I like most of Besson's films and I like this quite a bit even though there are a lot of similarities to La Femme Nikita.

The movie takes place in November of 1990 and well into 1991 - the same year the iron curtain fell. The story was basically about Anna gaining her freedom - she should have been able to get it by that time anyway (unless being a gov't agent made that impossible regardless of whether or not communism was still a thing in Russia).

@egv_ny said:

I've seen that most of the bad ratings and reviews come from people who did NOT understand it, a lot of twists, flashbacks, double crossings, usually people like the plots in a straight line form A to B, no the case here. It pays homage to Leon and La Femme Nikita, both Luc's works, and makes a subtle funny parody of Atomic Blonde and Red Sparrow.

I agree. I very much liked it as well. The action was well choreographed and she made it very believable for being such a waif. It was like "La Femme Nikta" mixed with "Fresh" or "Miller's Crossing".

But it has some massive missteps, mainly in how technology is presented. This takes place around 1990. And yet they have remote high definition video conferencing? USB drives? Small cell phones? HD panels on buses? Why didn't they just place this in modern times? I just pretended it was, or that it's some alternate universe, but the tech as presented was a huge fail. None of that existed in the early 90's.

I wonder... what is the point of a Black Widow movie, besides money, when films like Red Sparrow and Anna and Femme Nikita already exist and may well be superior to the eventual Black Widow film?

I finally got around to seeing this and I thought it was shockingly bad and predictable. I've liked many of Besson's other similar movies and I love a good action chick flick but the actress in this was not good. She was way too bony and seemed more like a fashion model, which is basically what she is in real life. It reminded me a lot of Red Sparrow but with more action and somehow more boring.

If you're going to have a female action character you can't have her weight 90 pounds and get into fights with a dozen men twice her size and not only not have her break any bones but then do fashion shoots in between all the consequence free murdering she does. It was almost like a parody.

Helen Mirren was pretty funny though.

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would (particularly as I hated Beeson's previous film I saw, Lucy). I thought the non linear timeline made things much more interesting.

But why were all the Russians were speaking English to each other? I know they did this for the benefit of the audience (and I'm sure Luke Evans can't speak fluent Russian), but it was just one of those odd things.