While not many people were crying out for a Hawkeye<\/a> solo project, the first trailer for Jeremy Renner\u2019s new Marvel series raised the level of interest. Leaning heavily on the back-and-forth relationship between the MCU\u2019s resident archer Clint Barton and his new prot\u00e9g\u00e9 Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) and the unusual Christmas setting, that first-look footage piqued many viewers\u2019 interests, including my own, giving higher hopes for what we might expect.<\/p>\n So does the full series live up to that early tease, or were our first, ambivalent instincts correct? Having seen just the first two episodes of Hawkeye it\u2019s hard to be sure. Hawkeye is fun and entertaining, but not as gripping or immediately interesting as other Marvel\/Disney Plus shows like Loki and WandaVision.<\/p>\n If you liked the trailer, that\u2019s pretty much what you get for these first two episodes \u2013 Clint and Kate, dodging baddies in New York around Christmas \u2013 but there\u2019s not much more than that, with little to surprise or raise the stakes (though of course, this could change in later episodes).<\/p> The basic set-up is that Clint (Renner) is in New York treating his kids to some theatre and food, while also grappling with feelings of guilt after the events of Avengers: Endgame (which saw him become a murderous vigilante, and be forced to sacrifice Scarlett Johansson\u2019s Black Widow).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, rich-girl and Hawkeye fan Kate finds herself dragged into a New York socialite conspiracy as her mother (a suspiciously underused Vera Farmiga) prepares to marry into a shady family. The two worlds collide when (as revealed in one of the trailers) Kate gets her hands on Clint\u2019s old vigilante outfit, inadvertently leading his old enemies to come after her.<\/p>\n The basic building blocks of this series are taken from Matt Fraction and David Aja\u2019s acclaimed Hawkeye miniseries from 2013, with key characters, set pieces and details right down to the art design and credits of each episode clearly inspired by it \u2013 but unfortunately, the TV Hawkeye doesn\u2019t have the same wit and style as the Fraction\/Aja comic.<\/p>\n Some of this is unavoidable. Renner\u2019s version of the character has always been so vastly different from the one presented in the comic this is based on (who\u2019s more like Chris Pratt\u2019s Star-Lord, personality-wise) that the slightly deadpan, absurd humour doesn\u2019t cross over.<\/p>\n But also, the newer parts of the story added alongside these elements aren\u2019t that interesting \u2013 they feel very much like TV threats of the Marvel universe, and not like an MCU story told over several weeks, which was the original pitch for these Disney Plus shows. It just feels a bit safe and low-stakes, closer to the shuttered Defenders Netflix shows (right down to all the New York drama of it all) than the bigger swings that Marvel\u2019s made recently.<\/p>\n Not to say that this series doesn\u2019t have its positives. Steinfeld is a highlight as the upbeat Kate, the idiosyncratic parts of Fraction\u2019s comic added here and there add some texture to Clint\u2019s world, and the Christmas setting is genuinely one of the most fun twists on the Marvel formula I\u2019ve seen for a while. They even play Christmas songs over the credits!<\/p>\n The action is pretty fun, plenty of the jokes land and Lucky the Pizza Dog will be a fan-favourite. Overall Hawkeye\u2019s not bad, or boring, it\u2019s just\u2026 fine. It\u2019s totally fine. Some people will like it, others might not, but it\u2019s hard to see it arousing a great deal of passion either way.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a stocking-filler, rather than your main Christmas present. But at least it came with a bow.<\/p>\n Hawkeye streams episodes 1-2 on Disney Plus on Wednesday 24 November, with new episodes weekly. For more, check out our dedicated Sci-Fi<\/a> page or our full TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Huw Fullerton Published: Tuesday, 23 November 2021 at 12:00 am 3.0 out of 5 star rating While not many people were crying out for a Hawkeye solo project, the first trailer for Jeremy Renner\u2019s new Marvel series raised the level of interest. Leaning heavily on the back-and-forth relationship between the MCU\u2019s resident archer Clint […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":7664,"template":"","categories":[5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-scaled.jpg",2560,1706,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-1536x1023.jpg",1536,1023,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/11\/hawkeye-review-more-of-a-stocking-filler-than-a-real-christmas-gift-2048x1365.jpg",2048,1365,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Huw Fullerton Published: Tuesday, 23 November 2021 at 12:00 am 3.0 out of 5 star rating While not many people were crying out for a Hawkeye solo project, the first trailer for Jeremy Renner\u2019s new Marvel series raised the level of interest. Leaning heavily on the back-and-forth relationship between the MCU\u2019s resident archer Clint…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/7663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Jeremy\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/11\/jeremy_renner_hawkeye_disney_plus-666c2bf.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"jeremy_renner_hawkeye_disney_plus\"\\"\/")
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