Black Widow

I'm a big MCU fan and since Black Widow was announced, I've always looked forward to it but I was a bit sceptical about it. Because this is a prequel, it felt a bit odd to be coming out now but I always going to give it a chance.

Starting with the positives, the best thing about this film is the action. It is handled so so well, choreographed fantastically and very creative at times. What makes it even better though surprisingly is the editing. Films these days always seem to mess up action when it comes to editing it but this film find a way to have great action but edited really well so it's not all over the place.

I also really enjoyed the cast for this film. Scarlett Johansson is as always fantastic as Black Widow, Florence Pugh is a welcome addition to this franchise and I can see a long future for her, David Harbour shows how versatile he is as an actor with his goofy comedic performance as Red Guardian and Rachel Weisz is really charming as Natasha's mother and all four of these actors have great chemistry upon one another.

I also really liked Ray Winstones character. I was surprised to hear he would be in this film. He didn't strike me as someone who'd ever do a superhero movie but I did enjoy his performance. His character felt like a respected homage to Marlon Brandos Don Vito Corleone from The Godfather.

Now the MCU is known for its grand use of green screen and sometimes I feel it overdoes that a bit and I could be wrong but this film seemed to be more location based. Now yes some green screen is obviously used but a lot of the time, it feels like they're filming on location and I always enjoy it when films do that.

It's also one of the most thematic MCU films as it focuses on the themes of family and whilst this is a theme that does feel overused, I feel it works well for what this film establishes for its plot and characters.

And my final positive is the humour. This film is very funny and there are some really funny one liners and the banter amongst the cast is great as well.

Now as a mixed thought, it's only the timeline. Now this film takes place between Captain America: civil war and Avengers Infinity war but I feel this could have taken place anywhere within the MCU continuity and if it wants to match with its themes, maybe it would make more sense for it to take place between infinity war and Endgame after Thanos's snap.

Now onto my negatives. Let's gets the obvious one out of the way. This film admittedly feels inconsequential because we know what happens to Black Widow and because everything takes place in the past, nothing shocking happens. Besides a post credit scene, nothing sets up for the future so yes this does feel inconsequential and also feels like it should have come out years ago.

But my biggest issue with this film is there are several plot points that feel very derivative of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Especially the villain of Taskmaster, I liked this character at first but as the film went on, it turns out to be a less interesting version of Bucky and without going into spoilers, the 3rd act has some strong similarities to the 3rd act in The Winter Soldier.

Finally and this is a nitpick, some of the accents in this film are very dodgy especially Ray Winstone. You can hear his normal London based accent whilst he performs a Russian accent.

However, this is still a solid good MCU film and the solo Black widow movie that we have wanted for so long. Don't let the fact we should have got this years ago stop you from enjoying it because you will.

⭐⭐⭐

Fast and furious 9

I always knew this would be an interesting watch. Since fast and furious 8, I accepted these films would be dumb fun films and after this film, it's gonna get a lot dumber and more fun.

Starting with the positives, for me the best thing about this film are the stunts. I really feel the amount of stunt work that goes into these films have become underappreciated. I really admired how much work had clearly gone into creating these stunts and even better, I could not work out how much was practical and how much was CGI but clearly a lot of it was practical.

I also enjoy the big ensemble cast that we got in this film. Obviously we've followed a lot of these cast members from the beginning and this is another thing that isn't noticed upon but I feel these films have cast members who have such great chemistry amongst each other, they all make each other better actors, better performers.

And finally this is probably the most rewatchable film of the year. It's so much fun, never slows down, never drags on and with how much escapism you get, you can put this on and easily get a good time watching it.

Onto the mixed elements now and let's get the big one out of the way, this film takes what the previous instalments had, times it all by 100, adds a load of hot sauce and that's the film you get. This will probably be the make or break moment for fans and for some, this will be too much but for others it will be what they expected. I tend to be in the latter and I do feel these films get a bit too much hate but I do get why some fans may lose interest after this instalment.

Next is John Cena's casting. Now I've never had an issue with John Cena as an actor. He's never done anything to make me dislike him but I've never been insanely impressed. I'm just in the middle and I think he does well in this film. Now I have more thoughts with his character but I don't have any issue with him in this film.

Finally the humour is very hit n miss. Some moments are very very funny, especially a sequence involving Nathalie Emmanuel but other elements for me fell very flat. There's also an odd use of metahumour in the film that I'm still a bit unsure on.

Onto the negatives now and this is gonna be fun. First big issue and this is my biggest issue, the film was marketed horribly. Please Universal, sack your marketing team and get better ones because my god this film reveals too much of the film and even reveals two major plot details that would have been good for shock value. Unfortunately because of how much that was revealed, nothing ever shocked me.

Now onto the film issues, this film shows it's running out of ideas. I don't want to go to much onto this section for spoiler reasons but I never liked the idea of Doms brother or Han coming back from the dead and this film confirmed it for me. The character arc for John Cena's characters is extremely predictable and by the end feels unearned and I just never bought Hans return.

Next is the tone, this is probably the film in the Fast franchise with the most inconsistent tone. It's all over the place. It goes from dumb fun action and comedy to melodramatic to philosophical to even at one point Sci Fi.

I wasn't a fan of Charlize Theron screentime in this film either because all her scenes felt like late reshoots edited it and considering how much I loved her character in the previous film, this was a major downgrade for me.

And finally I feel the production team ran out of budget because they do go to space and the space scenes look very fake. Not only that, it feels really gimmicky like the production team saw the space speculation and just went with it, forgetting the logics and time differences between earth and space.

However despite this sounding like a negative review, I would actually recommend this film for the fans who have followed this series from the beginning and people who just want some fun and escapism. I did enjoy this film but I just can't forget the major flaws.

⭐⭐⭐