Hawkeye (TV)
To dismiss the Marvel TV shows on Disney+ as simply “movies stretched out to six episodes” is to miss the point of what they are trying to do. These shows are limited series runs of characters, not a single graphic novel that a movie basically is. This allows them to give breadth to the stories, and bring in a variety of characters in support, without making them underwritten cameos. That benefits some of these characters better than other; I think Hawkeye is one such example of that.
This series is about what we leave behind for people to pick up behind us, and what shape we leave things for those who look to take over when we’re done. Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) is not dying, but he’s definitely hoping to move past the Avengers lifestyle. When we see him, he’s taking his kids to an Avengers broadway musical that’s as funny as the “Rent” parody in “Team America: World Police.” He isn’t really the hero of this story, though; that’s Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), who took up archery as a hobby after watching Hawkeye operate in the Battle of New York from the first “Avengers” film. She’s gotten really good at it, maybe too good, as she continues to get in trouble at school. She works with her mother (Vera Farmiga) in security; she father died in the Battle of New York. Her mother also has a new boyfriend, but when Kate sees him in the company of shady people, dealing in shady weaponry, she’ll need her mentor’s help in uncovering the truth.
One of the fundamental reasons that “Hawkeye” was as engaging as it was is because of the way show creator Jonathan Igla and his writing team developed the relationship that builds between Renner and Steinfeld, as Barton feels more and more of a responsibility to tie up loose ends in New York. You see, one of the things Bishop finds herself in possession of is Clint’s mask from his Ronin days after The Snap. When he lost his family to Thanos, he went on a dark streak, creating a lot of enemies in the criminal underworld, including Russian mob and an old Hell’s Kitchen menace in Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio). Renner has always gotten a bad rap, I think, as Hawkeye; he’s a good piece of this Avengers team, and having him as a family man who has to struggle with his responsibilities as one of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” is in contrast to the rest of the team. He’s believable as both a skilled killer, as well as someone who cares about the people he cares about, whether that’s his family or Natasha Romanov or Kate Bishop. The way he and Nat separated in “Endgame” brings another complication, however, when Nat’s sister, Yelana (Florence Pugh), comes looking for blood. That isn’t as simple, either, but it’s not an easy thing to rectify.
“Hawkeye” rises and falls on Renner and Steinfeld working so well together. The action is alright- some sequences are better than others- and the narrative feels like filler a lot of the time. The music by Christophe Beck and Michael Paraskevas captures just the right tone of fun and drama, and all of the actors we meet along the way do well within their characters. (And props for using Christmas, which gives us a great ticking clock for Clint, but also a wonderful setting for this story.) In a way, this feels as light and innocuous a Marvel story as we got in the first “Ant-Man”- partially because of how breezy it is as an entertainment- but when you consider how heavy these stories tend to get, I’m fine with something like this every now and again.
