Secret Invasion Review

The source material's whole engine is doubt: anyone could be an impostor, and nobody can be trusted. The adaptation throws that away in its opening minutes by showing the audience who the Skrulls are, so there is no suspicion left to build, only a plot to be executed. What follows is dispiriting. Samuel L. Jackson is finally given a lead role and handed a Nick Fury who is tired, beaten and passive, undoing the character rather than deepening him.

Olivia Colman is very good and appears to be in a different, better spy series. Emilia Clarke is stranded. Ben Mendelsohn's Talos, one of the warmer creations in the film run, is discarded. The action is dark and cheap, the Moscow and London locations are indistinguishable, and the finale is a wrestling match between two glowing digital bodies that ends the way you expect. The opening titles, produced with generative image tools, drew justified anger from artists and set the tone for a series that felt automated throughout.