REVIEW #123 Hawkeye (Season 1)

Hawkeye is the latest Disney+ series under the Marvel umbrella and follows Clint Barton in New York as his dark past seemingly comes back to haunt him. Forced into action to save a young women called Kate Bishop, the pair team up to take on a variety of different foes.

CAST & THE ACTING 

Jeremy Renner returns as Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye and it was so good to see him explore this character further. Previously we have only seen glimpses of his personality as he was overshadowed by some of the more powerful Avenger heroes. He aced the more emotional scenes, addressing Natasha’s death and the hard conversations with his family telling them he wasn’t coming home for Christmas just yet. On the other hand, the action choreography was just as good and we got to see a lot of it, which was great. The best part of the performance was his chemistry with Hailee Steinfield, the pair created such a fun partnership and that perfectly set up the Kate Bishop story arc. Steinfield knocked it out of the park with her portrayal of Kate Bishop, it was such a charismatic performance and she seemed to gel with every other actor she shared the screen with. 

Florence Pugh made her return as Yelena Belova and she was hilarious and the final interaction with Clint in the finale was executed brilliantly, very emotional. We were also introduced to some new and old faces, Alaqua Cox portrayed Echo for the first time, Fra Fee played Kazi, Vera Farmiga played Eleanor Bishop and Tony Dalton portrayed Jack Duquesne. But the most notable appearance had to be Vincent Di’Onofrio returning as Kingpin, the perfect casting returns! The criticisms I would have is the acting from the tracksuit ‘gangsters’ they were just so cheesy, granted the writing is the main culprit for that but I wasn’t impressed by them. It wouldn’t be a Marvel project unless they tried to force some characters to be too comical!

THE STORYLINE 

Finally we got to see some street level threats being dealt with! As much as I’ve enjoyed the sheer size of the Marvel projects we have had recently I have been desperate for something on the scale of Hawkeye. Even Falcon and the Winter soldier was still dealing with super soldiers so it was nice to just see Hawkeye and Kate Bishop deal with organised crime. I believe they introduced Kate Bishop perfectly and in just 6 episodes they have created one of the most authentic partnerships in the MCU (Kate and Clint). They also established a strong relationship between Yelena and Kate which I hope we see plenty more of in the future because those two were so funny together. 

The storyline also gives Clint Barton the character exploration he deserves, dealing with the consequences of his Ronin days whilst also still dealing with the grief of Natasha’s death. I actually really enjoyed the partial hearing aspect of his story, it added a vulnerability to the character and was also symbolic of him ageing and Kate being lined up to take on his mantle. We got to see the return of Kingpin, who certainly isn’t dead despite the finale suggesting it. They have definitely upped his power level, ripping car doors off with his bare hands which I believe is more comic book accurate. It set up the Echo series nicely but if I’m honest it didn’t really generate any excitement for it because I found the character to be quite dull. I was expecting a lot more from Echo so hopefully her standalone series will do a better job. The finale was slightly underwhelming but it was still really entertaining nonetheless.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

Straight from the off, New York at Christmas time looks spectacular so utilising that in the series was always a smart move because it automatically makes scenes look better in my opinion. The camera work for the action sequences was so smooth, that finale where Kate and Clint are teaming up on the ice was so good to watch, with both debuting their comic accurate suits too! Episode one started so well, the cinematography for that flashback to the battle of New York from Kates perspective was one of the best scenes in the entire series. The special effects were also more realistic, that’s obviously down to the scale of the series but things like the Pym particle arrows looked really good. This category was definitely a strong point in Hawkeye but did we really expect anything else?

OVERALL (8.5/10)

Marvel continue to smash their original series out of the park! The level of character exploration we see in them is simply fantastic and I’m so glad Jeremy Renner got the chance to employ that for Clint Barton. I’ve always had such strong appreciation for characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye, they entertain and always beat down their opponents despite having no powers, so the characters deserve a whole lot of respect. Steinfield was excellent as Kate Bishop and her chemistry with both Renner and Pugh created so many heartwarming, funny and even emotional moments. There were some characters that let me down, I was unimpressed by Echo and Kazi, so I haven’t got much excitement for the Echo series. The cinematography was great and I loved the Christmas theme. Obviously it’s Marvel so there is forced comedy, the tracksuit gangsters for example, were more of comedy sketch than a threat. The finale was good but I think the Kingpin element of it was underwhelming, surely he should be beating Kate pretty easily? Anyways I really enjoyed Hawkeye and would definitely recommend it!

Thanks for reading!

Callan