10 Movies Released Way Too Late To Make Sense

There are a lot of things wrong with the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 4.

After a solid series of bone-crunchingly satisfying action scenes, the climax is just more unrealistic, weightless Marvel CG. The central characters’ motivations are murky throughout, and other minor characters could be cut without anyone noticing. The accents make absolutely no sense - if these are spies trained to blend into US society, why do they later speak broken English with thick Russian accents?

But by far the biggest complaint is that it is completely inconsequential. Black Widow arrives as a prequel (set just after Captain America: Civil War) because the character died in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame - two years before this movie was released.

The MCU is a franchise that’s made its name on everything being connected, yet nothing here connects to anything else. No other Avengers share the screen with her. No other reference has ever been made to the events of this film. Apparently all of this deeply personal drama mans nothing to Natasha, because she never mentions it again. Nothing here means anything.

That sense of meaninglessness extends to the central conflict. Dreykov and the Red Room have been resurrected specifically for this film. The film creates unfinished business for Romanoff which was previously thought finished, has her finish it (again), and then just… peters out with some fireflies in a tree.

Had Disney had the ovaries to greenlight a Black Widow movie a decade ago, or seven years ago, or even three years ago - when it would have meant something - we wouldn’t have this odd, insignificant coda to a founding Avenger’s story. Scarlett Johansson deserved a better consolation prize.