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

Thunderbolts* (2025)

Director: Jake Schreier

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko

Have I Seen It Before: Nope! Honestly, I was going to take a pass on this one. I’ve already missed so much of the post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) films and series. I still haven’t seen Black Widow (2020), and the ads on this one were insisting I’d be lost without having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Multiverse Saga. After my favorite theater wasn’t going to run this one**—that being the main reason I caved and saw Captain America: Brave New World (2025)—that would probably be it.

And then the reviews came back. It isn’t bad? All of these people are going to show up for the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday***? Ok, fine.

That’s the spirit to start the summer movie season, right?

Did I Like It: More than a little bit, I’m glad to report. Injecting an actual theme into the proceedings help. It may be a bit on the thin side—making the sordid past and healing from that past the fundamental fuel of whatever CGI kaleidoscope is to follow—but it is at least something. Name for me the theme of, say Brave New World****. I’ll wait.

Sure, there’s the kind of table-setting that can drag down even some of the earlier films, and the second act flies on autopilot to the point I did not fear a nap in the middle of the movie if it were to come for me. But, you want to know the most solid praise I can give this film.

After five years, I finally want to go watch Black Widow. Maybe there is hope for Marvel yet.

*This movie came directly for the Party Now, Apocalypse Later style guide, didn’t it?

**I’ve got more than a few things to say about Disney’s theatrical distribution model, but those will probably have to wait for some other blog post.

***A film I’m feeling obligated to see, if for no other reason than I need to bear witness to just what Robert Downey, Jr. is thinking—beyond, you know, money—coming back to the fold when he was right on the verge of re-inventing himself with Oppenheimer (2023).

****And no, “what happens when the President turns into a Hulk monster in the middle of a Rose Garden press conference” does not count as a theme.

Midsommar (2019)

Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Will Poulter

Have I Seen it Before: In pacing and plotting, yes. Many times. In terms of visual style coupled with this plotting, I can’t imagine anyone’s seen anything like it. 

Did I Like It: I’ve come to the conclusion that degrees of “liking” or even any discussion of what humans might normally understand as pleasure are not the right terms to use when it comes to a film by Ari Aster. The film is incredibly well-made, and your emotions will be precisely where Mr. Aster wants them at any given time.

I was not as excitable about Aster’s first film, Hereditary (2018). as many other people were. While it was clear that Aster was bringing considerable skill to bear in the effort, the film was just too pitch-black in its mood. There is no respite. Things get worse and worse, get infinitely bleak, and then manage to find a little bit more to drain out of the available pool of human warmth.

It was almost as if Aster clearly had steeped himself in the very best of the horror genre but wasn’t interested in his audience having any sort of fun during the process. It’s a missing vital ingredient, like sitting down to eat the finest chocolate cake ever conceived of by human beings, and instead only being served a supply of—albeit the best—semi-sweet chocolate.

I completely understand that I would be in the minority on that opinion, but at the same time it does feel like in this—his second film—Aster either received that criticism from elsewhere, or felt the same about his freshman effort going into the sophomore. Midsommar is still filled to the brim with human misery both physical and existential, but it is also genuinely funny and ends with a sense of genuine—if morbid—catharsis of which Hereditary was pointedly disinterested.

Even with these brief flashes of relief, Aster has not let go of his brutal filmmaking instincts. It is an arduous journey, one that should not be undertaken alone, as much of a fan as I am of going to the theater on one’s own. For a little added perspective, this film is the only experience I’ve ever had where I felt the need to take anxiety medication after it was over. Consider yourself warned. Have fun.