'Widows' Is The Only Superhero Movie I'm Caping For In 2018

With Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War's releases in the rearview mirror, there's really only one 2018 superhero movie that I'm looking geeked about.  In it, none of the characters wear capes, are from fictional universes, or have cool weapons--a few of the players brandish Oscars.  It's the new film, Widows, directed and written by Academy Award winner Steve McQueen and co-written by Gone Girl's Gillian Flynn.  

Widows is about four Chicago wives who are left to pay debts to nefarious figures after their thieving husbands are killed.  The just released trailer boasts action, highly refined drama at the hands of star Viola Davis, and probable scene-chewing from the hands of Robert Duvall.  

Hollywood Casting Directors, take note: I will pay to see every movie Viola Davis is in but a film in which she become a badass, hockey-mask-wearing, gun-toting-thief simply because she knows men doesn't think she has "the balls to pull it off"?  I'll see it twice.  

Beyond Ms. Davis if you're nasty, the cast for this movie is stellar, and includes, Broadway breakout and Tony winner Cynthia Erivo, Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Daniel Kaluuya, Elizabeth Debecki, Brian Tyree Henry and more!

Widows feels like a movie Hollywood hasn't made in long time--a thriller with as many emotional explosions as there are actual ones (and with a cast talented enough to pull off both).  And, the poetic irony of Viola Davis assembling a crew of lady thieves to avenge Taken's Liam Neeson and The Punisher's Jon Bernthal is not lost on me.  

The November 16 release date proves that the studio believes it has award potential.  As much as I love superhero movies, I can't ignore how white and male they are.  And while, I'm intrigued by the push for a Lady Bond and other gender and race-bent superheroes, I can't help for yearn for women to bask in their own power and badassery that's grounded in reality with original characters tailor-made for these times.  I will happily trade capes and fantasy battle sequences for very real and monstrous villains like grief, organized crime and woman fighting t damned patriarchy.