TV Series Review: Hawkeye (2021) Disney+ *Spoiler Free*

TV Series Review: Hawkeye (2021) Disney+ Spoiler Free

I've already written about my new, second favorite, MCU Super Hero, Kate Bishop, but, now that I've seen the full six episodes of the Disney+ series, Hawkeye, it's time for that full review I promised.

Regular readers will know I'm not really a comic book reader in the superhero space. Everything I know about Hawkeye is based on what I've seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as played by Jeremy Renner.

When I saw the original first teaser trailer for Hawkeye, it looked fine. It had a kind of similar spy feel to it with, what I would learn to be, graphics from the Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Javier Pulido comic book run, along the lines of Captain America, The Winter Soldier. I was glad Hawkeye was finally getting a series.

Then, when the second 'Christmas' trailer was released it brought a whole new tone of fun to the series that I was immediately excited to see it. Whoever thought to set the show at Christmas and use the '...tied up with a bow' tagline is a genius.

I really enjoyed the series as a whole. It easily became my favorite of the MCU Disney+ shows so far. Which is quite a feat given, I really like all of them a lot. Almost to the point where I'd rather watch more series than have more MCU movies.

While Clint Barton may not be as flashy or powered as some of the other heroes, he's always been reliable, doing the job he's asked to do without ever questioning whether his capabilities are enough to be an Avenger. So much so that he doesn't see himself as a superhero. He's just doing his job.

That's kind of where he is when present day comes around in the Hawkeye series. Just a man doing a job, trying to get home to his family for Christmas.

Enter Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), a Hawkeye fan girl from as far back as the Battle of New York, and an Avenger 'wanna-be' in a 'this is my actual career goal so I'm going to learn everything about it' kind of way.

Unwittingly the two cross paths when Kate begins to suspect some really shady goings on with her mother's new boyfriend, Jack (Tony Dalton). From there things start to go south as Hawkeye tries to keep Kate safe from some pretty serious threats in the week before Christmas, where Clint had planned considerable family time for the season.

Although many viewers said this show started out slow I never found myself waiting for something to happen. I was so invested in Clint and Kate's relationship as mentor and protégé, with most of my favorite scenes being just their conversations and exchanges. Both Renner and Steinfeld play their roles so well with great character arcs for them both.

I enjoyed the humor of the show, with a particular shout out to the Track Suit Mafia as being a relatively credible threat despite being comic relief with much of their dialogue. They could easily have slipped into being useless and silly but I always felt they weren't to be messed with.

Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), also delivers a fine performance as one of the show's main antagonists. If people didn't keep saying this is her first role as a professional actor, you'd never know. Easily holds her own in some very intense moments for her character.

While it is a very dialogue driven series there are some really great action pieces as well with a highlight being the 'trick arrows' car chase seen in the trailers.

The big finale action is also a lot of fun (not really a spoiler since this is a superhero show - there's always some kind of final battle at the end).

I will say I thought the last episode was a bit of a let down for me (and only a bit, it was still fun) in that it really was trying to wrap up many different threads in a nice big bow. The thing that kicked it all off was a bit of an eyeroll moment for me (as were a couple of later moments), however most reviewers, seemed to love the last episode because it was mostly action.

Hawkeye is easily one of the top MCU Disney+ shows. Anyone who says otherwise is probably an action only fan with little appreciation for character development and great dialogue. The only MCU Disney+ series so far that I plan to binge watch, after having already seen every episode twice over.

So much fun, and a great series for the whole family.

Comments

Movie Review: Memory (2023)

S omething a little different for me in terms of movies I usually review, Memory is a film I was invited along to see by my partner, and both of us didn't know much about the movie going in, other than it was a film where one of the leads has dementia. The basic premise follows adult, special needs social worker, Sylvia (Jessica Chastain), who leads a simple and structured life. When Saul (Peter Sarsgaard) follows her home from their high school reunion the surprise encounter profoundly impacts both of their lives. The film starts out very awkward and disjointed to some degree, which I feel is intentional, to reflect that Sylvia, who is also a struggling single mother, is fairly resilient, she is, in many ways, just barely holding everything together because she doesn't have any other option. When Saul sees Sylvia at their high school reunion it seems like some unpleasant memories from her past are fast tracked into the forefront of her life, and things move forward fro...

TV Series Review: Velma (2023-2024) No Spoilers

A s a kid, Scooby Doo cartoons were something I used to watch fairly regularly. I wasn't a diehard fan but it was one of the better, of the many, cartoons I used to watch. I had heard about the new animated series, Velma , around the time of its release but it wasn't coming out on any streaming service I was subscribed to so it went off my radar pretty quickly. Quite by chance I signed up to a streaming service so I could watch DC Entertainment's, The Penguin, and noticed Velma was on that platform. I figured I may as well get my money's worth out of the subscription. I did know that Velma, herself, had been race swapped for the show, which made no real difference to me, though I do prefer classic Velma if pushed to choose. However the first episode of season one was a real shock to my expectations! No where had I heard this series was skewing very much into adult humor and themes. I was expecting something more along the lines of the original Scooby Doo show. Instead I...

I'm Confused About Why People Prefer to Say Discombobulated?

D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...

TV Series Review: The Office - Australia (Prime Video) (2024) No Spoilers

W hile I'm a late comer fan of The Office, only watching after the original and USA versions were both available on streaming services, I did watch them in the order of release i.e. I watched the U.K. version first. Now, with the release of the Australian version of The Office on Prime Video, I think it's best to approach watching this new version understanding that it is not those shows. More importantly, remembering the US version was not well received or as popular as it has become since streaming became a thing. I personally remember people often saying the original version was better, back in the day. Of course, the Australian version has analogues for all the same characters you're familiar with from the previous versions, with their characteristics, so you can easily see who is the Aussie version of each character. While there are actually 13 different adaptations of the series worldwide, I was surprised to learn this is the first time the boss has been female. No...

Social Media: It's All Fake News - Even That News You Shared, That Proves the Thing, Because It's Backed Up By a Credible Expert, is Fake.

Social Media profiles need a peer based rating system that locks you out for 30 days if your feed is one long stream of depressing boredom that bums everyone out. I don't watch or read the news anymore (mainstream or otherwise). From time to time, if something filters through that piques my interest, I'll take a bit of a dive to find out more. The recent US election is a good example. I even wrote a few opinion pieces in this blog. The Daily Show Is Not News Note that I don't count The Daily Show as news, because I did watch quite a lot of that during the US election. While they lean quite a bit toward the left overall, it's not a show you look to for context, since much of their humor is based on reframing context to get a laugh. The one thing The Daily Show does well is highlight how both Liberal and Right wing media latch onto one or two bullet point messages each day and run them through the mouths of every on screen commentator like they're all wind up parro...

Trump's 2024 Election Win Will Change Everything - At Least I Sure Hope It Does!

Trump by Leonardo.ai & TET A s an outsider looking in on the US 2024 election, right up until election day, it is beyond my belief that the election continued to be a 'close race'. It is even further beyond my belief that Trump won, without question. Even if the Democrats wanted to claim the election was rigged somehow (which I'm sure Trump was gearing up to do had the outcome been different) it would be hard to make the case, beyond a recount. There's no slim margin here. Trump clearly won. While I would've preferred a Blue win, I at least got one outcome I was hoping for. A clear winner on election day. If I could give the Democrats some free, unsolicited advice for the next election. Stop targeting the opposition as if they're somehow selfish, evil villains. That's not how political parties work. At the end of the day the all represent the public. The people. The everyday citizen who you're trying to convince that you have what it takes to meet t...

Movie Opinion: GhostBusters: Frozen Empire (2024) Some Spoilers

T here's one thing that can be said for 2016's, all female Ghostbusters reboot , and that is, it's not anywhere near as bad as Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire . Although you don't realize it almost all the key moments of the actual plot are spoiled in the movie poster shown here. It's a wildly over thought, and overly convoluted story, with much exposition, that boils down to a big end level boss, a beam of light shooting into the sky, all the captured ghosts escaping, and all the Ghostbusters teaming up to clumsily restore order again by the end of the film. Side note: That mayor everyone thinks is a dick is the kind of mayor you want. He really knows how to get things done in record time. I've never seen a building get condemned and the legal tenants get evicted so fast, ever! There's not much here that this franchise hasn't done before, in every film, only this time everything freezes too because... I don't know, I drifted off during that expositio...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog