The latest addition to the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, Secret Invasion, is a high-octane streaming series event that looks to blend the more fantastical science-fiction elements of the MCU into the political paranoia thriller wheelhouse the MCU has dabbled in before on projects like Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The first episode of the series has plenty of ambition but mixed results.
Opening with a monologue delivered by Richard Dormer, delightfully playing up his role as a man on the edge in a way that fits immediately into the tonal space of classic '70s paranoid thrillers like All the President's Men or The Parallax View, things get off to a strong start. As written by Kyle Bradstreet and Brian Tucker, the opening lines of the episode highlight some direct parallels between the uncertainty of our modern age and the uncertainty of the Cold War era. It reaffirms Secret Invasion's roots tying back to immortal genre-blending classics like Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers and John Carpenter's The Thing. From its very opening, Secret Invasion looks to continue this tradition of paranoia.
The stunning opening credits sequence only serves to further reaffirm these ideas. Backed by Kris Bowers' tremendous theme, the pulpy '70s science-fiction paperback aesthetic of the artwork is beautiful and powerful. It's a wondrously realized visual blend of the aesthetic of the subgenres Secret Invasion is pulling from.
Sadly, the rest of this episode never quite lives up to the promise of these initial strengths. While it is certainly understandable why the creative team behind the series would want to get things off to a fast-moving, momentous start, the speed with which Secret Invasion hits the ground running is to its detriment. While it gets to open with a tense, loaded conversation that segues into its first action setpiece, it feels as though the inciting incident of this story has already happened offscreen. This issue only escalates as the narrative progresses, never feeling like it has taken the time to lay a sturdy foundation before sending its various characters zipping around on adventures. The result is a lot of things happening onscreen but a distinct lack of motivation, meaning, or impact to said events.
The direction and editing of the action do little to assuage these issues. Director Ali Selim, a well-versed TV veteran, does interesting work here, but the camerawork often feels aimless and unmotivated. Paired with lackluster editing that disorients more than it thrills, results in setpieces that never achieve any real cohesion. Selim's direction feels much more at home in the quieter moments of the episode, and these moments work to Secret Invasion's benefit. The series features great performers, from Samuel L. Jackson to Olivia Coleman to Kingsley Ben-Adir to Ben Mendelsohn to Cobie Smulders to Emilia Clarke, and each of them does terrific work. Coleman is absolutely delightful to watch as a foil to Nick Fury, and Jackson brings such screen presence to Fury that it is truly splendid to watch him take center stage here.
Despite Secret Invasion's lofty ambitions, its first episode feels like very standard MCU material. If anything, the series' tone, pace, and visual language feel less like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or All the President's Men and more like the MCU's relatively lackluster The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Luckily, there's promise here, and it's fun to see the show connect to the cinematic genre touchstones and comic book source material it is building off of. Its first episode may be unremarkable, but Secret Invasion still has time to transform into something truly special.
Secret Invasion premieres on Disney+ on Wednesday, June 21.