Hawkeye is often looked at as the runt of The Avengers. Not only is he the butt of all the jokes, but the fact that he was incapacitated throughout the ensemble’s first cinematic soiree together meant that he ended up looking like he was out of his depth too. But Avengers: Age Of Ultron showcases exactly what Hawkeye brings to the superhero posse, and now Jeremy Renner has been waxing lyrical about the character and why he’s so important.
WARNING: The following is loaded with SPOILERS. So, if you haven’t seen Avengers: Age Of Ultron yet not only should you be thoroughly ashamed of yourself but you probably shouldn’t read ahead too. Sorry.
Are they gone? Good, so it turns out that Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, has his very own secret family, the matriarch of which is played by Linda Cardellini. Not only do the pair have a son and a daughter, but Laura Barton is pregnant with their third offspring. Plus they’ve also got a rather spiffing farm too, which Samuel L Jackson’s Nick Fury likes to creepily hang around in. And Renner is adamant that this narrative injection is integral to the over-arcing theme of the Avengers. Renner explained to Zap2It:
I think we’d all get pretty bored if it was just a bunch of killing of robots and slinging of arrows and slinging of hammers. It comes back to Clint’s story: Don’t we all just want to go home and have a life and be happy? Captain America battles with that. If you don’t know the plight of these flawed heroes, then what’s the point of it all? I think the intimate moments and the character development is crucial to especially movies like this. What comes up next, it’s [Captain America: Civil War]. It’s going to be arguing and trying to destroy each other.
Hawkeye’s revelation certainly helped to bring a semblance of calmness and order to Avengers: Age Of Ultron just after the posse had either been brain-washed by Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch or had torn apart large chunks of downtown Johannesburg. Plus Linda Cardellini was an inspired casting choice as she instantly filled the room with love and warmth, and you couldn’t help but feel more invested in Hawkeye’s plight.
Hawkeye was one of the big winners out of Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It didn’t look that way at first after Quicksilver’s intervention in Sokovia resulted in him getting shot, but after he recuperated not only did he rapidly fire off his arrows with aplomb, but we also got to see his family, he made self-deprecating remarks about how out of place he was amongst the superheroes, and he delivered an impassioned speech that convinced the Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers. Yeah, he was also the main reason why Quicksilver died, but at least he got the most bad-ass bulls eye in cinematic history too. So, every cloud …
