Taskmaster is a big character in the Marvel Universe. Known as one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the comics, Anthony Masters is able to duke it out with pretty much any member of The Avengers. Over the years he’s featured in several stories, games and animated shows and the character has been instrumental in training people like US Agent.
He’s pretty much the guy your girl tells you not to worry about and because of this, he’s gained a big following over the years. For better or worse the film Black Widow decided to massively divert from this in order to change a lot of things about the core character of Taskmaster and yeah…it’s went down worse than Matt Hancock giving out social distancing guidelines.
Coming away from the movie it’s clear that the reveal about Taskmaster is probably the most controversial point of the movie and they’re pretty much the Marmite of the MCU.
Jeremy Jahns said they were the worst MCU villain ever, my Grandma said they were the best and even after carrying out polls on Twitter it’s clear that opinion is very split.
Now personally I didn’t like the portrayal but I know a lot of you do so if that’s the case then I’m glad you enjoyed them. I’m not someone who hates women or even gender-swapping and in the case of Flagsmasher in Falcon and The Winter Soldier, I feel that when it’s done in service of the plot that it can really work.
Flagsmasher was someone who was meant to juxtapose the might of the US military and this lowkey, small and humble girl very much helped to paint out a normal person who was put into an extreme situation which I think vastly aided her portrayal.
For me, Taskmaster is quite the opposite and throughout this video, I’m gonna be going over why for me the character just didn’t work.
Now there will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to check out the movie yet then I highly recommend that you check out now.
Who is Taskmaster?
In the film, we learn that Taskmaster is actually Dreykovs daughter, Antonia. We discover that the infamous Budapest mission involved Natasha attempting to assassinate the villain and she was caught in the crosshairs because Nat was so desperate to kill him that she was happy to sacrifice a child to do it.
It’s one of the darkest, if not the darkest character decisions in the entire MCU carried out by a hero. Though Thanos was happy to wipe out half of all life in the universe, he did it completely detached from everything whereas Nat actually had to give the order, knowing full well who and what would die.
It seemed like the MCU had finally painted her out as the complex person that she really was but they pull their punches and show that she survived it so Nat wasn’t really that bad looking back…even though she was willing to say F**k them kids.
Instead, the life of torture that she was subjected to is very much put on Dreykov as he was the one that twisted her into a brainless and mind-controlled assassin.
I feel this is a slight cop out and it slightly lessens the impact of the biggest mistake Natasha ever made meaning that she can sleep well at night.
Costuming
Now the next part that I feel doesn’t work is the costume design. We already know that Taskmaster’s costume was changed up massively so that the movie could be marketed to Chinese audiences but my issues go beyond that.
Taskmaster is part of the Red Room, an all-female assassin division made that twists and transforms women into cold-blooded killers.
They clearly don’t mind women being at the front and centre and don’t bother to disguise what they look like or even hide their faces. Therefore I just can’t understand the logic behind why Taskmaster looks like a dude.
There is absolutely no reason why they would make Taskmaster appear as a man and having a costume that isn’t really designed for Antonia’s body would surely make it more difficult for her to move correctly and carry out missions.
Now clearly this is done because in the comics Taskmaster is a man and it’s meant to throw us off the scent so that when the reveal happens it’s a big shock.
However, that’s a very meta reason to choose this and there’s no reason why the characters in the movie would ever think to make Antonia appear as a man unless they’re away that people are watching and want a surprise. Unless Dreykov is sitting there thinking ‘I want people to think this is Rick Mason’ then there’s no real reason for it to be in the film.
Why Did They Choose This Look?
I’ve asked a lot of people why they think that Taskmaster is made to look like a man and no one can give me an answer that actually makes sense beyond ‘that’s sort of how he looks in the comics’
People have said that the suit could be keeping her alive and helping her but this has been designed by Dreykov, a man who has a flying fortress and you’d think that after all these years he’d have come up with something else to make it so that she could live and fight comfortably.
It just makes absolutely no sense when you look at things from the character’s points of view and clearly the only reason that it happened like this was to give the audience a shock. It’s putting a twist above what actually makes sense and for me, it’s one of the biggest flaws in the entire movie as logically it just doesn’t stack up.
Grace Randolph even came up with a suggestion that I think would’ve worked really well and had Dreykov said something like ‘I always wanted a son’ it would’ve worked much better. Instead what we have is a group of female assassins where one for some reason is made to look like a man…because of reasons.
Bad GDI
Also, that unmasking scene looks really really bad when we pull away and see Olga’s tiny head superimposed onto a bodybuilder. I dunno why they kept this shot in the movie as it looks like she did a full body workout and skipped head-day.
This is really really bad and considering the MCU is normally the benchmark for things like de-ageing and special effects, it just makes the reveal laughable when we should really be seeing how painful this is for the character.
Taskmasters Powers
Now the next issue I have is that they nerf the powerset that Taskmaster has and instead of it being her abilities that pushed her to the forefront of the Red Room, it’s a computer programme that does all the work.
One of my big issues with the film was the whole mind control subplot as I think when characters make their own choices that that’s far more interesting. Nat had just gone on the run from the government and I really wish that that is the thing that inspired her sister to leave the Red Room rather than some magical mist that completely erases all the programming that you’ve been subjected to for years.
It’s the same in the case of Taskmaster and I think it would’ve been far more interesting if she was someone who lived in the shadow of Yelena and wanted to impress her father because the former was the favourite instead of her.
Thus she had spent years copying, mimicking the best fighters on earth just to live up to what he wanted her to be. However, all that she saw when she looked in the mirror was a broken, disfigured woman that he would never love and thus her breaking free of his control I feel would’ve been a much stronger character moment.
Instead, though it’s just a computer doing all the work, analysing fight patterns and making her carry them out. She’s a machine at the end of the day and that’s just not interesting to follow as a villain in my opinion.
Disservice to Olga Kurylenko
And that kinda ties into my last point which is that Olga Kurylenko is criminally underused. Even though she hasn’t appeared in any big films for a while I think that she’s a very recognisable name and the more positive responses online that I’ve seen involve her coming back into a big franchise.
Olga is someone who I always feel has had a tough time and Quantum Of Solace especially is a film I feel that’s very underrated.
This could’ve been her big return to the cinema but instead, she gets two lines and just stands about staring angrily like she watched this video before I made it.
It leaves to the performance being very underwhelming and for someone that’s been waiting the best part of two years to see Taskmaster on screen, I feel like they’ve massively missed the mark.
To me, this isn’t even Taskmaster and instead what we get is just the name slapped onto another character along with the mimic gimmick so we can have some cool fight scenes.
Now those are the reasons that the character was disappointing for me, I know a lot of you will disagree but I’ve tried to structure this video so I’m not just bashing it and hopefully this has helped you to see things from my point of view and understand my criticisms.
If you loved the character then I’m happy for you and I’d love to see people’s thoughts in the comments below.
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