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Black Widow is the twenty-fourth film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the eleventh solo movie for a member of the "core six" Avengers.
After the events of Captain America: Civil War, Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff is on the run from the authorities. She reunites with three people of her past (her childhood friend Yelena Belova [Florence Pugh] and her foster parents Melina Vostokoff [Rachel Weisz] and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian [David Harbour]), in order to stop Taskmaster, a mysterious supervillain who is an expert in hand to hand combat and armed combat. In the mean time, one will learn what Natasha went through and how she became the Black Widow we know and love. . .
NOTE: Due to the nature of this movie, beware of Late Arrival Spoilers for Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
- Acrofatic: Alexei can still kick ass in hand-to-hand combat despite his massive girth.
- Adaptational Heroism:
- Melina Vostokoff and Red Guardian were both villains in the comics. Here they're Natasha's adoptive parents and firm allies.
- Yelena is usually Natasha's Evil Counterpart. Here she's Nat's Annoying Younger Sibling.
- Adaptational Wimp: Melina doesn't have her Iron Maiden armor in the movie.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Melina and Alexei, for Natasha and Yelena.
- Ambiguous Gender: Taskmaster wears full body armour and looks very androgynous. The third act reveals that Taskmaster is a she.
- Badass Normal: Everywhere. No one has any powers but they're all capable fighters.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: As always, nothing leaves Natasha with a lasting mark.
- Big Bad Wannabe: General Dreykov in the context of the whole MCU. As is said, for all his resources and influence, he doesn't actually appear to have a goal in mind and most of his schemes seem to be copying HYDRA.
- Darker and Edgier: The movie is about about a group of brainwashed, mutilated super-soldiers since childhood, featuring an antagonist so vile that he uses his own daughter as his right-hand. The thing is, Natasha and her team are much more outmatched against him than to similar villains like Thanos are against The Avengers, making things significantly more tense.
- Distaff Counterpart: The Black Widow program is essentially one for the Winter Soldier program.
- Formerly Fit: Alexei, according to Yelena.
- Got Me Doing It: After mocking Natasha's Three-Point Landing, Yelena finds herself doing it in the climax.
- Husky Russkie: Alexei is almost stereotypically russian with all the bravado and drinking that comes with it. Fitting for Russia's answer to Captain America.
- Interquel: The film's 2016 section starts during the third act of Captain America: Civil War, likely when Tony is visiting the Raft, and Black Panther.
- Legacy Character: Both Natasha and Yelena are Black Widow.
- Mama Bear: When Natasha's birth mother found out what the Red Room truly was, she threw up such a fuss in trying to find her daughter that she nearly exposed the Ancient Conspiracy.
- Flawed as she can be, Melina is also this to Natasha and Yelena and is willing to go against the Red Room for her foster daughters.
- More Than Mind Control: Yelena describes the Black Widow program as such. The girls have their pheromones and body chemicals manipulated, but are also conditioned from early childhood to obey orders without question.
- Papa Wolf: Since Melina is a Mama Bear to Yelena and Natasha, Alexei is this to them as well.
- Relationship-Salvaging Disaster: The entire film is one for Natasha's surrogate family. At the end, she notes that it gives her hope that one may happen for the Avengers.
- Rogues Gallery Transplant: While Taskmaster was never tied down to any one hero in the Marvel multiverse (having fought Avengers, X-Men, and independents), they never fought Natasha Romanoff until after this movie was announced, with she being the Hero Antagonist of a 2020 mini-series starring him that is clearly conceived to ride on the wave of this movie, and was only released before it thanks to unforeseen circumnstances, that is, the 2020 flu pandemic.
- Saved by Canon: Natasha was never in any danger of dying, since the movie is set before Avengers: Infinity War.
- Sequel Hook: In The Stinger, Valentina sets Yelena after Clint, claiming he killed Natasha, setting up Yelena's role in Hawkeye.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: After her adventures largely being confined to the USA, this film takes Natasha to Russia.
- Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
- Justified. Yelena wants Nat to call in Tony Stark so they can have his help in taking down the Red Room and mass-producing the antidote but Natasha says, thanks to the airport battle, they're not on speaking terms at the moment.
- The film also has enough foresight to answer why Nat didn't call on Yelena during Phase 3, she was off deprogramming other Black Widows.
- Take That, Critics!: In 2019, Martin Scorsese infamously said that the MCU was "not cinema". General Dreykov, a perverted Dirty Coward Big Bad Wannabe, looks very much like a fat Scorsese. He's also described as someone who has no long terms plans and vastly overestimates his importance to the world.
- Ten-Minute Retirement: Natasha intended to retire after the airport battle. Then she was attacked by Taskmaster a day later.
- Terrorists Without a Cause: More or less lampshaded about Dreykov. For all his resources, he doesn't really seem to have an endgame.
- We Are Everywhere: Dreykov has Black Widows everywhere.