Of the original Avengers, arguably the one that always came off the worst was Jeremy Renner’s Clint “Hawkeye” Barton. He spent his first movie in a brief cameo, most of his next as a mindcontrolled goon for the bad guy, and what other appearances he made were often ones where he was overshadowed by other characters with better-written roles. That wasn’t to say no one was trying. He just wasn’t as flashy or interesting as his co-stars, and that may have been somewhat by design. Barton was the “regular guy” on a team that included rage monsters, tech genius billionaires, gods, and the symbol of everything that America wants itself to be. Of course he was going to seem dull by comparison. Renner is a talented actor, but he never really got a chance to show it in the MCU.
Then he got a series on Disney+, and while it may have initially interested fans more in actress Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop character, this would be the chance for Renner to maybe show what he could do, provided of course that the story let him do it.
Clint Barton is trying to enjoy a trip to New York City with his children for the Christmas season. But his past catches up to him when someone is spotted running around in his old Ronin costume, the suit he wore when, angry that his family had been wiped out by Thanos’s “snap,” went around slaughtering criminals left and right. The suit was being worn by one Kate Bishop, a young woman enamored by Hawkeye after he had saved her life back during the original Avengers movie. She put it on by chance after witnessing some suspicious activity involving an auction and her soon-to-be stepfather Jack (Tony Dalton, sporting a jaunty mustache). That got the attention of a group Clint refers to as the Tracksuit Mafia, an organized crime group with a high-ranking member that has her own reason to hate Ronin. That would be Maya “Echo” Lopez (Alaqua Cox, getting her own MCU series after this). Clint feels the need to protect Kate and settle her problems before rejoining his wife and kids for Christmas. After all, he is somewhat responsible.
And that’s before Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, as promised by the end of the Black Widow movie, makes her own entrance, largely for a series of scenes where she and Steinfeld’s Bishop somewhat bond and show a lot of promise for future MCU stories.
Here’s the thing: this was the sort of story Clint Barton should have always had. Based loosely on an acclaimed run by writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja, the story works best when it contrasts the two characters. Clint never saw himself as a hero. He’s worn out, with a lot of blood on his hands, and he really isn’t comfortable being famous. Kate, meanwhile, is really interested in being a hero and can’t believe Clint isn’t what he says he is. Her optimism and his world-weariness make nice contrasts. It helps that the story bounces along nicely, bringing the standard MCU sense of humor, and for once, actually doing a small-scale story where the fate of the world might not have been at stake. The closest I’d seen to that so far had been WandaVIsion, though there the implications were theoretically larger. Hawkeye is a more grounded character, and while this series does include many of the more over-the-top aspects of the character, it still keeps things relatively grounded. Clint’s wife Laura (Linda Cardellini) seems to be very understanding in the sense that she’s been through this, but Kate’s mother (Vera Farmiga) is a lot less interested in seeing Kate go into a superhero’s life.
I just had a lot of fun with this, with a lot of universe-appropriate moments. There’s a Broadway musical based on Steve Rogers? Of course there is. Fire fighters who LARP on the side make great allies? Sure! Lucky the Pizza Dog? Obviously! Clint Barton got a story that finally fleshed him out in ways the movies never did, and Kate Bishop made a stunning debut. Is this a one-and-done series? I don’t know. But at the least, if we get Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop running around the MCU, perhaps even with more fun team-ups with Pugh’s Yelena, then this series did exactly what it needed to do in the most entertaining way possible.
Grade: A-
0 Comments