Black Widow
dir. Cate Shortland (2021)
Not bad, as far as superhero action flicks go. Some character depth is allowed to coexist alongside all the biffy-baffy stunt work, and the actors—most notably Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, but also the support cast—make the most of it.
Lucy
dir. Luc Besson (2014)
Marketed as action SF, Lucy hardly even qualifies as a film. Director Luc Besson oversees a mood collage of philosophy and cod-scientific speculation spliced to a b-grade gangster plot. If not for Scarlett Johansson, this would barely have warranted a direct-to-video release.
Under the Skin
dir. Jonathan Glazer (2014)
Stylish, stark, disquieting, yet strangely superficial, this loose adaptation of Michel Faber’s novel is largely art for art’s sake. Scarlet Johansson excels as a vulnerable, predatory alien who while struggling to comprehend the world becomes wilfully subsumed by her own human disguise.