'Black Widow' feels like Marvel's version of a Jason Bourne movie

"Black Widow" has crisp kinetic energy mixed with superhero-style pyrotechnics. Yet what really defines the film is meeting the title character's other "family," whose members are equal parts colorfully eccentric and lethal.

The approach largely works, in more small-boned fashion, thanks in part to the crispness of the action, whose fight sequences have as much in common with the kinetic aspect of the Bourne saga as superhero-style pyrotechnics, although there's a fair amount of that too. Yet what really defines the film is meeting the title character's other "family," whose members are equal parts colorfully eccentric and lethal. Nestled during the window between "Captain America: Civil War" and "Avengers: Infinity War," the film opens with an extended prologue that fills in additional details about the young Natasha Romanoff's childhood and origins.