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8/14 UMPBA Boat Races

8/21 Lawn Mower Races

12-3pm Followed by “The Allen Brothers Band” 7-11pm all day followed by “The Quitters” from 7-11pm from 7-11pm

8/28 3rd Annual Rockabilly Car Show & Rockabilly River Queen Pin-Up Contest

CAr show

regIsTrATIon

starts at 10am | show from 12-3pm “The with Incorruptibles”

playing at the car show 12-3pm Pin-Up contest at 3pm, followed by the band “The Dukes”

Questions? Call Bullheads at 715.344.5990

3368 Campsite Dr., Stevens Point • bullheadsbargrill.com

Rock the Tiki Bar on Lake Dubay

8/12/21 Unity, 6-10pm 8/19/21 Big Mouth and the Power Tool Horns 6-10pm 8/21/21 Johnny Wad, 5-9pm 8/22/21 Pat Dunn, 1-5pm 8/26/21 Cherry Pie, 6-10pm 8/28/21 Slab, 5-9pm 9/2/21 Roadtrip, 6-10pm 9/4/21 Boogie and the YoYoz 6-10pm

1126 County Rd DB, Mosinee tikibeachllc.com (715) 341-2232 Black Widow is fun, even if it doesn’t bring much new to the table

eaters and Disney+ | 134 min. | PG-13

I still remember walking out of the theater after watching the very fi rst Bryan

Singer-directed X-Men movie. FINALLY! I thought. A good comic book movie!

We’re a far cry from those days prior to the 2000 release of X-Men, when comic book movies were considered some of the very worst cinema had to off er (Th ough Tim Burton’s Batman is a serious exception). Marvel has become a fi lm juggernaut with release following release; oh and I guess they make comic books too. Th ey’ve got the superhero genre down to a very specifi c formula.

Black Widow is the latest in that canon of Marvel superhero movies to employ that formula, and to good eff ect: Th e fi lm is a fun view, if not really bringing much new to the table.

What’s that formula? Get a bunch of contemporarily famous actors together, cast them into a superhero teamup combining attractive good-guy/gal superheroes with some comic relief and/or anti-hero superheroes, face them off against some super scary villain/villiain group, add a rough origin story, and have it all culminate in a CGI-fueled, ridiculously odds-defying fi nale fi ght against said supervillain/group, and give just a little teaser to the next movie to start the promo cycle all over again.

And hey, I don’t hate it. Th ey’re fun! And while I never get too excited for the latest Marvel cash cow, I can’t say I don’t enjoy them when I do watch them.

Black Widow is no exception to this. Scarlett Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff , a former Avenger now (this is the fi rst in phase four of the Marvel cinemaverse) and a former member of Th e Red Room, the creation of a villainous Charlie’s Angels wannabe. Romanoff is trying to quit and go off the grid, but of course gets roped back into the action by her sister, Yelena (Florence Pugh). Th ey discover someone created an antidote to the Red Room’s mind control that keeps its all-female agents under the control of Red Room founder Reykov (Ray Winstone). So the two team up with their pretend father (David Harbour of Stranger Th ings sheriff fame) and mother (Rachel Weisz) to take down Reykov.

One thing you might notice about the fi lm: Most of the cast is female. Lots of female superheroines fi ghting female supervillains. Th is is not a bad calculation on Marvel’s part since I don’t see a lot of people complaining about this fact. #GirlPower

All that aside, the fi lm is fun: Th ere are plenty of humorous moments, followed by nearly non-stop action for the 134 minutes this fi lm runs. It’s nothing if not entertaining.

But this also begs the question: How does one even evaluate a fi lm like this? As Marvel movie after Marvel movie releases, is entertainment the only factor we consider? Could one argue that’s all the marvel movies are doing? Are they just one more episode in a series, like comic books, to the point where we don’t really evaluate each book on its own merit in favor of liking series themselves?

For the geek-challenged, comic books are often characterized by creator “runs,” such as Todd McFarlane’s run on Spiderman, etc. Maybe that’s the best way to take Black Widow. It’s one more fun chapter in the Marvel universe.