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Amid plenty of massive comedy hits like The Lego Movie and Elf, Will Ferrell is well-known for his work in the world of sports-based movies. Over the years, he has taken on roles as a NASCAR race car driver in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), a figure skater in Blades of Glory (2007), and an ABA basketball player/team owner in Semi-Pro (2008). These movies have all allowed him the opportunity to showcase his characters' absurdity and cluelessness, bringing plenty of laughs to fans, even if the reviews have not always been so kind.
Ferrell now returns to this sub-genre, playing the leading role in a new Netflix series titled The Hawk, which he created alongside Harper Steele and Chris Henchy. Here, Ferrell plays Lonnie "The Hawk" Hawkins, a washed-up former champion golfer who peaked in 2004 and is trying to get back to the top of the mountain. He sets out on a delusional quest to win another Major Championship and secure a Grand Slam (winning all four PGA Major Championships), doing everything he can to make this happen while his family pleads with him to retire.
While Ferrell seems to be in his element with this series, it does not appear to be landing well with critics.
Rotten Tomatoes officially revealed its initial average Tomatometer score (critics' score) for Netflix's The Hawk. Unfortunately, only 11% of critics reviewed the series positively, based on nine reviews already submitted. This ranks as one of the five worst average Tomatometer scores in Ferrell's career.
James Jackson of The Times admitted that nobody is going to look at this series "[expecting] subtlety or sophistication," bluntly describing it as "extremely daft summer season viewing." The New York Post's Lauren Sarner had similarly bad comments on it, calling the show something that "might have made for an amusing yet forgettable five-minute Saturday Night Live sketch." Instead, she used the word "tedious" in her review.
The Wall Street Journal's John Anderson explained that The Hawk "doesn't know when to be witty and when to be vulgar," feeling that the story "goes over that line too many times," trying to win the respect of the audience. That negative trend continued in a review by Kathryn VanArendonk of New York Magazine, who wrote that this story centers on "an unpleasant golfer who finds himself more funny than anyone else does" and whose sophomoric antics "can't fill in all the cracks where his humanity should be."Simply put, the reviews for Will Ferrell's new series will not help its chances for success on Netflix, even if the audience scores turn out more favorably now that The Hawk is released in full. It does not seem to bring the same charm as Ferrell's past sports-based projects on first glance. For now, the chances of this show getting a second season seem slim, but Ferrell and his team still have hope to see where Hawkins' story goes from here.All 10 episodes of The Hawk are now streaming on Netflix.
