroscientist, and was put through a training regime designed to push people beyond human limits, so you gotta wonder if she got a little something extra somewhere along the way. There's a lot of open ground in between "baseline human" and "serum-enhanced supersoldier".

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I think my issue (which is really more of a nitpick) is that they really emphasize how brutal the landings are with sound work.

in that early scene, nat lands HARD, the sound makes it sounds VISCERAL. Normally in those types of scenes it’s a bit of “bang bang clang” and we move on.

it was the audio equivalent is hearing dishes falling and breaking next door, but then going over and seeing everything is fine. The audio set my expectation that nat suffered a truly brutal fall, but then the scene went back on that.

Agreed. Back when I was an editor I would have picked this nit hard with the director. And then the sound people. Because the sound mixer is the one who wanted to do it this way and would have argued for the visceral thunks. Bloody sound people.

 

[CapnZapp]

Perhaps the early reviews set my expectations too high.

There were'nt enough focus on Natasha and Scarlett.

The whole "Taskmaster can mirror your fighting style" was entirely wasted. I expected a focused battle where Natasha initially found it easy, but where Taskmaster learnt at a frightening pace. Increasingly frustrated Natasha tried her every trick with Taskmaster blocking that too, but that when things looked really desperate, Natasha's ingenuity sparked a moment of genius (exactly what I leave to the film makers) that the Taskmaster didn't see coming.

Instead we got a few feeble "I'm posing as this or that Avenger" which makes zero sense. When did the Taskmaster fight those heroes? Or is it enough for her to study news footage? Wut? Besides, why are we meant to care? If Natasha and Yelena fled the Taskmaster in the safe house chase scene specifically because "it's invincible" I missed that part. Fleeing the bad guys at first is a staple and I didn't look for more motivation than "they were swarmed by Widows led by a super-Widow".

The only satisfying (non-plasticy weightless CGI filler) fight was weirdly enough when Scarlett fought Florence.

Other than that, yes, I liked the family scenes (both with the young and adult girls). Talk about reviewers grasping for straws though. Maybe for a MCU movie it was a lot, but I felt it was a bare minimum.

Of course the director trolled us guys when she said she put in a "Natasha changing clothes" scene "because she finds Scarlett sexy". (She was battered black and blue in that scene and there was nothing even remotely sexy about it even if she hadn't been.)

I agree with those people that say it is a letdown to have your only solo movie function as the vehicle where you hand over the baton. I'm not complaining about Pugh. But Scarlett deserved a movie that was all about Natasha, and surprise: Marvel could not pull it off even when they tried.

Grade: B-

What a monumental waste of Scarlett Johansson over the past, what, 12 years?

 

[MarkB]

Perhaps the early reviews set my expectations too high.

There were'nt enough focus on Natasha and Scarlett.

The whole "Taskmaster can mirror your fighting style" was entirely wasted. I expected a focused battle where Natasha initially found it easy, but where Taskmaster learnt at a frightening pace. Increasingly frustrated Natasha tried her every trick with Taskmaster blocking that too, but that when things looked really desperate, Natasha's ingenuity sparked a moment of genius (exactly what I leave to the film makers) that the Taskmaster didn't see coming.

Instead we got a few feeble "I'm posing as this or that Avenger" which makes zero sense. When did the Taskmaster fight those heroes? Or is it enough for her to study news footage? Wut? Besides, why are we meant to care? If Natasha and Yelena fled the Taskmaster in the safe house chase scene specifically because "it's invincible" I missed that part. Fleeing the bad guys at first is a staple and I didn't look for more motivation than "they were swarmed by Widows led by a super-Widow".

The only satisfying (non-plasticy weightless CGI filler) fight was weirdly enough when Scarlett fought Florence.

Other than that, yes, I liked the family scenes (both with the young and adult girls). Talk about reviewers grasping for straws though. Maybe for a MCU movie it was a lot, but I felt it was a bare minimum.

Of course the director trolled us guys when she said she put in a "Natasha changing clothes" scene "because she finds Scarlett sexy". (She was battered black and blue in that scene and there was nothing even remotely sexy about it even if she hadn't been.)

I agree with those people that say it is a letdown to have your only solo movie function as the vehicle where you hand over the baton. I'm not complaining about Pugh. But Scarlett deserved a movie that was all about Natasha, and surprise: Marvel could not pull it off even when they tried.

Grade: B-

What a monumental waste of Scarlett Johansson over the past, what, 12 years?

It is truly ridiculous that we didn't get either a Black Widow or a Black Widow and Hawkeye movie sometime around 5+ years ago.

 

[Marc_C]

As someone who doesn't know who Taskmaster is in comics, the movie is perfectly fine. It was a good twist when revealed. The general public doesn't care if there was a mirror fight or not.

 

[embee]

I tried watching it last night. Came across as an hour and a half of Designated Girl Fights. Pretty formulaic. I wasn't overly engaged with it and turned it off about halfway through.

From what I could gather, Taskmaster is kind of like a Terminator robot but he's just as bad at assassinating people as Winter Soldier was. There was a "Budapesht" reference.

I wasn't thrilled. There's only so many stunt fights and explosions and stuntpeople doing three-point landings that I can take.

 

[Morrus]

Pretty formulaic.

I mean, it's a Marvel movie. They've made like 25 movies with the same formula now!

 

[embee]

I mean, it's a Marvel movie. They've made like 25 movies with the same formula now!

I'll grant that I had a sub-optimal viewing experience. Namely, with the volume somewhat low because my kids were asleep upstairs. But I'd be like "Oh... another improbable car chase gun fight. Okay, I guess I'll pick up toys for a few minutes."

On the other hand, the Disney+ series all have engaged me and have the exact same viewing conditions. Same TV. Same volume level. Same room that needs to be cleaned. And those shows have all been engaging enough to get me to stop tidying.

This was just a series of same fights that, based on my comic knowledge of Taskmaster, was going to culminate in an Ultimate Same Fight.

At least The Avengers had the ridiculosity of Black Widow knocking someone out with a hair flip. I can get behind that ridiculousness.

Black Widow falls face-first into ductwork and overhangs from 50 feet up and is unscathed is the bad kind of ridiculous and no amount of Russian Super Serum is going to shore it up.