Hawkeye Review

WARNING: SPOILERS 

by Akshat Agarwal

When Die Hard came out, it sparked a debate whether the Bruce Willis action movie could be counted as a Christmas movie.  It obviously is (you can see gift exchanges, snow, a redemption arc, an office holiday party), but every year there will be those losers who think it isn’t. 

I predict that this kind of debate will begin to pop up over Hawkeye. Is it a Christmas series? Absolutely it is. Besides being about family and doing what is right, there are appearances by the Rockefeller tree and an office holiday party.

If I am being very honest, I didn’t really have high expectations for Hawkeye, but then again I don’t think anyone really did. Interestingly, Marvel made efforts to address this in the show. The show was very good, but not Spider-Man good. I’d say it was a solid 7/10.

Let’s get into what was great and what wasn’t.

1) KATE BISHOP- GREAT

To the joy of many fans, particularly fanboys, Hailee Steinfeld brought the character of Kate Bishop to life in this series and did a marvelous job with the character. Although slight adjustments were made to her character, she was still headstrong and independent and very much had the "ask forgiveness, not permission” attitude that she is known for in the comics.

It was cool to see that she was going to take up the mantle of Hawkeye while he retired peacefully to be with his family. She does operate by that codename in the comics and during her time with the Young Avengers (more on that below)

2) MAYA LOPEZ - NOT GREAT

Maya Lopez, also known as Echo, from the comics shares many traits with Alaqua Cox’s Lopez. Both were adopted daughters of Kingpin and both demonstrated great fight prowess with the ability to replicate fighting styles and feats such as piano playing after only watching others do it. Echo in the comics is also deaf. Interestingly, it is Lopez who becomes Ronin in comics as opposed to Hawkeye. 

In the tv show, Cox’s performance was not terrible but also not remarkable. To be fair, she does the best she can with a character that needed better writing. Her nonexistent character arc sees Lopez just being angry and searching for her father's constantly and honestly fails to develop the character past that point.

Echo is getting her own miniseries soon and hopefully Marvel fixes the mistake they made with this character, who had enormous potential

3) KINGPIN - GREAT

I am very happy to see them integrating the Netflix Marvel shows into the MCU. We have seen Charlie Cox’s Daredevil and now we have the opportunity to see Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin again. D’Onofrio continued his faithful portrayal of Kingpin as man trying to rebuild his empire. 

Additionally, he does a great job of contrasting his business demeanor that he adopts with Kazi of the Track Suit Mafia (another not great character) with his loving fatherlike relationship with Maya Lopez. 

The idea that he used Hawkeye/Ronin/Clint to eliminate his rivals is also a very Kingpin maneuver. 

4) YELENA BELOVA - GREATISH

We knew that Yelena was going to be making an appearance in Hawkeye looking to kill Clint.  Florence Pugh’s reprisal of a popular character caused many fans expectations to rise (among other things) and while she did a good job with the character and delivered well on the banter with Seinfeld’s Kate Bishop, her Russian accent was worse in the TV show than in the Black Widow movie. My only other complaint with Yelena was that she felt a little shoehorned in. 

Otherwise her interaction with Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye was great and hopefully she becomes the new Black Widow to replace Natasha Romanoff’s character. 

 

5) CLINT BARTON - GREAT

Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye was finally done justice by Marvel. Previously the most boring Avenger and arguably the most mishandled character in the MCU, Clint Barton finally got an intriguing character arc. 

After seeing Hawkeye take up the Ronin mantle, many fans were left wondering “What the hell?”. This series did a great job answering that question. Clint Barton is finally shown to be a family man trying to move past his trauma and experiences to be with a family he lost for 5 years. 

I am happy that Barton’s motivation for becoming Ronin was elaborated on beyond just being “I lost my family so I’m gonna kill a bunch of gangsters” and had to do with him using Ronin as a trauma response as well as a result of his feeling purposeless. It was also refreshing to see him trying to recover from the experience of being Ronin and atoning for his sins

Barton was finally shown to be the super skilled marksman that comics fans knew him to be and his hand-to-hand combat capabilities were shown in full detail. We also got to see a more comics-accurate costume and a wide assortment of trick arrows too.

BONUS: JACQUES DUQUESNE - GREAT

Jacques Duquesne, who comics fans know as the Swordsman, did not have a large impact on the show but he did serve as excellent comic relief. Introduced in an attempt to make us believe he was the villain rather than Kate’s mother Eleanor Bishop, Jacques is simply a man who loves his fiancée (Eleanor Bishop) and is trying to be a good stepfather to her daughter. Also, his passion for swords is both amusing and true to comics. 

It made me happy that Jacques could prove himself as a stepfather by helping Kate fight the Track Suit Mafia in the finale. 

Overall, Hawkeye is a really fun Christmas time miniseries and if you love LARPing, you’re gonna love it.

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