So this is a prequel, and it’s super-rare for prequels to be good, so my expectations were low. But: It’s good!

The plot was complicated enough to be interestingly intrigue-thrillery without getting baroque. There were almost no pointless action scenes. The characters introduced here were good. The interactions between Yelena and Natasha were great. The villain was good. Action scenes were well-directed such that it never devolved into a chaotic mess or a boring slog. It was well-conceived and well-executed.

And even the part where it was a prequel kinda worked, in that it took the post-Civil War period of Avengers and (explicitly) echoed the themes of this movie by tying it to that period. The only thing is, it would have worked a lot better if this had actually been released in 2016 or whatever, rather than waiting until after its main character was dead.

But really, even that kind of worked, because what this finally did was give us Natasha’s story. Instead of her just being this enigmatic character who doesn’t have much of a backstory beyond a few lines, she finally has her own personal story and a triumphant resolution of it. Again, it probably would have worked better if it had happened when it should have, but having it here at all actually does feel like a useful addition to the MCU instead of a completely pointless bit of off-to-the-side fluff.

Basically I guess I sort of end up at: The best time for this to be released would have been right after Civil War, but better late than never.

(As for the ending scene thing, Val collecting second-stringers in a kind of half-assed imitation of Fury building the original Avengers feels a little weird. What are they going to do with that? Thunderbolts or something? Now that I say that, I bet that’s right.)

Oh also: I cannot believe they did the “indie chanteuse singing a minor key downtempo version of a pop hit” thing with Nirvana. Like wow.