Black Widow reviewed by Mark Kermode 

Living for Kermode making comparisons to Captain Scarlet

I'd disagree that this is an origin story, it's more like "What Natasha did in her gap year" between Civil War and Infinity War.

The only Russian actress in the cast was given 0 lines!

Did anyone really expect Ray Winstone's Russian accent to be anything other than the mangled cockney that he delivered?

Ray Winstons was the standout bad accent, almost all of it was with his cockney english accent and pulled you right out of the scene of him being a Russian megalomaniac.

David Harbour and Florence Pugh were the stand outs of this film and I want to see more of both Red Guardian and Yelena.

Should have done it like Hunt For Red October, start with Russian and English subtitles then swiftly transition into everyone's native (English) language and remain so for rest of movie (with the idea that in fact in universe everyone speaks Russian) we just see it in English...

I liked the first half when it seemed more gritty and grimey than your average Marvel movie and seemed more grounded and lacking their typical humour, but after a point it just morphs into standard fare which was a bit disappointing

Is Ray Winstone's Russian accent better than his Boston accent? Because we still got a fatwah out on him over here for The Departed.

Yep. A decent enough action movie, which always has the central issue that there is no peril for Scarlett Johansson's character, because we already know her "future history". But yes, it is also a decent way to pass the "Black Widow" baton to Florence Pugh, if that is indeed the plan. Florence is indeed a fine actor, and also proves that she can "Pose" with the best of them!

It's not always that I agree with Simon more than I agree with Mark, but I really do agree that this film does feel a bit less than the sum of its parts.

I love how Mark committed to say "family" this way every time he said it.

All the family stuff worked so well, and the cast were fantastic, but I feel that they were also a bit wasted with all the tedious and bloated action scenes which were just generic space fillers which went on too long. More of the character drama would have been preferable as Black Widow is the most grounded of the Avengers, so having a more grounded film would have worked far better.

that prison where they rescued Red Guardian looks like it would be a good CoD multiplayer map 😂

Yes, that accent business is strange, but this is in a cinematic universe where every extraterrestrial in the universe speaks English.

When attention and immersion flags, that's when we start noticing things like bad accents, plot holes, inauthentic costumes etc. If a movie is really engaging, those things don't matter.

The accents in Death of Stalin felt more appropriate

Mind-numbingly boring film. So much action and none of it was interesting and the character stuff was also super-weak.

love Ray Winstone but he absolutely cannot do accents why do they keep making him do accents cockneys are allowed to travel around the world let him just be a cockney and all will be well

Disappointing. Felt like a winter soldier B-Side. Wasted Taskmaster and Ray Winstone didn’t work in the role.

I usually just assume that when foreign characters talk with an accent it means they really talk in their native tongue. Else they would have to subtitle the film or do the Red October transition thing every time

I found Drakoff /Ray Winstone the weakest villain in the MCU to date (surprised he didn’t wear a twirly moustache). Very very disappointing

Don't care to see this movie, but I do appreciate Mark calling out F&F for how shallow and superficial the theme of "Family" has gotten now that it's pretty much a parody of itself. Also remembering the ACTUAL family that birth Dom's son seems to never come up much anymore as if she was a horrible person for having made the situation with Dom and Letty more complicated. Oh well, I'm sure she'll come back as a cyborg somehow looking for revenge and no one will question it because "Der Her, Cars fly now, so anything happen."

It would have been better if it came before endgame

The accent thing is wrong Mark. My wife is Bengali, she sounds like a posh public school English woman, but when she is on the phone talking with Indians her English turns into an Indian accented English. Its standard if you have lived with both. She also mixes languages on the fly, standard.

To me, the tone and the quality of each act were very different. It was like 3 different directors made a 45 minute episode, and they were sandwiched together.

This film was awful, do not waste your time watching it

I have zero interest in marvel movies. I just like hearing mark talk about movies

This film was unbearable.

Liked the first two acts. The characters were interesting and so were the performances. But the third act was a bit messy, could have done another ten minutes to even it out maybe give more focus to the villians as well. Over all I give it a 4/5.

Agree with Mark on this one, best bits were definitely the family stuff, action felt the usual formulaic crashy bashy smashy. As a Bond nerd, was waiting for an homage to Moonraker and did finally get one, sort of, with the freefalling near the end of the film.

CRAP film. I almost walked out. Very boring. I cant believe people actually rated this highly. I would not recommend. Has nothing special. Has little special effects or action sequences. A bit like Spider-Man homecoming. Why does Rotten Tomatoes always rate crap films highly? IMDB is so much better. I think IMDB has more mature and bigger film buffs and Rotten Tomatoes attracts teens. This can be the only reason. Russian accent is usually not a good idea, particularly for well known actors. Ruins the film. This want too bad. I don’t think they spent a lot of money on this because the marvel franchise has been such a success and they know people will see it no matter what. I remember Bad Boys 2. What a disappointment that was. Same thing. Will Smith was the executive producer and didn’t spend a lot.

Hollywood hire an Eastern European actor challenge 2021

In my head I justified Dreykov's accent because of all the photos you see of him in the opening titles with western leaders - that he may have had to 'Americanise' it over the years and his current accent is just a hodgepodge. That being said I found myself wondering why the family - especially Yelena - had Russian accents. Rachel Weiss' accent seemed to falter a fair bit too.

I can understand where people are coming from when it comes to the Russian accents. Florene Pugh's was solid, David Harbour's was over the top but that works for his character, Rachel Weisz's was on and off, Ray Winstone's was non-existent. personally, the accents never really bothered me, I think it's something you just have to accept that none of the cast are Russian so you are not going to get spot-on or relatively convincing Russian accents. I thought all of the performances were terrific even Ray Winstone's.

No plot not worth the wait a disappointment poor entertainment

I'm afraid this wasn't very good - and for a lot of it I thought I was watching a bad Jason Bourne remake... and the accents are appalling - Cor blimeyski!

It's exactly what I wrote in my commonplace book! - how come mom and dad spoke American English perfectly well in Ohio but had chronic Russian accents 30 years later. And yes, Ray Winstone was annoying because he couldn't even be bothered to create a decent performance.

It's a terrible terrible film! They lost me at the pheromones nonsense. The bad accents were the icing on the Shite cake. The camera moves that quick you can't really see what is going on. The action went on for that long I was bored.

Ray Winstone should do a Michael Caine - just stick to Cockney accents no matter the film or genre. It works for him.....

Awful film

You hate on Zack Snyder comic book films which always try something new and are usually a lot deeper and more complex with beautiful cinematography but enjoy a mid mcu movie with nothing to it

The movie could have been great, but it was disappointing.

The russian accent between family members, but american accents when they are out and about, is to show that they are speaking russian/their true accents with each other, but putting on an american accent to blend in when they're not.

FAMILY... lol

Just use" foreign" actors a novel idea I know....

One of the worst marvel films

review should be : boooooooring!!! I mean marvel learnt that having a good antagonist is what makes a good movie and yet we know nothing about dreykov or taskmaster. SPOILERS: (you can tell she is female most of the time just by how the suit fits and in some scenes they ue a male stunt double). we already know that BW dies so for us to care about her past an family requires really good story telling and stakes. I expected better from a female director, especially the banter between characters.. most of whom are female. thi felt like a movie from an avergae male director designed to be nothing more than a 6/10. would have probably fared better as a tv show. felt more like an excercise to induct florence pugh to the mcu and pass on the widow torch and setup whats next. Also the red guardian had a lot of setup as a super soldier of great strength and 0 payoff. i would have liked this to be about the guardian and the widow's relationship and the anger there and him coming to rescue her and sacrifying himself. maybe mirroring what happened with her and barton at the purple place so as to add more weight to that in endgame.

Weird. Or coincidental. Had a email come through from Odeon Cinemas, saying come and see Black Widow at our cinemas while watching this review I think they are listening

3:50 er, remember ‘Allo ‘Allo? That’s how we know they’re actually speaking Russian to each other lol!

Didn't care for this one. Didn't feel like a Marvel movie. The forced Russian accents weren't doing it got me either. And there's no free will.

An unnecessary movie.

Although I agree in general about the accents I will throw up some defense for the use of multiple accents for one language. Many people use multiple accents of their native language, like standard or ‘high’ for more formal settings and a more local one for family and friends.

😄 what a great promo clip for Radio! Alo pleased to hear they're going with the Allo Allo accent model haha!

Was the English with Russian accent not code for them speaking Russian?

Is that prison set from the planet of the apes? Looks familiar

Wasn't a fan.

This was a total cringefest, I spent the majority of the film embarrassed for Harbour. It will satisfy people who enjoy explosions and car chases but I expected a little more than endless set pieces ans absolutely moronic humour. Rubbish.

This movie should not be mentioned in the same breath as Logan.

"There is no need to talk about the plot."

Even kermode knows about fast and furious memes hahaha

I assumed when they were speaking with a Russian accent they were actually supposed to be speaking in Russian and it was being automatically translated into English for us English speakers. Because otherwise we’d have to read loads of subtitles.

Why would they provide that clip for a radio show 😂

American with a Russian accent is most likely a stand-in for Russian. 😊

Strongly disagree with Marks positive feeling on that Nirvana cover. There are just some songs that should just be left alone.

It was fine I guess, I'll probably have forgotten most of it by the weekend though, familiarity is breeding contempt with the MCU by now. I liked the banter between Johansson/Pugh/Weisz/Harbour (the 'moose and squirrel' Eastern European accents notwithstanding) and wished that had been the whole film really. Winstone always seems horribly miscast in any American film.

Just tried watching this film and your review actually nails it. The casting of Ray Winston killed this film

Florence is the only stand out...

The Red Room is SPECTRUM Sky Base....sigh....

Black widow is just to your sister's favourite movie, when I saw that trailer where young black widow has blue hair I thought to myself " a 3-year old kid in nursery probably wrote The Script

This film is terrible! Ray Winston is so awful I was shouting to have him killed but his bad acting just went on and on and on, just like the dreadful story of black widows family. Poor poor scarlet having to endure this drivvle. Disney, stop making this post end game rubbish before you destroy the legacy that Marvel left us.

"American and english actors pretending to be russian, speaking english in russian accents.." 😋😋

Another typical MCU movie, cool.

Of everything wrong with this film, you focused on the accents?

The beginning is great, and the middle is OK, but it turns into a video game cut scene in the final 25 minutes which is a shame as the lead four actors are all terrific.

I hogh it was ann established trope that when foreign characters speaking English with the accent it is taken as read that they are speaking their native language...or was it a dream

They made the only russian in there silent.....

Ray Winstone's performance is so bad...

always 480 videos.

Spoilers I think I would have preferred it if it was done before Avengers Endgame as it made zero sense,since Natasha died and we see Florence Pugh attending the graveyard during the post credits. Overall I gave it a 6 out of 10. I preferred WW1984.

right on about the accents mate

Perfect Videography,good introduction,clever jokes which lay in the review

The accent thing also bothers me a lot. There’s such a misunderstanding in Hollywood. If you originally come from a English speaking country and have your own accent, then it might be plausible that you’d adopt an American accent but still revert back to the old accent. But if you come from a country that doesn’t speak English, like Russia, after you have developed an American accent, there’s no reason that you’d speak English in a different accent!

Tired of Marvel and cgi

Why such pastiche? If you are going to imitate something, go for Bourne trilogy, Casino Royale, Atomica. Why a super-hero movie?

All their accents were bad. Every time they pronounced their R's, I got pulled out of the movie.

I know a lot of the comments are already about Ray Winstone's bad accent but it truly was horrific - I can't believe in a Marvel film, where such care and attention is paid to every tiny detail, where there must be focus groups and committees voting on every single decision, that everyone agreed such a catastrophically rubbish accent was allowed to get into the final product

It was OK but it lacked that Marvel MCU fun factor thing! Some nice action at times but to be honest not in the same league as recent MCU movies but Florence Pugh looks good for future MCU movies!

At this point Marvel don’t make bad films, and occasionally they make great films. But this is not a great film. Extremely average IMO, recycled set pieces from all previous films, iffy cgi, absolutely no danger because we know what happens to Natasha in the end. David Harbour was great, as was Pugh and all the best stuff was the family orientated bits as Mark said (the scene around the dinner table with the pig in particular). But yeah, it was fine. I agree with Mayo.

Was weird when they spoke English then randomly say couple of things in Russian then back to English

what a pizza shit this movie.. I've had it with the Marvel movies... A lot of reviewers say that they are good and that that's good enough... I'm not havin' it! It's as bland as it gets at this point.. And bland is worse than bad... If it was genuinely bad I might have actually woken up for a minute whilst viewing it, but it's just plain bad boring.

I agree with Mark, but I didn't care either way about the accents! Thought it was good overall; especially the character interactions and "family" dynamics. The female oppression theme didn't work as well for me. A "B" at most. The basic plot wasn't all that compelling nor exceptionally done, and I would have given it a "C+" if I hadn't liked the characters - and acting -as much.

Thank you for mentioning that language makes absolutely no sense in this film.

I haven't seen the film, and I may be reaching here, but re the Russian accents: is it possible this was a sly in-joke reference to Allo Allo, when the use of accents was intended to let you know the speakers had switched languages? When I finally do get to see the film I'm going to watch for that to see if it fits.

Terrible movie

When you know what’s to come in the mcu, or even compare this to the shows coming out, it seems incredibly dated in style and tone. Another passable film.

All Marvel movies at their heart are character pieces (some are better at it than others, granted). That's why the pyrotechnics in the third act always come across as unnecessary - they're not really 'action movies' in the way that Fast&Furious or Mission Impossible movies are. In fact the action almost feels like the spoonful of sugar to make the character medicine go down.

Kurt Affair.

Which film was it recently that had a female director but the company thought it would be better to have a male to direct the fight scenes because they thought a female wasn't good enough ?

No reviewer seems to have noticed the following borrowings from the various Star Wars: (1) the armed guards and the black widows run through the corridors in exactly the same way the Storm Troopers do/did; (2) there's a mysterious tough person in a mask, who speaks/breathes menacingly as Darth Vader; (3) when "the Red Room" in the sky explodes, it does in various sequences that appear straight from the destruction of the Death Star. (4) the various planes (that take-off vertically) arrive and leave with the virtually the same engine noises as the fighters in Star Wars (especially that of Luke).