Marvel’s “Secret Invasion” series opens up with a super intriguing line about trust. “Imagine a world where information can’t be trusted,” a disembodied gravely voice says while former CIA agent Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman) skulks in the shadows in Moscow. “Society starts to fray,” the voice continues, eerily and alarmingly echoing our own current age of disinformation, division, and distrust.
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“Secret Invasion,” says right off the bat, with all the Earth’s disruption—Thanos’ Blip, five years of half the planet, then the surprise of everyone returning—that the world has plunged into chaos and uncertainty. No one knows whether they should believe their eyes and ears because the entire planet has been gaslight with cataclysmic events hard to fathom. Trust and lack thereof were also a strong thread running throughout “Spider-Man: Far From Home” because of obfuscated truth and reality that Mysterio’s illusions caused. But even that mild popcorn film seemingly had more compelling and exciting to say about trust than “Secret Invasion.” And to boot, it was certainly more entertaining (and it’s not coincidental that the big rug-pulling ‘Far From Home’ twist was about people who were not who they seemed).
Billed as a kind of conspiracy-laden spy-thriller in the vein of “Captain America: Civil War” and “Falcon And The Winter Solider” which played with a similar tone, “Secret Invasion” may have the grounded vibe down in mood, but with none of the intrigue, shape, and direction. Listlessly formed with aimless pacing, this much-anticipated return to the more-realistic, espionage-filled world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is alarmingly dull despite the welcome fact that there are no flying people and few superpowered people in the story (sort of, well, besides the Skrulls, but the CGI budget seems tempered to use their abilities sparingly).
“Secret Invasion” is based on the premise that the no-nonsense Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the normally resilient, always-on cool cucumber of the MCU, constantly with his nose to the grindstone of the underground, has had a crisis in faith. Wobbly and uneven, Fury’s been floating in space on the S.A.B.E.R. spaceship for years, apparently since the ‘Far From Home events.’ We’re to believe that the Blip ignited Fury’s personal crisis in his cause. Still, it’s a very convenient and not very convincing angle considering what he didn’t have to suffer through (if Fury had not been snapped by Thanos and lived a lonely five years without most of the ‘Avengers,’ had to see the world radically change for the worse, and struggle with the loss of loved ones, wouldn’t this hopelessness and lack of conviction make much more sense, emotionally, psychologically and just practically?).
If you can get passed that flimsy and unconvincing excuse for watching Nick Fury, behave totally out of character (and it’s tough), fine, but it doesn’t help that every character keeps saying Fury is past his prime, lost his edge, and his sure-footing. Every character says Fury changed ever since the Blip as if repeating it will convince the writer’s themselves they made a credible choice.
OK, the story itself. The basics are Nick Fury, with the help of former SHIELD agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Everett Ross, uncovers a conspiracy. The shapeshifting Skrulls (seen in “Far From Home’ and the ‘90s-set “Captain Marvel”) have infiltrated Earth far deeper than anyone once knew and are in positions of power around the world. Fury also recruits Friendly-to-Earth Skrull Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) to stop this plan and save humanity, but not before the Evil Skrulls, led by the rogue Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir, not a very persuasive or compelling personality, to be honest—at least not in this series) can blow up a lot of sh*t in Moscow and seemingly blame it on the Americans in order to sew more destabilized global confusion and panic.
Some familiar faces try and clean up the mess that the world believes Nick Fury caused, Don Cheadle as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, aka War Machine, and a host of new faces are in the mix, including M16 agent Sonya Falsworth (Olivia Colman), a former Nick Fury ally, and G’iah (Emilia Clarke), a morally conflicted Skrull who is seemingly on the bad team, but has allegiances to the past and Talos (Dermot Mulroney plays The President Of The United States).
In short: Bad Skrulls want to f*ck up the world, and it’s partly Nick Fury’s fault. Because, as seen in flashbacks—some of them direct footage lifts from “Captain Marvel”—a young Nick Fury promised a group of displaced Skrulls with Talos that he would find a new planet for them. Work with humans and Earth, and we will return the favor, Fury said. Well, some-odd thirty years later or so, the Skrulls do not have a new planet, and many of them feel betrayed and incredibly bitter— many of them the generation of Skrulls who heard this agreement as young children.
Created by Kyle Bradstreet (“Mr. Robot”) and directed in full by Ali Selim (“Sweet Land,” “The Looming Tower”), while seemingly fashioned with good intentions of classic spy thrillers in the same way ‘Winter Soldier’ was crafted, “Secret Invasion” absolutely pales in comparison with what action scenes we see so far, incredibly flat, uninventive and the opposite of thrilling.
“Secret Invasion” starts with a captivating concept of who and what you can trust, but so far, based on what critics have seen, it doesn’t capitalize on it at all. There are a lot of characters and ones that the audience loves, but nothing sparks, and even Samuel L. Jackson feels like he’s phoning it in. “Secret Invasion” lacks energy and the gripping, fleet-footed maneuvering that’s usually so exciting in spy, espionage, and conspiracy thrillers.
One major thing happens with a character’s death—which we won’t spoil here—which feels bold in the moment but is squandered and never exploited as the huge emotional moment it could be. There’s still time and episodes left to salvage the series, but for those who were excited for the MCU return to a shadowy and clandestine milieu, “Secret Invasion” disappoints with familiar, rote, and enervating tenor nowhere near as involving as its collusions would suggest. [C+]