Nick Fury: Agent of Shield

The title should remind you that this is nothing to take serious. It also seems that they where -thank God- aware of that when making the movie; it's based on a comic book for pete's sake! That's it's only real asset; irony. This is the first film where I actually thought David Hasselhoff was fun to watch. Far from hysterical, just plain fun-if-you-havent-got-better-things-to-do. Playing the cigarchewing Nick Fury with an eyepatch he reminds us somewhat of Snake Plissken in "Escape From New York" and "L.A.", however the movie itself is far even from the standards of "Escape From L.A.".

Ok, so the mid-day viewing of the Sci-Fi channel has it's highs'n'lows. This was a low. Not because of another schlock movie with zero plot, horrible acting and zillion-year-old effects (and props!).

It sucks HARD because the original Sargent Fury was one of the most exciting comics I read back-in-the-day. The Sarge meant something. HASSELHOFF??????

I do hope producers read the comments posted here.

LESSON ONE: Decide what you want to be. LESSON TWO: If the answer to ONE: is "Parody", don't use an American icon as the subject.

If you really wanted to bring Hasselhoff back from the dead, get younger, cuter babes, put'em in nighties and redo Baywatch as a photo studio. Put it on cable with nighties so thin you can read the braille on their nipples. Ok, so we don't need Hasselhoff to do that, but put him in the background somewhere or the occasional cameo appearance.

Coulda had a winner here, guys. Blew it. An unknown (or Jesse Ventura) could have done a lot more to make this one fly.

Sticking to the content better than the still enjoyable telefilm Generation X, Nick Fury still provided a lot of enjoyment for fans of the comic who got to see their favorite characters brought to life. Having read the comics I found it fun seeing Fury, Gabe Jones, Dugan (Who was never called "Dum Dum" as he is in the comics, thank God), Quartermain, Viper and even Baron Von Strucker.

Hasselhoff did a good job, playing Fury much like he is in the comics, tough as nails yet likeable. Neil Roberts was a standout as Pierce as well, and I particularly liked Fury's line after he seemingly died ("I got better"). When have comic fans not heard that.

A great film. I watched it again not too long ago, and liked it still. A lot of fun for fans and anyone who enjoys stuff that doesn't take itself too seriously.

Have a good day then.

Marvel's hard-boiled hero (David Hasselhoff) is brought to TV. He is brought back to fight the menace of Hydra after exiling himself in the Yukon since the end of the Cold War. The children of the former Hydra head, Baron Von Stucker, have taken charge of the terrorist organization.

I did not expect much from this one. A made-for-TV movie starring David Hasselhoff that never made it to DVD... that should be a series of red flags that scream "terrible movie". But I figured it would be entertaining -- not good, but bad enough to be fun. Instead, it was just bad.

Hasselhoff did alright and actually looks a lot like Nick Fury (with all due respect to Samuel L. Jackson, who now ones the role). The general plot was good. The effects were weak (but not awful). The biggest mystery is Sandra Hess' voice -- she was born in Switzerland, but has no ability whatsoever to have a German accent.

Watching this with two non-comic book fans made another shortcoming abundantly clear: the film did not adequately explain what Hydra or SHIELD were. I know because I grew up reading comics, but within the film it is not very obvious who is who and what is what. I am also unclear about Baron von Strucker being born in 1932... that makes him a bit young to be a Nazi serving alongside Hitler.

I've never been a big fan of superhero comics, but I still try to keep an open mind about them. I have read very little but still enough about Nick Fury, and I must say that they could have made a worse choice then to let Hasslehoff play the title role. If you haven't read any of the comics you will miss out on some of the stuff in the movie, but considering it is mainly one-liners to empathize how bad of an ass Fury is it's not much. The dialog feels pretty tame, as if the script writers were on a very limited time and had to come up with something quick. But the actors does a good job to take it all serious, can't blame the actors for a bad script. There are, of course, plot holes or just unrealistic stupidity with the plot. I think most people want more from a villain then just "Oh I'm going to terrorize the world with my global terrorist organization because I am evil! Did I also mention terrorism?" which is all background story we are handed over about the bad guys in this movie.

However, I would like to point out that Sandra Hess as the crazy evil lady villain is damn sexy and should have gone for a career of fascist sexploitation films instead, and watching this movie is worth it for her alone.