Pity Nick Fury. Not only does the poor guy never get a rest – he’s been in almost every Marvel film since Iron Man, all the way back in 2008 – but the years have not been kind to him.
In Secret Invasion, Disney+’s most recent MCU spin-off show, he’s haggard, missing his iconic eye-patch and seemingly a bit over it all. In fact, he’s been hiding away on a space station in Earth’s orbit like some kind of ultra-suave hermit, helping to build SABER, the planet’s extra-terrestrial defence system.
Which is not great news, because the Earth is in danger once more, and (you guessed it) the only person who can save it is yours truly. This time around, the looming danger is from the Skrulls: remember them? Those slightly funky-looking green aliens that popped up in Captain Marvel?
Well, they’re back, baby, and this time they want to take over the Earth itself. As a quick refresher: the Skrulls are humanoid alien refugees who can shapeshift into humans. For reasons best described in the show as “war”, they fled to Earth in the 1990s looking for safe haven.
Nick Fury, fresh from his adventures in Captain Marvel, promised to find them a replacement planet; in return, they would become his spies. However, thirty years on, the deal has soured. There is no replacement planet, and as a result, the Skrulls have radicalised.
Now, they want to use their ability to impersonate pretty much anybody to bring about the end of the world and make Earth into their new home. Top of the agenda is causing a nuclear Armageddon between the US, and (you guessed it) Russia. This is all because the Skrulls are actually immune to radiation (hence their base, which is in an abandoned nuclear power plant) – though the idea of living on a blasted Earth seems a bit depressing regardless of whether or not radiation poisoning is factored into the mix.
To that end, most of the series is set in Russia. Sigh. The US-Russia conflict is one that feels as tired as the whole Marvel machine – and the decision to foreground it feels even more perplexing given the situation in Ukraine, which is not mentioned once, despite the fact that filming took place last year (with very recognisable parts of London standing in for Moscow).
At least we have Nick Fury, and of course Samuel L. Jackson is endlessly watchable in the role. The man simply oozes charisma, and it seeps through in every scene, whether he’s sparring with Talos or trying to convince his opposite number at MI6 (a brilliantly steely Olivia Colman) that he’s still got what it takes.
This version of Fury is battered and bruised, seemingly damaged by his experiences being blipped out of existence by Thanos (remember that? The lore is deep). His endless scheming has come back to haunt him; faced with a Skrull mutiny, former allies like Rhodey (Don Cheadle) have lost faith he can fix things.
Opposite him for much of it is the brilliant Ben Mendelsohn, who plays Talos, the pacifist leader of the Skrulls who has been cast into exile by the new revolutionary leader, Gravik (an enjoyably spiky Kingsley Ben-Adir). Oh, and one of Gravik’s devoted acolytes is Talos’ own daughter Gaia, played by Emilia Clarke with plenty of dedication, despite the character’s rather clichéd redemption arc - or at least, that was the way things were heading in the two episodes we were assigned for review.
Together, these two old-timers have to work together to avert the end of the world, making this more of a buddy-cop movie than anything else – albeit one with a sci-fi twist. And don’t get me wrong: it’s fun enough. This is a Marvel show, after all, which means it’s a slick and polished affair that speeds along, throwing in Easter eggs and zingers with abandon for the fans to savour.
It just all feels a little bit… tired. The action sequences have been done before; the disaffected revolutionaries have been done before (most recently in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier); hell, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has been done before, many times. Much like Fury himself, the Marvel train has been chugging along for years now. Maybe it’s time for a well-deserved retirement.
