Hawkeye, the newest addition to the Marvel universe, is a delightful way to kick off the holiday season. Hawkeye is the only Avenger in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a family and unlike other Disney+ series and MCU films filled with high stakes adventures of having to save the world or the multi-verse, this story revolves around a simple premise, “Will Hawkeye make it home for Christmas?”
The series is inspired and loosely based on comic book series by Matt Fraction and David Aja. It stars Jeremy Renner, reprising his role as Clint Barton, and introduces us to Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop. Kate Bishop is a 22-year-old world-class archer and martial arts expert, who accidentally becomes a masked vigilante while trying to protect her mother. Hawkeye is a reluctant guide and mentor who has to help Kate set things right in time to get home for Christmas.
The first two episodes are fun to watch. The chemistry and interactions between Clint Barton and Kate Bishop are funny and sweet. Kate is clearly eager to learn and be trained by her hero, while Barton is in straight Dad mode. He is worried about Kate and seems to understand that she’s a good kid who is way in over their head, and he is desperate to get back to his family for the holidays.
Hailee Steinfeld is funny and endearing as Kate Bishop. Her comedic timing is on point. And although few can relate to being an ultra-rich world-class archer and black belt, I think a lot of audiences will be able to relate to her desire to wanting to protect her loved ones. Although the series is called Hawkeye, it does start to feel like it is less about Hawkeye himself and more about introducing Kate Bishop and a slew of new characters into the MCU. That is not necessarily a bad thing as we do get to see a lot of screen time with Hawkeye.
During the Launch Event for the Hawkeye series, Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios and executive producer on the series stated “Going back to Age of Ultron we saw that Hawkeye had this family. He is the only Avengers with a family and we felt like it gave us the opportunity to do a story during the holidays, focus on family. It’s not necessarily about the end of the world, it’s not necessarily about somebody coming and blowing up the Earth, it’s about will Hawkeye make it home for Christmas. And obviously introducing Kate Bishop and meeting a whole bunch of new characters who will continue, we hope, throughout the MCU. But really just enjoying something with your family on Disney+ for the holidays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And we’ve been working on this for a number of years and I’m so happy it’s finally here.”
The first two episodes of “Hawkeye” debuted on Disney+ on November 24th and new episodes will follow every Wednesday until the series finale on December 22nd.
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