Rating: 1.5 Stars
The following review contains spoilers.
Overview:
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. is basically “PC has gone mad!” the movie. It’s like what if the Tim Allen character from Last Man Standing was a superhero, except I assume Allen at least sometimes learns a lesson (I haven’t seen it). Nick Fury just learns that he’s right, there are too many namby-pambies these days with too many rules. No smoking? I got your no smoking right here, you namby-pamby!
Anyway, when Hydra agents attack a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and steal the body of Wolfgang von Strucker (which was being stored there like he’s Lenin for some reason), the S.H.I.E.L.D. brass feel like they have no choice but to call Nick Fury in from the cold. He was kicked out five years ago for being a lone wolf who doesn’t follow rules (but he gets results, you stupid chief!) and ever since he’s apparently been living in an abandoned train tunnel hitting the wall with a pickaxe, shades of Andy Samberg’s character in Hot Rod pointlessly hitting an engine with a hammer.
It turns out Wolfgang died of Hydra’s Death’s Head virus, after which the remaining samples were destroyed by the government. However, his daughter Andrea von Strucker (part of Fenris in the comics, but here she’s Viper aka Madame Hydra) realizes she can get Arnim Zola to reverse engineer the virus out of her father’s corpse and use it to terrorize the world. She plans to release the virus in Manhattan unless she’s given one-billion dollars, and voice analysis from S.H.I.E.L.D. suggests she’s going to release it either way.
In their initial confrontation, Andrea kissed Fury (of course) giving him a deadly poison. So not only does Fury need to find her base and stop her from deploying the virus, he also needs a sample of her blood to make a cure for what’s killing him. Can Fury, rookie agent Alexander Pierce, and psychic agent Kate Neville take on an entire Hydra battalion and acquire the abort codes before all of Manhattan is killed (because for some reason they assume it won’t spread around the world from there like, you know, a virus)?
Best Parts:
David Hasselhoff does look a lot like Nick Fury.
There is a lot of comic book stuff in here. They’ve got most of the notable S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from the comics, at least in name, even if they never call “Dum Dum” Dugan by his nickname and he never wears his favorite hat. They’ve got life model decoys and psychics and the helicarrier.
I sort of liked Alexander Pierce and Kate Neville.
Worst Parts:
I’m not sure if there’s any version of Nick Fury I’d actually care about for a whole movie, but it’s definitely not this version. He’s always got tons of bad action movie “quips” but they’re not bad in a fun way or anything.
Andrea von Strucker is acting so much in every scene that it’s exhausting. Her accent is terrible also. Maybe just say her character grew up wherever the actress is actually from?
It’s just sort of lame, which I guess is about what you’d expect from a low-budget made-for-TV movie starring David Hasselhoff, but meeting expectations doesn’t make it more enjoyable.
I haven’t mentioned yet that Lisa Rinna plays Fury’s ex-girlfriend, Contessa Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine. They have absolutely no chemistry and her performance is lifeless and dull. I think they get back together at the end? Honestly, no one cares.
“What’re you, a mind-reader?”
“We prefer the term ESP-ers. I had my natural ability augmented with implants.” Nick Fury looks at her breasts. “Neural implants.”
“You know what I’m thinkin’ now, darlin’?”
“I don’t need ESP for that.” She smirks.
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