When international terrorist group HYDRA steal the cryogenically-frozen body of their dead leader, Baron Von Strucker (Campbell Lane) from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, it's time to bring grizzled Cold War veteran Nick Fury (David Hasselhoff) out of retirement.
HYDRA wants to use the "Death's Head" virus in Strucker's body to hold Manhattan to ransom, but Fury and his team are determined to shut them down.
Unfortunately, Fury falls foul of a trap set by Strucker's daughter, Andrea (Sandra Hess) aka Viper, and now only has 48 hours to save the world before the deadly toxin in his system claims his life.
Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a TV movie from 1998 (
the same year that Blade was released, the first comic book superhero film that 'got it right' in my opinion, and still several years ahead of the mainstream acceptance of superheroes as valid movie fodder with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002) that has finally been released on DVD over here - albeit a cheap-and-cheerful, vanilla, no-frills release.
Written by comic book fanatic David S Goyer, who also wrote the
Blade trilogy and TV series,
Dark City, the
Dark Knight trilogy,
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance,
Man of Steel,
Da Vinci's Demons etc, the plot is solid TV fare - and clearly setting itself up as a possible pilot for a series - although the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, lurching from arch and melodramatic to cheesy and clichéd.
This telemovie has taken a lot of flak over the years, but it needs to be a considered as a artefact of its time.
It stays pretty faithful to the comic book origins of Fury and S.H.I.E.LD., featuring a lot of recognisable character names as well as an impressive rendition of the helicarrier (
more industrial than the current incarnation in the big budget movies, more like a flying battleship, but at least it doesn't keep falling out of the sky) as well as Life Model Decoys and smaller bits of spy-fi kit that add nice detail to this 90-minute action-adventure.
Not sure why the HYDRA goons looked like the Observers from
Fringe, but it's a striking and memorable look, so why not?
Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is also clearly a kid-friendly movie, designed for watching over a family meal around the television, so everything is very heightened and larger than life (
Andrea Von Strucker is basically a pantomime villain with an outrageous accent and a propensity for over-the-top 'evil laughter').
While it takes itself seriously, it isn't a film to be taken seriously.
The Hoff is great as Nick Fury, a towering presence and wholly convincing, tough, deadpan, one-eyed and cigar-chewing like he was in the comics I read growing up.
Personally I wouldn't have been disappointed if this had spawned a TV show back at the turn of the century - it's a hell of a lot better than the
Spider-Man series with Nicholas Hammond, and even the
Incredible Hulk (
which usually skates by on rose-tinted nostalgia) from the late '70s.
There wasn't any other real live-action, superhero material on TV when
Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was released originally and, for its time, I still rate this as a success.
