Black Widow (2021)

Director: Cate Shortland

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz

Have I Seen It Before: Heh. Never. There remains that hazy period of Marvel movies immediately post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) and at the height of COVID that I just missed on initial release and never came back to… Which grew into a lot of the post-Endgame stuff I missed, not because I’m sitting on my hands not wanting to see the movies, but because time is finite, and it already feels like the Marvel braintrust has moved on from some of these properties.

Sorry, Eternals (2021) and The Marvels (2023). I might yet get to you one day.

And yet this film feels like the one that might have some staying power, after Thunderbolts* (2025) turned out to be a stealth sequel, Florence Pugh had a puckish cameo in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) and the parts of the gang who still live will be back for Avengers: Doomsday.

Did I Like It: One would be completely reasonable—or I think so, as it was my initial reaction—to come away from the film thinking that it might be a little slight. The scope of the story is small. The world is not in danger at any point. Given that Natasha (Johansson) dies in the aforementioned Endgame (this film takes place shortly after Captain America: Civil War (2016), in case you wanted to spend any span of the 2020s reliving parts of 2016), there’s even less dramatic tension or danger than there normally is in these films.

But the real crucial flaw in these films is when they are weighed down by the need to set up half a dozen upcoming films, and in the process forget to be a movie on their own terms. With all of those aforementioned supposed flaws, the film is free from having to look to the future at all. It might be its secret weapon.

*No real footnote here, just what happens whenever that movie is mentioned. The format of that title is going to curse these reviews for years to come

Violent Night (2022)

Director: Tommy Wirkola

Cast: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Had half an inkling to go see it in the theater, and now that it is available on Peacock, I ran out of reasons to stop.

By the way, Peacock has spoiled me on the ad supported movie services. They front-load all of their ads, while literally every other service that has ads, is jamming them in the middle of the movie. I love you Peacock, and I didn’t think I would. And this is only kind of about you guys footing the bill for the Community movie.

Did I Like It: For some reason, I thought this was a horror movie as I went into it, which seems silly now that I think about it. Instead, it’s not just the best argument against Die Hard (1988) being considered a Christmas movie, it’s just about the only cogent argument that can claim an even baseline level of cogency.

Aside from the fact that the movie takes the Die Hard model and injects it into a story more directly at home with the themes of the Christmas holiday (giving of gifts, frustration with family members, presence of any children whatsoever, and expressing even a small degree of disappointment with the holiday), it isn’t offering much new. The notion of Santa (Harbour, shaking off any stink he might have gotten on him from trying to be Hellboy) in an unassailably adult action picture, coupled with a suddenly tragic backstory for the legend is all new. But literally everything else screams a quick pitch of “Die Hard, but with Santa.” Even the supporting cast feels like ideas Rian Johnson might have scratched out while writing Knives Out (2019) or Glass Onion (2022).

It’s probably unreasonable to expect much more from a film. In all reality, it was selling a particular bill of goods, and delivered those precisely. Come for Harbour’s performance, stay for the Harbour performance. Everything will work out fine.