Marvel Mondays #20 - Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998)

In a way, "Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD" marks the end of an era on this blog. This is probably the last of the low-rent Marvel cash-ins that comprised the majority of the Marvel cinematic output for the 20-plus years prior to its release. However, by the late '90s, times were changing and the success of Men In Black, Blade and the X-Men films meant that all of a sudden Hollywood was seeing the value in comic book tie-ins. As a result, a lot more quality control began to be exercised and Marvel became a lot more picky about who they would license their films to, eventually bringing the operation in house with the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As a result, the whole Marvel B-movie genre pretty much died off - looking at what's to come on this blog, the only thing that really falls into that category after this film is 2005's "Man Thing" and even that was actually shot in the mid-'90s before being buried for a decade.

Anyway, at least we're going out with a bang here. We all know Nick Fury these days as Samuel L Jackson in the Avengers films and "Agents of SHIELD" as one of the more long-standing television series in the Marvel universe (one that divides opinion but which I'll admit I quite like). However, before SLJ and before the days of big money, the role was played by...the Hoff! Yup, "Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD" stars none other than David Hasselhoff in the title role. Had this been five years earlier, this would have probably been quite a big deal but bear in mind that it was a good three or four years since "Baywatch"'s commercial peak here...oh well, only sixteen years to go till "Hoff The Record" eh folks?... (for any non-Brits who haven't seen this comedy series featuring the Hoff starring as a washed-up version of himself repeatedly trying and failing to resurrect his acting career in London, do yourselves a favour and track it down, it's brilliant. Seriously.)

Anyway, the film starts with a couple of SHIELD guards in a defence base, one of whom ONLY SEEMS TO TALK BY SHOUTING! When HYDRA agents suddenly storm the building without warning, his war cry on going into battle consists of him yelling "LET US ROCK AND LET US ROLL!". Yup, no expense spared with the dialogue here.

It turns out the HYDRA soldiers are here under the leadership of Andrea von Strucker aka Viper, the daughter of their original leader Baron von Strucker and her brother Werner (who's a dead ringer for the football pundit Robbie Savage) with the aim of rescuing his frozen body so they can defrost it and bring their long-dead leader back to life. Inevitably, shouty boy quickly goes down in a hail of bullets. Incidentally, in the tradition of '90s Marvel villains who take the whole over-acting thing to ridiculous levels leading you to wish they'd just sod off, Sandra Hess who plays Viper is another case in point with a ridiculously put-on cod-German accent that grates on you every time you sodding hear it.

Anyway, with word about the base having fallen reaching SHIELD HQ, it's decided that they need to call out a wild card and try and bring retired director Nick Fury out of the self-imposed exile he's been in during the Cold War. Two agents, young Brit Alex Pearce and Fury's old deputy Valentina de Fontaine are dispatched to find him. As it turns out, he's been living in a cave in the Yukon for the previous seven years and intially wants nothing to do with the operation until they tell him that shouty guy was in fact one of his old mates Cley Quartermaine which persuades him to sign on for the mission. If you remember the old Punt and Dennis skit "A Man Called Martin"...well, it's safe to say that this isn't a million miles away. "I knew Kropotkin wasn't dead. And that could mean only one thing. That he was still alive..."

Discussing the mission with Pearce on the plane (during which Hoff offers the immortal line "Relax kid, I'm just blowin' smoke up your hoo-haa"), it turns out that HYDRA have developed a virus called the Death's Head and are planning to unleash it on Manhattan. Arriving on the SHIELD airbase, Fury is instantly at odds with the current by-the-book SHIELD commander Pincer although he gets on a bit better with his deputy "Dum-Dum" Duggan. Oh and also in this version of Marvel, SHIELD apparently stands for Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law Enforcement Division. Which actually makes it SHIELED but hey, never mind, it's not like it's a key part of the film's title or anything. Oh wait a sec...

Fury's team also includes a psychic named Kate and it turns out they're building a robo-Nick in the lab to which Fury comes up with the immortal line "I don't know whether to congratulate you or put a stake through it's heart". It turns out that HYDRA are looking for Arnim Zola, the man who was originally behind the Death's Head virus and is now living in a SHIELD safe house in Berlin meaning Nick and his crew are promptly dispatched off to find him. The plan is for them to meet an Interpol agent there, get Kate to read Zola's mind to find out more about the virus and then set about locating the Von Strucker siblings...

Arriving in Berlin, they meet up with Gail, their agent, outside a gallery (including a sequence where Hoff gets carried away quoting Shakespeare as part of the codeword...again, see "A Man Called Martin") and arrive at Zola's safe house by running through an illusion wall midway through a subway tunnel. Zola isn't about to talk much so they get Kate to do a mind read on him which results in a graphic "world destruction" sequence that must have taken all of ten minutes to put together on the Atari ST they had in the office...

Gail and Nick go upstairs to talk strategy which ends up with her kissing him (sample dialogue - Gail: "Is it true what women say about you?", Hoff: "Well, that depends on whether you're talking about one of my ex-wives or my mother...") However, it was all a trap and it turns out that Gail was in fact Viper in disguise and the kiss has now infected Fury with the Death's Head virus. D'oh...

Fury comes back round at the base where it turns out that HYDRA stormed the safe house and kidnapped Zola. Fury is put into a chamber to be de-radiated but gets out to find that the villains have incapacitated Pincer and replaced him with a robot who promptly relays an electronic message from HYDRA prior to exploding!

SHIELD set up a conference with the US President who looks scarily like Tory wingnut Jacob Rees-Mogg. Eesh, that might just be the most terrifying thing in this film so far... It turns out that the real Interpol inspector who was supposed to be meeting Nick in Berlin has been dropped off at a Berlin hospital and brought on board the SHIELD aircraft carrier. If you remember that episode of "Friends" where Joey's playing a plague victim in a film ("Can't you see what's happening here? This man is DEAD!"), well it's kind of similar to that. Despite being told that he hasn't yet fully recovered from the virus, Fury goes against Pincer's orders and sets off to find SHIELD's lair with Kate and Pearce in tow while Val takes a couple of agents to Manhattan to search for HYDRA's launch site for the virus...

After searching around the Aleutian mountains in their plane, Nick and his team realise they're right over the base when a couple of heat-seeking missiles suddenly appear. They bail out and land just outside the base, getting into a fight with HYDRA's goons which allows Hoff (or rather his stuntman) to show off his karate moves. However, the team are ultimately captured and thrown into a cell by Viper who appears to have now decided to disguise herself as an evil version of Princess Jasmine from Aladdin...

Back in New York, it turns out that Werner and his team decided to store their missiles in a converted bin lorry! For once, I have no words... Also, the bloke playing Werner appears to be doing an impersonation of Richie from "Bottom" impersonating Hans Gruber from "Die Hard". And if you're looking at his henchman without the words "What are the scores, George Dawes!" going through your head then you're doing better than me...

Back in the Aleutians, Nick and his team escape from their holding cell when Fury turns his glass eye into a grenade to blow out the wall! Again, I have no words...

Anyway, long story short, there's the big end of film punch-up you'd expect. Val and her team take out Werner's gang in a matter of seconds with Val shooting Werner before he can activate the missiles. Fury meanwhile gets his confrontation with Viper. Zola attempts to shoot him but, in one of the more amusing Marvel film deaths, picks up the wrong gun, electrocutes himself and sends his wheelchair flying backwards and out of the castle window!

Viper thinks she's won the battle but it's actually robo-Fury from the start of the film that she's killed (wait a sec, so how did they manage to get that into the building without anyone seeing? My head hurts...) She tries to activate the missiles remotely but Kate saves the day by doing a mind-read on her and getting the abort code. The battle's won but Viper escapes with her dad, who's now defrosted, with the two of them swearing vengenance on Fury and SHIELD... However, the sequel/series never came about meaning thankfully we were spared more of her painful over-acting...

File this one in the "so bad it's actually almost good" category. Yes, "Nick Fury - Agent of SHIELD" is unapologetically a B-movie but if you ignore Sandra Hess' ridiculously OTT and annoying villain, there's actually a bit of a low-budget goofball charm about the whole thing. Hoff is unashamedly hamming it up and the action sequences are so daft that they actually become entertaining albeit probably not in the way the producers were expecting (see also "Captain America 2: Death Too Soon" from a few months back). If nothing else, this film'll give you a few belly laughs to while away your evening and that's more than can be said for a few of the other low-budget efforts on this list.

FINAL RATING: 🔫🔫🔫🔫 (4/10)

CURRENT MARVEL FILM TABLE

1. Men In Black (1997) (8/10)
2. The Incredible Hulk Returns (1988) (6/10)
3. Conan The Barbarian (1982) (6/10)
4. Conan The Destroyer (1984) (6/10)
5. The Trial Of The Incredible Hulk (1989) (6/10)
6. Doctor Mordrid (1992) (5/10)
7. The Punisher (1989) (5/10)
8. Doctor Strange (1978) (5/10)
9. Nick Fury: Agent Of SHIELD (1998) (4/10)
10. The Fantastic Four (1994) (4/10)
11. Red Sonja (1985) (4/10)
12. Captain America 2: Death Too Soon (1979) (4/10)
13. Spiderman (1977) (4/10)
14. The Death Of The Incredible Hulk (1990) (3/10)
15. Spiderman: The Dragon's Challenge (1979) (3/10)
16. Howard The Duck (1986) (2/10)
17. Captain America (1990) (2/10)
18. Captain America (1979) (2/10)
19. Generation X (1996) (2/10)
20. Spiderman Strikes Back (1978) (2/10)

NEXT WEEK: Back to the big budget stuff as Wesley Snipes goes off hunting vampires...