Hawkeye

After the success of both WandaVision, and Loki, comes yet another Disney+ show about one of the lesser screen time heroes. This time we get a look at Clint Barton, and how he’s dealing with being an avenger, his family, and a newcomer that falls into his lap because of her own shenanigans. Kate Bishop is that person, a young girl that witnessed Hawkeye in the battle of New York which forever shaped her opinion on what it means to be a hero. Together, they team up and put an end to the nefariousness of the tracksuit gang, and that of a mysterious villain who controls the undercity.

It was enjoyable seeing battles take place in the street, at a very personal level, instead of being a ‘save the world’ type deal. Everything tried to be grounded, as best as one can being a hero that shoots a bow with trick arrows, but a few things slip by that ruin the immersion. For me, it’s the way they shoot their arrows, it’s painfully obvious they’re not actually drawing real arrows or pulling the bow string back, just using CGI instead. And then the finale, several instances of Deus Ex Machina (Mother using car to ram bad guy – first, when did we hear the ignition? And secondly, she’d have to drive down the street, pull a U-turn, and then come back and line herself up). Nobody bothers to seriously injure Kate Bishop yet she’s going way harder on them, injuring bad guys. Finale should have ended with Spoiler Big Bad knocking her out to kingdom come.

We did get a nice spiritual ending/send off for Black Widow that was better, and actually tastefully done, than her own solo movie. Guess you shouldn’t piss off the mouse by asking for equal money payments. Watching Florence Pugh again, after seeing her in the trash she was in, still not sure about her acting, though it is a marked improvement over previous efforts. Jeremy Renner is the same old, he’s always just been a meh actor to me. Hailee Steinfeld is always a pleasure to watch since her Oscar nomination for True Grit, she totally outshined everyone. I could just watch her character doing her own thing, with her own show. She’s a joy to behold on screen.

Overall, it was much better, in my opinion, than the previous two tv show outings by Marvel. It had heart, and character, but out of the 6 episodes, only the finale really mattered. The rest was filler, and I guess this is a problem with Marvel’s shows. They are designed to not matter because not every fan will watch it all, some will just watch the movies, and so the plot of the shows doesn’t really matter. If Billy Bob is just going to watch the movies, then the movie will have all of the relevant information, and retain nothing from the shows. Case in point was in Spiderman: No Way Home, as nothing of Loki was mentioned, just that the multiverse shouldn’t be doing that. I digress. Hawkeye’s a fun Christmas show. You might enjoy it.