Secret Invasion

Take a good premise, an absolutely stellar cast, a reportedly generous budget and somehow get.....this???

This badly made, cheap-looking, muddled, dull, bland excuse for an espionage/action thriller?

The occasional scene where individual performances occasionally manage to elevate the awful material aside, this was an absolute train wreck.

Confusing narrative, badly shot, character motivations all over the place, what should have been major.plot revelations (and character deaths) were tossed away without any sense of import or gravitas.

God knows where the reported $200m budget went, this had the production values of a daytime soap apart from the obligatory CGI finale (which sets up more narrative problems for the future in itself)

Looks like it was reshot extensively, someone needs to carry the can for this bin fire.

There is no secrecy here, there is no invasion in here, there is just... terrible writing as always.

In 2019 when I first watched Captain Marvel and saw how they butchered Skrulls in there, I already knew Marvel just ruined one of their best storylines and there was no salvaging it.

Secret Invasion is one of the most interesting and somewhat complicated comic storylines I've seen. I haven't read the comics but The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes' Secret Invasion storyline was enough to convince me how good this story is and how mind-blowing and intense a live-action of it would be.

But Disney Plus, like the trash-making machine it is, unsurprisingly took it and made one of the most boring and uninteresting pieces of you know what with it just like every other MCU show it has crapped out in the past couple of years.

But I understand that a storyline on this scale couldn't've been done in the main MCU films because it would be so hard to pull off and also having the Infinity War Saga would make it difficult to incorporate the story in there. I understand that they don't have the budget to bring more actors from the MCU in here, even though it had a movie-level budget of over $200M. And it is then fair to review the show based on its story and not what other story it should've been. The problem is, the new story of this show is just soooo bland and boring and they don't even care about doing anything interesting with it.

If I had to talk about the problems of this show, this review would go on for paragraphs after paragraphs and IMDb's word limit is only 10000 characters, so I make a list of pros and cons instead.

The bad:

• AI intro

• Tv show that had a budget twice Oppenheimer's looks low-budget

• Inferior story and plot to the original in every way imaginable

• A colossal waste of Emilia Clarke

• Awful characterization where you don't even care about already-established characters you cared for once

• Terrible villain which seems to be a tradition at this point with D+ MCU shows

• A movie cut into uneven episodes sold as a weekly show but it isn't a weekly formula

• Terrible pacing as always

• The whole world is Secretly being Invaded but this global scale is never presented and is never felt

• They don't even have enough material to keep the already small season above 30 minutes

• No character development

• There is no tension or secrecy in the story

• There is no Secret Invasion because the villains are practically nonexistent and don't do much

• The villain ultimately becomes a copy of Flag-Smashers

• You will not care about anything in the show because of the awful writing. Not the characters and certainly not the story

• Random character deaths for the sake of shock value without first even establishing the character

• A 6-episode mini series with "30-minute" penultimate and finale episodes, have time for filler episodes where nothing happens

• Very little action or espionage compared to constant nonsense dialogue

• Taking zero advantage of this Skrull infiltration plot device to make the story even a little bit more interesting

• Butchering one of the coolest storylines that could've been an Avengers movie with a better story than the first two Avengers

• Not many twists and turns

• They lay out the plot with the literal first line of the show and give away every advantage they have on the viewer's not knowing the whole picture

• Terribly written character motivations and presented in a worse way

• Very dull and boring storytelling

Now what I liked about it

• Some of the few action scenes that are in this show are pretty decently choreographed and CGIed and they look good

• The music is decent

And yeah, that's it!

I wouldn't say this show is necessarily worse than Ms. Marvel even though I gave that a 5, but I give it lower because I didn't expect much from Ms. Marvel and got a mid show. With this show however, I am aware of what a good storyline they butchered and I give it an even lower score.

If you have unfortunately seen every MCU show up to this point like me, then it really shouldn't be a surprise to you that this show is another Disney Plus trash with terrible writing.

I would recommend you start away from this hot garbage and go watch The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes instead. It's way better than anything MCU has done, at least on Disney Plus maybe and you'll see what a missed opportunity it was for them with having that Captain Marvel script.

I just cannot imagine having billions of dollars and burning them on these shows that aren't even for die-hard Marvel and MCU fans, let alone a casual audience. I cannot fathom someone actually enjoying this and think it's well-written. But I guess if the subscriptions keep coming, why stop making the mid shows, right?

...there IS a "but" (more on that later)

• This review is based off the first 5 episodes.

First the criticism.

In a universe so full of extraordinary superheroes and alien technology, it makes absolutely no sense that "good old Fury" is running around on his own, with a normal run of the mill pistol, to try to "save" earth from being taken over by aliens.

It's just unbelievable dumb in its premise, and despite excellent production quality (as is the norm for the MCU) the show is on track to get a 3.

BUT (and here is the kicker)... then enters Olivia Colman.

Her character lifts the entire show by 3 points, all by herself.

That understated, witty, stiff upper lip character just makes it all worth while.

More or less every time she is on screen you chuckle, if not laugh out loud.

Imagine taking her from "The Crown", with a few (obvious) changes, and then making her a much funnier stone cold killer, with absolutely no boundaries.

I'd happily watch an entire show based off just her character.

It takes the show from a waste of time, in an already overcrowded universe, to being something you find yourself grudgingly continuing to watch, despite all the illogical poorly thought out BS going on around her, just to watch what she does next.

I dearly hope they expand her character and give it a bigger part as the show develops, and I hope they are not dumb enough to kill her off, as that would instantly make me lose interest in this otherwise senseless drivel.

I don't understand the low ratings. But then again maybe I do. Some Marvel fans have gotten used to a certain kind of formula, but to be honest I am ready for some maturing and alternative perspectives on a Marvel UNIVERSE. This is a timely work, where people are at war, each with their own reason. But mostly to fight for a placed called home. No one group's hands are clean. This series, more than any in the MCU, felt the most human...where we see a man broken by fighting and trying his best to take responsibility for the collateral damage done. And as a side note, Ben Mendelsohn's acting is a revelation, as an alien who seems to have the best of humanity.

What an absolute waste. Samuel L Jackson seriously must have had a clause written into his contract that states he must be seated 75% of the time on set. Watch these episodes again and notice every excuse in the world for him to be sitting in a chair. They even made a Louie 14th chair joke in the first episode to cover for him having to sit down while they filmed an action sequence around him. He is old the character is old and it just doesn't work. Add the fact that the writing is incredibly shallow and predictable and it makes you wonder why anybody is praising this garbage.

It's great to be a fan but to put blinders on and to blindly support things hurts actual fans. They will just keep delivering nonsense if you keep eating it up we'll get more trash. Stop ruining it for everyone.