Alright! Today I'm reviewing the fifth MCU Disney+ show to come out this year and the ninth (!) project overall. What a year - WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Loki, Black Widow, What If...?, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Eternals, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and now Hawkeye.
What a year. That's a lot of reviews for mostly passable content. And Hawkeye's just that, passable.
Now, I should have had high hopes for this series. Hawkeye was my favorite comic book character back when I was little and I've remained a fan since (Even if my allegiance has somewhat shifted towards DC). I've enjoyed watching his arc play out across the Avengers movies, and, while the mullet wasn't the greatest look, his comic-inspired turn as Ronin was a fun development.
Hawkeye deals a lot with that fallout of being a mass murderer, which is great. You don't see accountability a lot in superhero movies. Does he feel bad about murdering so many people? Who knows. Renner plays it straight-faced nearly the entire time, which allows you to imagine his feelings instead of showing you them. It's a nifty approach, and one that works considering Hawkeye's already "I don't want to be here" vibe.
However, Renner capably handles the series' comedic moments and has such amazing chemistry with Hailee Steinfeld that that's easily overlooked. And speaking of Steinfeld, hats off to her. She was delightful to watch on screen, especially in contrast to Renner. Her infectious enthusiasm knows no bounds.
So likable is she that this becomes the biggest weakness in the series as well. It's not really a series starring Hawkeye, it's the Kate Bishop show featuring Hawkeye. He's barely in the first episode! 8-year-old me would be so disappointed. He's a supporting character in his titular show, that's unfortunate. But he still does get screen time, and that screentime (Including a wonderful hearing loss plot) is pretty well spent.
I also liked the main villain of the series, Kingpin. Vincent D'Onofrio returns to everyone's delight, but he's largely wasted here. Aside from being called "The big bad" and hearing that "no one wants to mess with him," the series doesn't really show us that. Gone are the days of brutal car door beheadings. Kingpin here works as a big unexplainaby overpowered villain with zero complexity in his goals (Not even a reference to Vanessa).
Kingpin just doesn't work. And I'll say the same thing I said for Venom: Let There Be Carnage. It's not that he's in a PG-13 property, it's that the PG-13 property isn't willing to go that dark thematically. This show barely gets to "Hawkeye murdering people for five years" was bad, much less Kingpin's complex mob boss rule and anxieties over Vanessa and cleaning up New York. Cool that he's back, but not that cool when he's back.
The mom character, whatever her name was - Eleanor? I guess it was supposed to be a twist that she was evil? I dunno, I never trusted her. Maybe it's residual distrust from how astoundingly stupid her character in Godzilla: King of the Monsters was. Same story too, untrustworthy mom. And I hate saying this because I so rarely do it, but I think she's a dreadful actor (Some of the lines and reactions here were just... bad). Or, at the very least, not suited for big blockbusters with mommy issues.
An unfortunate round of villains. Also unfortunate was Echo, who's due to get her own spin-off TV show? Cool? She was one-note and sadly not that cool here. Like, her Disney+ show is going to be banking hard on Daredevil and Kingpin cameos, because she was... no one's walking away from this thinking she needs a spin-off, basically.
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| These guys were cute in their first appearnce. After that... no. |
And I'm going through a lot of the characters and not really discussing the plot, I know. But that's because there's little plot to discuss here. It's not a very interesting show, plot-wise. It's banking on how likable the characters are. The character motivations and gravitas are nonexistant for the most part.
Here's yet another Disney+ show that you leave wondering how being an Avenger works. Falcon can't get a loan, Spider-Man gets helicpoter footage when he fights crime, and Hawkeye somehow gets away with launching a giant arrow that destroys a bridge. And then Kate Bishop just tells the police she's with Hawkeye and that somehow clears up the wrecked property? Things hit the ceiling once Tony stopped bankrolling, I guess.
The series also is set during Christmas for... reasons? It was fine, but it mostly bothered me because the entire show's musical score was basically instrumental Christmas songs (Including In the Hall of the Mountain King, which is weird cause that's normally associated with Halloween). We never got the chance for a cool Loki-style score, a new musical leit motiff to notice Hawkeye bye.
Speaking of musicals... Rogers: The Musical was not that great. It was bad on purpose. They had the chance to pull an Ember Island Players and make an actually funny meta commentary on the MCU, but no. It's just bad, purposefully. And for some reason it was a giant post-credit scene (Marvel forgot what post-credit scenes were along the way, it should have been a Disney+ special).
I also wasn't the biggest fan of their new costumes. The purple sleeves on Hawkeye look pretty bad. They honestly should have gone with the plain black shirt with a singular logo, would have looked better. Or just less purple highlights.
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| It's more interested in setting up Kate Bishop than it is telling a story. |
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