Review: 'Black Widow' is a satisfying detour for Marvel

“Black Widow” is as close to a one-off as Marvel gets

How fleeting world domination can be. It can disappear in a snap. It's been two years since the last Marvel film, an unfathomable chasm for an ever-churning movie machine. In between, Marvel has made its most ambitious forays onto television, with the streaming series "WandaVision," “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” and “Loki.” Marvel, of course, isn't going anywhere. But it's also possible that the pandemic hasn't just been a blip in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Even before COVID-19 delayed the release of “Black Widow” and subsequent installments a year or more, “Avengers: Endgame” felt very much like the conclusion of something. Can the most all-powerful juggernaut in movie history just pick up where it left off? “Black Widow,” thankfully, isn't exactly designed that way. It's as close to a one-off as Marvel gets. Set in between 2016's “Captain America: Civil War” (when the superheroes fell out) and 2018's “Avenger: Infinity War" (when they made up), it doesn't have any grander, universal purpose to the franchise's overarching aims than giving Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff/ Black Widow (who perished in “Endgame”), a proper sendoff after a decade of service stretching back to 2010's “Iron Man 2.” It's the second Marvel movie fronted by a female star (following 2019's “Captain Marvel,” with Brie Larson) and only the first to be directedly solely by a woman, Cate Shortland. (Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck shared the helm of “Captain Marvel.”)