Reviews

TLDR: It's basically a load of tall blue dudes with cat tails talking English in African tribal accents and hissing at each other likes cats... (way too much) against fantasy world backdrops. The End.

Long version... I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen other movies just so the ideas and plot devices all seem fresh.

The adventure is cheesy and predictable but the action scenes are well sequenced and you can forgive the rampant cheese on the grounds that it's a family movie.

The CGI seemed to have advanced very little since the last outting. And the IMAX 3D I thought was surprisingly weak and underutilized. I was hoping that any dumbed-down storytelling might at least be propped up by stellar 3D but it was disappointing on that front too.

I'm giving this a 4 stars because work clearly went into it and I know underappreciated CGI artists must have worked tirelessly to make all the assets as they do for these kinds of movies.

Given that I'd heard quite a bit of hype over this production along the lines of "best movie I've ever seen" and similar, I had high hopes. My experience was a long way from best movie ever and I really think now, more than ever, James Cameron peaked with Aliens back in 1986.

Awesome story if you're 9 years old.

This show, unsurprisingly exudes that cheap and nasty vibe (like Agents of Shield) that you can get on a more modest budget... Although that is no longer the excuse it once was. The Mandalorian has raised the bar and shown that modest budget spinoffs can surpass expectations and rival the original material with the right creative team at the helm.

Instead, what we get with Hawkeye is very much Disney filler; piggybacking on the greatness of The Avengers and the absolute weak end of the creative quality spectrum.

Overall the flow of the show could have been vastly improved if the director had occasionally advised Hailee Steinfeld to stop overacting. The cringe of her performance demotes the show from a potentially classy offbeat MCU side story (e.g. Loki) to Bow and Arrow Nancy Drew in a ninja suit.

Only Jeremy Renner's credible performance and the simple appeal of any old action sequence for the younger fans elevate Hawkeye to one notch above terrible.

This movie is surprisingly good for kids the right age. My girls, 7 and 9 loved it.

It's a modern Arthurian tale, so set in the UK with all the adventure movie cliches you might expect which is no bad thing. I'm really surprised by some of the lower-scoring reviews. This movie is formulaic and predictable but it really isn't intended to keep a 44 year old man like me on the edge of his seat.

For it's target audience - kids - it's awesome.

The visual effects were far better than expected for what I thought was a low budget movie (it's $60m) and having Patrick Stewart to bolster the cast as the old Merlin helped too.

There's enough humor and pace along the way stopping it from feeling stuffy and too serious which keeps it light and positive.

Best family movie in ages :)

Cringey movie that had me wondering what the writers were thinking from start to finish.

You know those awful movies that try to take a classic series and try to reinvent it for a modern audience but just don't pull it off? This is all about that.

The laziness in the creativity is everywhere.

From the opening scene where Nancy is long-boarding down the street to Emily Bear's 'More Than Just Girl' it constantly feels like some wannabe "cool mom and dad" writers tried to transfer their old school imaginings of what makes something cool onto their concept of Nancy Drew and her friends resulting in a freakish set up that had me peeping through my fingers at this cringe-fest.

It's like the writers creative process went like this: OK we need to make this cool not like the square old Nancy Drew. We pitched this as reinvigorated, so what's cool these days? er.....social media....I've seen them using instagram....... Emily Bear, I heard she was cool...... what else?...... well my neighbor's kid has a longboard, he told me it was cool..... OK let's crowbar all that in. Job done. Our movie is now cool.

And that process pervades the whole movie. Cringey attempts to be cool are injected all over the place. Resulting in a movie with no soul and any attempts to imbue morality are substance are veiled under snark and layers of hipster "mom and dad"-level cool.

It's truly awful and unnatural feeling and one of the most hideous cinematic creations I've had the misfortune to watch.