Watched the first two episodes of Hawkeye on Disney. I think it's pretty awful... or maybe a better way to say it, it's pretty irrelevant and boring so far, and how do you manage to do that with a guy who fought Thanos?
They have a fairly decent cast, but the writing is what's bad -- it's flat and aimless, not really going anywhere. There's quite a number of times they are trying to be funny as well (I think), and the jokes are just so flat or not delivered properly so that nothing is funny. There's an occasional laugh to be had (the Capt America musical concept is goofy, and the bell tower collapse is amusing even if not quite done perfectly), but I feel like this is a "first complete draft" of the script, and then they needed someone with talent to go through and punch it up purposefully to make it more interesting. However, I think structurally it's kind of an underwhelming plot at well, there is no urgency to what they're facing or sense of why anyone should even care about the show.
There's a whole LARP sketch in Episode 2 that I think was supposed to be funny, but it just wasn't funny at all -- it just seemed dumb and laughless. Also Clint had some jokes that would have worked from Tony Stark, but it doesn't seem like they tailored the show to fit Clint per se. He's down to earth, kind, funny in a kind of a family man way. He's gotten some moments to shine with Nat in Endgame and back with Wanda in Age of Ultron, and those felt pretty true -- where is that writing here?
Also, it's a crime to give Vera Farmiga (a very shrewd and smart actress) a part that makes her seem dumb, incoherent, and uninteresting. Like, this might be one of her worst performances I've ever seen, and it's not really her, it's the dialogue she's given and now she's phoning it in.
This reminds me again of Jupiter Ascending, which never figured out what it was supposed to be. Like with that film, there's too much here that is delivered too seriously, whereas it could have been more fun and punched up -- like the whole tracksuit mafia bit, which feels like they want to make a joke of it but then don't take it to the degree necessary to work. So mainly a writing problem, but also a bit of a scene direction problem too.
There's also a problem with the action. Kate Bishop does get a few good rolls and throws in, and she fences well, but in all the fights in episode 1, it's not convincing that she could have delivered or taken that much damage. She simply does not have the body weight to match the sound effects and kinetic responses that occurred in the fights. It all feels fake and silly.
Maybe there is an audience for this with the 11-13 year old crowd, but it doesn't feel very fun for grownups.
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