Scarlett Johansson

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Black Widow adds shades of grey to the most interesting Avenger

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 10th July 2021

    People sure like to bitch about Marvel movies, huh? You've got the usual Film Twitter snobs, writing them off as "films for children". You've got the hard nerd right, who never met a female character they couldn't belittle. You've got the cinema purists, claiming they represent everything wrong with cinema and that Disney are sounding the death knell for the industry. We are now, what, 24 movies into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (I'm not checking, I refuse to check) and it's never been easier to write a review of a Marvel movie - just reapply the same argument you did on the previous 23 films, file copy, commence smugness. People like to say the Marvel production line creates "cookie-cutter" movies, like that's somehow a bad thing. What, you don't like fucking cookies now? Enjoy your gluten-free artisanal crackers you tedious bores, because Black Widow is a triple-chocolate chunk cookie of a movie and it goes down real easy.

  • Review: Marriage Story battles for the high ground but risks sanctimony

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 31st December 2019

    Relationships are weird. You come to them as a pair of individuals, both trying to find common threads while maintaining individuality. Then you move in together and over time adjust to each other's idiosyncrasies, forming new habits based on a shared life, until one day you realise you're a completely different person. Later if you decide to wave goodbye to sleep for about fifteen years by having children it adds an adorable layer of walking on eggshells to proceedings. The only way to really make it work is to be totally open about your thoughts and feelings - keeping secrets is just asking for trouble - so if/when things fall apart and you're held to account for your part in the failure you get to gloat over that deceitful snake (just kidding, honey - L for Love!).

  • Review: Avengers: Endgame is a fitting tribute to Earth's mightiest franchise

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 25th April 2019

    Fan or sceptic, hardened critic or casual movie-watcher, there is no denying that Marvel Studios has changed the face of cinema. These past 20-odd Marvel movies – for all the good and bad, for all the shawarmas and dramas, the Lady Sifs and Malekiths, the Jotunheims and Ed Norton times – have been a historic undertaking and seen record-breaking success. And Avengers: Endgame knows it. Not only does this film reach the narrative culmination of the Avengers to date, but it’s simultaneously a beautiful send-off, a greatest hits tour and a lap of honour. This is Marvel celebrating Marvel, and it is thoroughly deserved.

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 10th April 2019

    We have two weeks to go until Avengers: Endgame brings about the end of an 11-year-long story arc and changes the MCU as we know it forever. So what better time to revisit an old Avengers movie from four years ago? That's right, we're back with another instalment of our less-than-semi-regular Marvel movie email discussion feature, which might even have been a better title than 'Marvel's Cine-CHATIC Universe'.

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 27th February 2019

    Following the low-point (both in terms of the MCU and our attempts at having an insightful discussion) that was Thor: The Dark World, we’re back on track now with Captain America’s first solo sequel. Don’t let that fool you though - we certainly haven’t stepped up our game in any way. The recurring feature of diminishing returns continues!

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: The Avengers (2012)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson, Luke Whiston | 7th December 2018

    Guess who's been emailing again! That's right, we're back with our regular feature that I'm only just now realising we should have called 'We see you, MCU'. Hmm, maybe not actually. But a better title than the one we went with certainly does exist somewhere. Anyway, please enjoy the latest of our rambling chats that are pieced together during an editing process so painstaking, that this article is its own heroic assembly.

  • Avengers: Infinity War

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 25th April 2018

    In every way that matters – and it matters in every way – Avengers: Infinity War is basically the biggest movie ever. Ten years in the making, producing some of the highest grossing films on record and some of the most recognisable characters and franchises in the world, it’s astonishing that this climactic crossover event combining all of them in one big-screen adventure is even possible. What’s more astonishing is that it somehow meets every single impossible expectation you have for it.

  • Ghost In The Shell

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 1st April 2017

    'The only colour that matters in Hollywood is green,' he typed, pleased with himself, attempting to clumsily sidestep the whitewashing controversy that surrounded the movie. Okay, fine. Is Ghost In The Shell racist? I am here today to spectacularly ignore that important issue, not because it's not worth addressing, but because the answer is 'Yes, but only as racist as most other movies', which is not exactly a good point on which to start a healthy and balanced debate. Let's just get on with the review, shall we? This is already in my top five worst opening paragraphs.

  • Sing

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 24th January 2017

    I can't tell you how long I have been waiting to take my two-year-old son on his first trip to the cinema. Well, actually, I suppose I can. It's been two years. Obviously. But that wait finally came to an end with this movie, one which I thought might be an appropriate introduction to the big screen for him because a) it's about singing cartoon characters, and b) it wasn't written by Seth Rogen. Of course, I was still fully prepared for failure. Expecting a toddler to stay still and quiet in a chair surrounded by strangers for nearly two hours? Surely impossible. And yet, that's exactly what he did, while fixated on the movie. So whatever I say in this review from now on, know that my son – easily closer in age to the target demographic than I – rates it 10 out of 10 choo-choo trains or whatever.

  • Captain America: Civil War

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 5th May 2016

    "So what is Vision?" I'm at the pub, still digesting Captain America: Civil War, and I've been caught off guard. "Well, he's... um...he's a, er... so Thor had this sort of bath, then Ultron, erm... You know the Mind Gem, th-..." Christ, I'm racking my brains and his first movie only came out a year ago. Marvel movies move pretty fast; if you don't re-watch regularly, or God forbid miss a movie, your pub trivia game will suffer. (My best guess: Vision is a space ghost fruit roll-up robot butler dressed by George at Asda). Civil War is the 13th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if you haven't been paying attention over the last eight years, you're going to find it really, really hard to keep up. The MCU doesn't slow down, doesn't pull its punches and doesn't really do 'Previously, on the Marvel Cinematic Universe..." It has unapologetically and unreservedly been constructed from the ground up for fans - and those fans are going to go bend-over-backwards apeshit crazy for Civil War, arguably the movie that the previous 12 have all been working towards.