Nick Fury: Agent of Shield

I'm an old-school Marvel fan. My Nick Fury was a hard-bitten, cigar-chomping Sergeant who ran a multi-cultural commando platoon in WW2, later a CIA Colonel who fought the Hate Monger (in reality Adolph Hitler) alongside the Fantastic Four in 1963, then turned up as the one-eyed director of SHIELD in 1965.

The Samuel L Jackson version is a 2002 construct created by Mark Millar for the Marvel alternate universe series The Ultimates. That version didn't fight in World War 2 and is not, technically, part of the main Marvel Universe canon. I guess the opportunity to actually cast Jackson in the role proved too great a lure for the film-makers, so they conflated the two universes.

This version of Nick Fury really does not deserve the hate from the other reviewers here. It really isn't that bad. The Heli-Carrier is great. All the supporting characters are here: The Contessa, Dum-Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones (thought he's morphed from a bugle-player into a scientist) and Burt Lancaster look-alike Clay Quartermaine (though he dies in the first few minutes). And Fury actually chomps a cigar all the way through.

I like the weird Hydra agents with their shaved heads and Matrix-style sunglasses. I loved Strucker's creepy daughter Viper, obviously channeling the sadistic Fah Lo See, portrayed by Myrna Loy in Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). I was glad to see the SHIELD agents' trademark black leather jumpsuits. And it's got The Hoff as Nick Fury.

Couple of small points - the junior agent Pierce should have been the boy-scoutish Jasper Sitwell from the comics. The Contessa should have had the fetching white streak in her hair. And instead of Viper, I'd have love to have seen Madame Hydra ... but you can't have everything.

Don't get me wrong ... this isn't even close to the level of the more recent Marvel movies, but it's not the worst of the other Marvel screen adaptations of the same period - The Punisher (which scored higher on IMDB) doesn't play as well. Blade, also scripted by David Goyer, fares a little better, but all in all, I quite enjoyed The Hoff as Nick Fury.

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.

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..

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.".

This movie received a lot of flack, and it's not all undeserved. Yes, Andra Hess is an absolutely terrible actress who can't resist camping up the series and turning Hydra into a complete parody as opposed to a legitimate threat. Yes, the story could have used a bit more work. But where this film got things right, it REALLY got them right.

The Agents of SHIELD are all well-cast and did great work in their roles. But I want to bring special attention to David Hasselhoff. The man gets a lot of flack for his performance in the role and I think a lot of that is just because he's David Hasselhoff. But in truth, this is probably the finest performance of his career. Hasselhoff nails not only the look, but the personality of Nick Fury and he looks like he stepped right out of a Steranko comic.

It really is a shame that Hasselhoff's performance and potential future as Nick Fury was completely overshadowed both by his own reputation and by the bad elements of the film. Given a proper villain in the form of a well-cast, well-written Baron Strucker, this would have been an incredible telefilm that would have led into an amazing television series.