We’re now just a couple of months away from seeing Black Widow at long last, after its six-month delay from its initially scheduled release in May. As promotion for the movie starts to kick up again, then, Empire Magazine has debuted a brand new photo from the film, which teases Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff caught in a tense showdown with her newest nemesis, the mysterious Taskmaster.
We’ve actually seen this scene in action in the trailers, with the enemies sparring on a bridge. The look of surprise on Nat’s face here is no doubt because of how Taskmaster has just copied her superhero landing to a tee, as depicted in the promos. This is, of course, what makes the villain such a formidable foe in the comics – his ability to perfectly copy his opponent’s combat style.
The trailers have also shown us that Taskmaster has taken over the Red Room, the Russian training facility for female agents that Nat once belonged to. However, it seems he’s corrupted the organization and is controlling the agents’ minds. This causes Nat to team up with Yelena (Florence Pugh) to try and free the other Widows from Taskmaster’s grip.
You can already see from this description how Black Widow is a feminist movie. Johansson elaborated on this while speaking to Empire as well, calling it something that’s very “reflective” of the Time’s Up and #MeToo movements.
“I think this film in particular is very much reflective of what’s going on in regards to the Time’s Up movement and the #MeToo movement,” the actress explained. “It would be such a miss if we didn’t address that stuff, if this film didn’t take that head-on. I think, particularly for Cate, it was so important for her to make a movie about women who are helping other women, who lift other women up out of a very difficulty situation. Someone asked me if Natasha was a feminist. Of course she is, it’s obvious. It’s kinda an asinine question.”
Unfortunately, a consequence of the delay is that we’re pretty sure we know who Taskmaster is behind that skull-like mask of his thanks to one cast member letting slip on social media more than once that it’s them. Still, there’s a lot that remains fresh about Black Widow, and we can’t wait to finally see it come November 6th.
