As Marvel’s epics get bigger, Black Widow’s stakes feel too small

Black Widow was released at the wrong time, in multiple ways. The new Marvel prequel was one of the most high-profile films to be displaced by the constantly shifting theatrical release schedule caused by the shuttering of theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Black Widow — a film set between Captain America: Civil War’s superhero dust-up and Avengers: Infinity War’s cosmos-spanning epic — feels like a movie that should have been released when it’s actually set, instead of as a belated prequel. It’s not that Black Widow is a bad movie or an unworthy member of the Marvel saga. Its brand of James Bond-esque spy-fi harks back to some of the more grounded MCU films like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, less focused on superpowered smack-downs in favor of more traditional action movie fare. And if it had been released in 2016 after Civil War, that would have been fine. But Marvel’s films have undergone vast shifts in tone since then. Doctor Strange opened up the connected universe to straight-up magic, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok both offered galaxy-spanning adventures with whole planets at stake, and of course, Infinity War and Endgame see the Avengers — and Natasha Romanov — fight to save quite literally all of existence. After all that, Black Widow’s stakes feel low, especially for a character that fans have gotten to see in action in far bigger adventures for over a decade. For all the joking about how Thor could handle the Red Room without breaking a sweat, the over-the-top reality that is the regular day-to-day of the modern Marvel shows and movies hangs over Black Widow’s throwback style.