What Price ‘Secret Invasion’?

I don’t ordinarily use this space for anything other than provide clues as to where my writing comes from (and to post the occasional book review). But I saw this thing on TV yesterday that just about made my eyes bleed, and feel compelled to get the word out about how confusingly bad it really was.

I’m talking about the final installment of Marvel’s Disney+ series, ‘Secret Invasion’. Haven’t seen it? That’s okay, because there’s other stuff going on out there. Last weekend’s ‘Barbenheimer’ event captured a lot of movie press and eyeballs, no doubt on account of a mixture of merit and marketing. And I think that’s great - the film-going public should support what it finds value in.

Oddly, there’s still an MCU out there. And Disney/Marvel is still connecting the dots between its various film- and television properties in an attempt to corner a superhero market that appears to be vanishing like the evening tide.

Or are they? You could’ve fooled me with episode 6 of ‘Secret Invasion’. Five weeks of pointless deaths (who thought it was a good idea to bump off MCU stalwart Cobie Smulders?), meandering plots and enough characters to fill out an AI-generated cast of thousands, and all we get at the end is just another CGI slug-fest. Yeah, the dude who played the main villain did some nice emotional work opposite Samuel L. Jackson’s venerable Nick Fury (we’ll get to him in a bit). But what was the payoff? Come to find out he wasn’t even talking to Fury - since the Skrulls are shape-shifters, all he did was hand the reins of ultimate power to a disguised Emilia Clarke, who spent the previous five episodes gathering power-ups like Pac-Man gobbling little glowing balls. The two fight to sufficiently dramatic background Muzak, and anyone paying attention knows what the eventual outcome’s going to be.

Good guys win. Bad guys don’t. All that’s missing was a sky-beam.

And this after more than a month of “grounded” scenes such as Fury hanging out with his heretofore unknown Skrull wife, who mostly mopes around her fancy house mooning over how hard it is to get a guy like Nick to settle down. Or Clarke sulking like her agent talked her into this mess, and now she’s considering giving him the heave-to.

What makes it worse? The whole time we’re led to believe this is all supposed to be leading up to some great climactic moment that’s worth hanging around for. But not only is there no payoff, there’s not even a coherent plot to thread it all together. Stuff happens, purple blood flies, and people shuffle through one joyless moment after another.

And then there’s the character assassination of a great actor.

I’ve been a Samuel L. Jackson fan since ‘Pulp Fiction’. At his best Jackson is one of the most truly riveting performers of the last 30 years. But even when he’s picking up a check, the actor always seems to find something interesting to highlight about his role, giving the audience a reason to either root for or revile him.

But ‘Secret Invasion’ delivered the one thing I’d thought an impossibility - it found a way to make Samuel L. Jackson seem boring.

Sheesh, what a frickin’ mess. This thing’s earned its 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

You like alien invasion stories? Tell you what. Do yourself a favor and get a copy of my new novel Artichoke Stars and Chicken Fried Shark, available on Amazon. And I’m not saying this because I’m this great writer and want your business (okay, actually I do want your business). It’s because gambling on my book (or just about anybody else’s alien-invasion book for that matter) may be a better use of your time and money than spending it on whatever it is they’re doing at Disney+ nowadays.

Or, go see the Barbie movie. Or Oppenheimer. Whatever. Just let sleeping Skrulls lie.