As a nonfan of the whole cultish superhero movie experience, my expectations of Marvel movies are in the cellar. That should be noted before I say that I kind of enjoyed a few sequences in Black Widow  — which, by the way, has been a very successful release for Disney, though theater owners are none too happy about the simultaneous theatrical and VOD (video on demand) release.

Don’t get me wrong: the movie is stupid as hell, locked into the idiotic Russophobic Cold War narrative that the United States will never part with, it seems. But enough of it is conducted at a Boris-and-Natasha level of dopiness — and, as a kid, I used to be very fond of that old pair of Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon villains — that it livens up the typically overlong, lumbering, clanking, massively CGIed superhero spectacle.

Though it must be acknowledged that the required Russki plot to achieve global dominance conducted by an evil mastermind — in this case General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) — is a little uncomfortable in its bid for topicality. Dreykov looks like an overweight, toadlike, Harvey Weinstein-ish figure whose empire relies on victimized young women, a kind of fantastical spin on #MeToo. His diabolical plan is to rule the world by controlling an army of brainwashed young female “Black Widow” assassins who were kidnapped, bought, or coerced away from their families as children.