A new video from an archery expert has taken Taskmaster to task after her appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Black Widow. Jim Kent, a traditional archer, was featured in a Business Insider video where he critiqued the accuracy of several archers in movies and television, rating each clip and provided commentary on technique and realism within the scene. With the MCU’s movie roster being a cornerstone of recent action movies, Black Widow‘s Taskmaster was featured in this video, shown firing exploding arrows during a city chase. Interestingly, this part of the MCU timeline scored relatively low.

On YouTube, Kent gave the scene a score of 4 out of 10, noting that “bows don’t do that… I can’t think of a plausible way that would ever work,” before at least ceding that it looked cool. While looking exciting, Kent explained that much of the bow technique was unrealistic. The tension on the bowstrings, the way it was being held, and how difficult it would be to use while wearing the villain’s mask made the scene seem unbelievable to the expert. Notably, Kent found using ballistic arrows and the ability to bounce one off the ground more realistic:

How Thunderbolts Can Redeem Taskmaster Being Wasted In Black Widow

Black Widow was not an especially beloved Marvel film, and is even considered by some to be the worst female-led Marvel movie or show. While there is nothing especially offensive about the film, the underwhelming use of a threat like Taskmaster is emblematic of its larger issue, which is that Black Widow missed the mark on some of its most exciting prospects. With the incredible ability to replicate the fighting styles of basically anyone, the villain should have been a formidable foe. Instead, she featured relatively little in the movie, and wasn’t able to show her full skills.

However, Taskmaster is intended to return in Thunderbolts*, and the MCU has the chance to redeem multiple villains in that film. While that may be a tall ask for a new ensemble, The Avengers was certainly successful in making underexplored heroes quickly feel necessary, and there is hope that Taskmaster’s next performance will allow her to be elevated. Most important to this would be good fight choreography for the film, which would allow Taskmaster’s abilities to be explored in an effective way and for a more extended amount of time.

Understanding how realistic a movie scene is does not necessarily impact the efficacy of the scene. However, little of Taskmaster’s appearance in Black Widow seemed successful, and the unbelievable reality of these scenes may be a part of that. Committing to a genuine and realistic understanding of how combat functions could thus allow these scenes to look and feel better onscreen in each Marvel Cinematic Universe project, meaning hopefully, Thunderbolts* learns from the criticism aimed towards Black Widow.

Source: YouTube