Black Widow: 21 WTF Moments

We only get hints of the full extent of Dreykov's plan in the early going, but it's still clear from the outset that it's pretty damn silly.

Dreykov, who is the head of the Red Room, has his entire army of Black Widow assassins under mind control, to the extent that he can even remotely induce them to commit suicide, as he does to one of his injured assassins sent to fight Nat and Yelena (Florence Pugh).

In the third act we finally learn that Dreykov has effectively been kidnapping wayward young girls - who he calls "the only natural resource there is too much of" - and turning them into Black Widows.

He plans to use his assassins, who are installed all over the world, to manipulate the world to his own whims, from influencing elections to crashing the stock market and so on.

It's hilariously deranged and a lot more absurd than the film clearly thinks it is. Almost equally daft is the means throughout which Nat and Yelena are able to combat the mind control - vials containing a red compound which breaks his hold, and which they manage to distribute to all the Widows at film's end.

Needless to say, if you were hoping for a gritty and grounded Black Widow solo movie, this ain't it.