This is a spoiler-free review for the two-part premiere of Marvel’s Hawkeye, streaming from November 24 on Disney+.

Hawkeye stands as perhaps Disney+ and Marvel Studios’ most difficult TV challenge yet: how to get anyone to care about the MCU’s most boring Avenger. Luckily there’s a blueprint; comic creators Matt Fraction and David Aja have been here before when they evolved the character from tired to tremendous across 22 fantastic issues. Unsurprisingly it’s that run from which the Disney+ show draws its inspiration. For those unfamiliar with the comics, you can expect a surprisingly goofy street-level caper that’s big on personality while also letting darker elements gently simmer. These components are clear right from the get go, and while Hawkeye commits some of the same mistakes other MCU shows have, its fun ideas ensures the two-part premiere introduces us to a promising story that knowingly winks at the boring Hawkeye meme and begins to rebuild its titular hero.

In these opening episodes, set in the week leading up to Christmas, Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton is recognized in the street and theatre stalls by wide-eyed fans. Despite this, it’s clear he’s not the Avenger most people adore. As he walks past a group of superhero cosplayers in Times Square, the archer among them is actually Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games, a great joke that really makes the story’s intent for him clear. This lack of popularity is because Hawkeye doesn’t have a good brand, Barton’s told. How could anyone care about him when he hides anything interesting about himself?

It’s a question posed by someone who has the most likable ‘brand’ of any Marvel character since Phase One: Hailee Steinfeld’s Kate Bishop. Pulled almost entirely from the pages of Fraction and Aja’s comics, she’s a delightfully energetic force who runs before she can walk. Her archery skills are matched only by her ability to arrive in the wrong place at the wrong time. This provides almost all of Hawkeye’s initial fun and intrigue; Kate’s a pint-sized detective, and her underbaked crime fighting instincts ensure she’s always getting herself into some kind of exciting trouble.

Together, Barton and Bishop make a classic double-act. He’s the grumpy surrogate father who’s just trying to live his life, and she’s the untamable wild card who may just bring out the best in her new mentor. It’s a cliché set up that stands a chance of becoming tired but, at least in these initial hours, the dynamic is strong. That’s largely thanks to Steinfeld; based on these two episodes, the Hawkeye the title refers to is almost certainly Kate. It’s unsurprising that she steals the show — Steinfeld has always been a magnetic joy — but her junior hero also fires significantly more arrows over the premiere, both physically and metaphorically. Again, this feels like a recognition that Hawkeye needs spicing up, and that heat was never going to come from Clint himself, at least not initially. By providing the lion’s share of the show to Kate, we’re able to invest in a much more fascinating character who will hopefully over time push Clint into a more interesting position.

While the duo makes for an energetic feel, there are elements at play that keep things human and weighty. Barton is trying his best to be a dad while suffering the side effects of being a superhero; he’s carrying the traumatic burden of a lost best friend, and a hearing aid makes up for the toll a dozen explosive missions have taken on his eardrums. The sudden appearance of Kate in his life pulls him back into a life of trouble he’s trying to put on the backburner for the Holidays, which amps up the excitement and amusement but, doesn’t lose sight of that humanity. A sequence set during a live-action role play game really delivers on this balance; it’s consistently funny while also demonstrating Barton’s reluctance to being pulled into a conflict when he’d rather be wrapping presents.

Barton’s home life is kept largely as a framing device, as is the norm for the ‘getting home in time for Christmas’ trope that Hawkeye enjoyably revels in. Each episode ticks down a day, which steadily builds the pressure. This format means there’s sadly minimal depth to his relationship with his children and wife Laura (Linda Cardellini) so far, though, with their roles being used as symbolism more than characters.

Where Clint’s family life is underdeveloped, Kate’s bumpy relationship with her mom (Vera Farmiga) and new suspicious step-dad figure (Tony Dalton) takes up much more time than it needs. There are moments when it successfully contributes to Kate’s character — a scene with her mom in which she discusses the privileges of great wealth is worthwhile — but so far this storyline feels like it’s stealing time away from the double act at the heart of the show, rather than adding anything valuable. It really dents Hawkeye’s zippy tone, and even makes little stretches of the premier close to boring. By dedicating so much time to this plot thread, it means more exciting areas have been denied the chance to develop, and as such Hawkeye fails to hit its full potential in this opening act.

Much like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, Hawkeye is tackling secondary storylines that it really doesn’t need to, and that makes me fearful that it could suffer from similarly undercooked conclusions further down the line. Kate is a fascinating enough character on her own, and television really isn’t in need of any more stories about the trials of the incredibly rich. Perhaps this will be explored further down the line, but so far it feels like Hawkeye has missed its comic inspiration’s trick of exploring the lives of regular people trying to get by in a crime-plagued neighborhood.

Street-level storytelling is still present, though, fulfilled by Barton and Bishop’s feud with the Tracksuit Mafia; a collective of sweaty Eastern European gangsters dressed exclusively in red athletic wear. Their use of the word ‘bro’ as punctuation in every sentence makes them a consistently funny adversary, which bolsters Hawkeye’s crime caper tones. This does, admittedly, come with the risk of them being a less-than-fearsome foe, but the conclusion of the second episode pulls a trick that will potentially make them much more menacing.

Ahead of the long-awaited launch of Halo Infinite's campaign, 343 Head of Creative Joseph Staten has revealed that his favorite Halo game is Halo 3: ODST.

Staten, who was instrumental in the success of Bungie's Halo games and joined Halo Infinite's development shortly after its delay in 2020, spoke to IGN for our Unfiltered interview series and shared why Halo 3: ODST meant so much to him.

"Halo 3: ODST is my favorite," Staten said. "And not just because I was helping to lead that project, but for me it was… any game developers that are watching will understand this. It was the game that we made in the most stable technology base that we'd ever had. You know, it was Halo 3 ODST. It was built in the Halo 3 engine, very few feature changes, so as almost entirely a content exercise.

"And we just had the flexibility to go in and create an experience, a story that didn't have to wait for the engineers to do all their hard work, rebuild tools and pipelines, implement big features. All of those things are wonderful part of game development, but it just makes things challenging. It extends your timeline."

He also discussed a bit more about its development and talked about how Bungie's studio head Harold Ryan and project lead Paul Bertone came to him and said they need this game to be finished in just six months, which is an incredibly short amount of time for a AAA game.

"So I believe the original charter for ODST was we needed it in six months," Staten continued. "Harold Ryan, our studio head at the time famously came to me, and Paul Bertone, the other project lead and said, 'We need it in six months. Something like Halo 3, but backwards at night.' And we're like, no, we're not gonna do a Halo 3 backwards at night, but we get what you're saying. It needs to be efficient, it needs to reuse assets. We need to be smart about the new things that we put in."

Luckily, that timeline was extended after Staten and the team proved how special this game could be. As it turned out, Halo 3: ODST was delivered in just about 18 months for its September 22, 2009, release date for Xbox 360.

"So we set up a prototype and people saw what we were going for and believed in it enough that they said, okay, well now you've got 12 months total," Staten said. "And it turns out at 12 months for a variety of reasons, we ended up actually getting closer to 18, and we were able to spend those last months just layering on as much polish as we possibly could.

"So for me, in terms of stable technology, just a really tight, cohesive, happy team, everybody marching forward with the same clear vision, it just a really wonderful game to work on. Very different than the vast majority of other games that I've worked on."

It was even more of a dream project for Staten as he got the chance to take risks again in a franchise that was so beloved and established. Furthermore, he got the chance to tell a noir detective story, something he had always wanted to do.

"It was an experimental game too in many ways," Staten says. "When you're working on a franchise like, it's challenging to innovate. It's very risky to try new things. We certainly are in Infinite, which is very exciting. But ODST was a noir detective story, the kind of that I had always wanted to write, and the fact that I was able to do it in Halo was pretty cool. I didn't think that was gonna happen in my career."

While we still have to wait until December 8 to see how truly innovative Halo Infinite's campaign ends up being, fans can jump into its free-to-play multiplayer right now.

If that wait is too tough and you need to learn more Halo Infinite's campaign, be sure to check out our four-hour hands-on preview of the story, the first Craig meme Easter Egg that's been found already, and how hidden audio logs will help tell the larger story of Zeta Halo.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

The first teaser for Bel-Air, the Fresh Prince reboot, has landed, and it has a dramatic recreation of the original's iconic theme song.

From one prince 👑 to the next 👉🏾 #BelAirPeacock streaming in 2022. pic.twitter.com/nr8MIpWux9

— Peacock (@peacockTV) November 23, 2021

The familiar lyrics, with Will introducing the story all about how his life got flipped, turned upside down, are present and correct, but this ain't the version you remember from the 1990s. Instead of the hip-hop beat from the original, this version is a slower, more dramatic tune, with heavy tones and a deliberate, almost melancholic delivery. This sure is the drama reboot of the sitcom.

The teaser trailer does not feature the full theme tune, but just a few select lyrics from the original. It's also unclear if this will be the theme tune for the show, or just used as part of Bel-Air's marketing.

In a new press release from the show's creators, showrunners T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson said, “At its heart, Bel-Air is a coming-of-age story that celebrates the strength and love of the Black family. We have stayed true to the original premise of the legacy series – Will’s life is turned upside down after he is forced to leave West Philly and lands in Bel-Air with its gated mansions and wealth, however, our new series brings Will and the Banks family into the world as we know it now. It's been incredible to bring these iconic characters to life when you tap them into the cultural pulse of our time. The series was the fabric of so many of our upbringings, tied to memories and the joy of seeing ourselves represented on TV so it is important to us to pay respect to its legacy.”

Last year the original cast of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunited on HBO Max for a reunion special, celebrating the show's 30th anniversary. More recently, the cast of Bel-Air was recently announced, which will see newcomer Jabari Banks step into the shoes of Will Smith's character, Will.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

Dave Filoni, the writer and director known for co-creating the Star Wars character Ahsoka Tano as well as his work on The Mandalorian says that he's had the idea for a standalone series based around the character for a 'long time'.

In an interview with Empire, Filoni spoke about the upcoming Star Wars: Ahsoka series that he's currently involved in writing and creating. As part of his interview, Filoni revealed that he's actually been sitting on the premise behind the show for some time, but hinted that its connection to The Mandalorian has altered it somewhat.

“I thought of this adventure for Ahsoka for a long time, and it’s interesting to see how it’s evolved,” he says. “Years ago, I never would have imagined that it was sprung from a branch of a tree that had anything to do with a guy [like Mandalorian lead character] Din Djarin, or a child that looks like Yoda. It’s a great lesson for me on how, when you have other creatives like [Mandalorian creator] Jon Favreau, they can help lend such dimension and depth to what you’re doing.”

The character of Ahsoka is perhaps best known for her role in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars as Anakin Skywalker's padawan. While also making appearances in Star Wars: Rebels, Ahsoka notably crossed over into live-action form when she was portrayed by actress Rosario Dawson in the fifth episode of the second season of The Mandalorian.

While Star Wars: Ahsoka is yet to receive its own official release date, we do know that it'll be some time after this December's release of The Book of Boba Fett. As well as including Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka herself, the series has also re-cast Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker and more recently Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Mandolorian warrior Sabine Wren.

For more on the show, make sure to check out this piece detailing how The Mandolorian has been teasing Sabine Wren's debut for a little while now.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Universal Pictures has now released online a five-minute Prologue for Jurassic World Dominion that was previously only seen in IMAX theaters screening F9. The studio says the Prologue, written and directed by Dominion's Colin Trevorrow, is not in the final film itself but is a separate, original piece of content.

Furthermore, the Prologue features seven new species of dinosaurs — never been seen in a Jurassic film –that were created by ILM, as well as original music by the film's composer Michael Giacchino.

Our original breakdown of the Prologue from June — when it was screened for press before its theatrical run — can be read below.

While awe is clearly the endgame, Jurassic World Dominion does not shy away from the details.

The first footage from the threequel, a five-minute extended preview that was screened for a handful of journalists at IMAX HQ in Los Angeles, showcases a two-part narrative. The five-minute preview will be screened in theaters before IMAX screenings of F9.

The first part is an origin story. Utilizing vast landscapes, a plethora of dinos, and harnassing the primal nature of the prehistoric era, the emphasis is on context. The intimacy of a bug landing on the leg of a dinosaur is juxtaposed by the majesty of a herd bathing in a lake as a winged creature swoops in to feast on a carcass.

A fight between two apex predators inevitably plays like a Western as they circle and face off, ultimately ending with the grisly demise of the T-Rex. As her pupils dilate, she becomes the feeding ground for a bug that imbibes a sample of blood. The sequence comes from early on in the movie.

“We know who killed her now,” enthused Jurassic World Dominion director Colin Trevorrow. “Hopefully, people will want some revenge.”

Fast-forward 65 million years, and audiences are faced with a T-Rex being chased by a helicopter through a forest as she heads for a packed drive-in movie theater showing a double bill of American Graffiti and Flash Gordon. Should audiences read anything into that?

“It just felt like a double feature that I’d want to go see,” the filmmaker, who was talking to press via Zoom, explained. “[Jurassic World series star] Bryce [Dallas Howard]’s dad is in one of them, so I guess it’s a little tip to Ron Howard. I saw that drive-in as the kind of places that I went to growing up. They were in Mendocino, the area that American Graffiti was set, and that also connects it to Skywalker Ranch, where we mixed the movie. It connected the whole thing to Northern California.”

Chaos ensues on a grand scale as people run for cover. The T-Rex kicks over cars, wreaking havoc against a backdrop of a movie screen as couples are making out and friends and families are hanging out, accompanied by a soundtrack of screams and the dino’s trademark roar. Audiences are then treated to brief glimpses of other prehistoric titans creating mayhem elsewhere. Trevorrow confirms this chaos is global.

“To a certain extent, yes,” the filmmaker explained, although it seems there are no dinosaurs in the streets with tanks or anything. “We’re creating a world in which dinosaurs exist in the same way that animals do now, which is that if you go too deep into the forest, you may be in danger of invading their territory, and you can get hurt. I didn’t want to anthropomorphize them. I didn’t want to turn them into anything other than the natural animals they are. I mean, dinosaurs were real.”

Missing from the footage is the film’s cast, including Chris Pratt and Howard. While that may come as a surprise, or perhaps a disappointment to fans, there is a good reason for it.

“It’s not that I actively didn’t want them around, but we’re telling a really big, epic, sprawling story here,” the director said. “I felt like this was one opportunity to be able to tell the T-Rex’s story. She’s a character who has been through a lot over these movies and some traumatic experiences. I want kids and adults to be as invested in her and her journey as they are in the humans. She does look a little different this time in that she has protofeathers.”

Jurassic World Dominion also sees the return of the original Jurassic Park’s Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum, but how big of a part will they play in this sixth film in the franchise?

“To me, and I’ve always been this way, I wouldn’t put a character from one of the previous movies into the film unless they had a reason to be there,” said Trevorrow. “This was the first time I felt we had a story that would justify their presence in the film because they would not just call each other up and go on an adventure. We had to come up with a reason.”

Trevorrow also confirmed that there will be “surprises,” but “I don’t know if it’s going to be about who’s in it.”

The director has confirmed that visual effects on the film are “nearing completion,” and he has had the film cut “for some time,” adding that it was “really nice” not to have to rush to make a 2021 release date.

“It’s allowed us to be a little bit more deliberate and thoughtful and not feel the constant pressure,” he added. “It gives us a chance to show it to friends, other filmmakers, and fans, to talk to them and figure out if there is anything they need out of this that we’re not giving them.”

Jurassic World Dominion sees Trevorrow, who also co-wrote the movie, fulfill his three-film commitment with the multibillion-dollar franchise (while J. A. Bayona directed the second film, Trevorrow co-wrote it). But does this serve as a bookend for the series or the jumping-off point for more?

“I think that if these stories continue, it’s going be time for a new filmmaker to come in and put their spin on it,” he mused. “I’ve been fortunate over the past six or seven years to create this celebration of what Steven Spielberg and Michael Crichton brought to the screen.

“I’m really into the idea of being able to pass that torch on in the same way that we pass the torch on to new characters in this movie. There are new heroes, it’s not just about the legacy characters that come back, and the new actors in the film are hopefully characters that we’re going to want to see again in the future. Dominion is a very different kind of film, and I believe audiences are going to be down to go on this journey with us as we evolve into new directions.”

Jurassic World Dominion will land in theaters on June 10, 2022.