Clockwise
from main:
“A nice little
superhero
family...”
— Natasha,
Alexei and
Yelena discuss
some tactics;
Taskmaster (the
actor as yet to
be revealed)
has the ability
to mimic an
opponent’s
fi ghting
technique;
Melina Vostokoff
(Rachel Weisz)
raises a glass.
with its characters, secrecy is paramount,
and breaching confi dentiality is not worth
our lives. Elsewhere we’re kept in the dark
anyway, especially regarding the identity of the
actor playing the mostly masked Taskmaster.
All that Shortland will say of him is that
he’s like “every woman’s nightmare come
to haunt her”.
Black Widow may be a psychological-
family-chase drama, but it’s also a Marvel
movie, so we’re promised fantastical action
scenes in the skies as well as the hand-to-hand
tussling: a Widow’s speciality. Without
superpowers, without an Iron Man suit, the
violence is going to hurt. “We have to make
every action sequence have peril at its heart,
make them really emotional but also story-
driven,” says Shortland.
“Then we were [referencing] things like
How To Train Your Dragon. Things where I go,
‘Wow, how beautiful. Let’s do that with her!
We’ve been on this beautiful journey, let’s take
the audience along rather than just punch
people.’” That’s not to say that there won’t ❯