Welcome back to 1 out of 5 – Would Recommend! In honor of the impending release of Marvel’s Ant-Man, today we flash back to a time the only available Marvel movie starred the guy from Baywatch as Nick Fury and we liked it – 1998’s Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD TV Movie!
What’s The Plot?
The best Nick Fury their budget could afford.
The villainous Viper (Sandra Hess) steals the cryogenically preserved body of her father, Baron Von Strucker, from SHIELD in order to re-engineer the Death’s Head Virus he carries in his veins. SHIELD has no choice but to reactivate retired agent Nick Fury (David Hasselhoff), the man who put Von Strucker on ice, to put a stop her nefarious plot. Nick and his team of elite agents must ferret out HYDRA’s base of operations and intercept the virus before it can be unleashed on New York City! Will they succeed? If you’ve seen literally any action movie before, you can guess the answer!
Who Made This Beautiful Garbage?
This movie is one of a trio of bizarre TV movies that aired on the Fox network in the mid-90s, along with an American continuation of Doctor Who and a movie based on Marvel’s Generation X (both in 1996). All three were, while ostensibly standalone features, intended to jump start TV shows. You will notice that none of them did, which should give you an idea of how well any of them were pulled off.
Worth noting that it was written by David S. Goyer, best known nowadays for his work on DC Comics’ movies, particularly the Dark Knight Trilogy. Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD came out the same year as the Goyer penned Blade and Dark City and, as Meat Loaf said, two outta three ain’t bad.
Five Reasons to See It
- Did we not mention David Hasselhoff playing Nick Fury yet? Because that should be all the reason you need.
- Sandra Hess, fresh off her role as Sonya Blade in Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, hams it up gloriously as Andrea “Viper” Von Strucker. She’s a perfect match for Hasselhoff, with all the silliness that entails.
Somehow still a step-up from Mortal Kombat.
- Older Marvel live action Marvel adaptations have a habit of largely ignoring the comics or of creating brand new supporting casts/villains around the comic book hero. This movie? Doesn’t do that at all. All but one of the characters, the obligatory bureaucratic weenie, is at least loosely based on a comic book character. Credit where it’s due.
- The Helicarrier looks really good, particularly for a cheesy TV movie.
- “You know he’s a bit uglier than I remember, your frozen pop-sicle. Get it, Andrea? Pop-sicle? You know that’s the problem with you and the Third Reich: no sense of humor.” – Nick Fury, Agent of SNARK.
Recommendation
Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD is pure TV movie cheese from start to finish and is a blast to watch. It, like Vampirella, is a true stand out gem from the 90’s Dark Age of comic book movies…though not for reasons of being high quality. If nothing else, it will make you appreciate the Agents of SHIELD TV show more.
Like, seriously, this would still pass muster today, right? On TV?
NEXT WEEK: We’re gonna try to make ours Marvel from now until the release of Fantastic Four, so let’s watch the aforementioned Generation X!
Wow, this takes me back. I think I still have this on an old VHS tape copied from the night it ran on TV! I guess I should dig it out a give it another viewing!