Nick Fury: Agent of Shield

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.

Truthfully, for a made for TV movie, it was actually pretty good. I liked the actors playing the subordinate roles. The special effects were passable since this was not a full feature film. The only problem I had was that the actress playing Viper was way, way too hammy. As for David Hasselhoff (beside the fact that it was David Hasselhoff, which I overlooked), I thought he really looked the part of a retired Nick Fury. He captured the Nick Fury mannerisms pretty well. Too bad the audience didn't give him the pass that were given to other actors from bad series (cough, Smallville, cough). I would have really liked a series made of Nick Fury. If the critics were as harsh on the Star Trek series as they were on this movie, Star Trek would never have survived. And most of the early episodes in each of the Star Trek series were far worse than this movie. Give this movie a break. We all missed out on seeing Nick Fury every week. Which is a shame because it would have only gotten better!

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.

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.

Out of interest, after never watching this movie until tonight on TV to get more information on it.

First of all I thought it was entertaining!

So much so I'd say a lot of the other reviews are just being to critical and on the "Hasselhoff is xxxx, haha, bandwagon".

Yea maybe David Hasselhoff is pretty cheesy in a lot of the shows he's been (or otherwise produced), and sure maybe he's no silent tough guy (like Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, etc.) but if you look past the stigma it's a pretty entertaining movie..

If you can catch it on TV, give it a go..