The other performances are lacking as well, with dull dialogue being uttered by tired faces, but Olivia Colman saves “Secret Invasion” from being a complete slog. Her performance as MI6 agent Sonya Falsworth adds some life to an overly tedious first two episodes, striding into rooms with an air of charisma that’s lost on most recent MCU performances, acting circles around her peers without breaking a sweat. Kingsley Ben-Adir is magnetic as Skrull leader Gravik as well, though his performance is more restrained than Coleman’s.
You can feel the hatred Gravik has for Nick Fury and the people of Earth just from a glance, but it’s a controlled hatred, which makes him all the more terrifying. The direction that his character seems to be going in is worrying, though, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if his arc was marred by the MCU’s typical empathetic villain shtick relegated to the likes of “Black Panther’s” Killmonger and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’s” Karli Morgenthau.
What the MCU needs to understand is that its audience and viewers at large are tired of contrived stories that don’t allow them to connect with any of their characters, including the villains. When the franchise began, its main villain Loki was allowed to gain momentum in “Thor” before being revealed as the main villain in “The Avengers.” Now, villains aren’t able to gain any type of momentum but are thrown onto our screens to show us that “Hey, these guys are bad.” It doesn’t help that a lot of the time, these villains’ motivations are actually quite tame and, sometimes, correct. Instead of working with a complex Magneto-esque character, these new Disney+ shows showcase these characters bombing a group of civilians in an attempt to establish that, no, actually, these are not people you should be rooting for.
The villain problem here just touches the surface of the many issues this franchise continues to have. If your villains aren’t interesting, you best hope your heroes are, but in “Secret Invasion,” that sadly isn’t the case either. Perhaps a show about Nick Fury would have been interesting a decade ago, but in 2023 it feels just as contrived as “Black Widow” did in 2021. The connection to these characters has waned over the years because, other than brief cameos, they aren’t central to the MCU’s narrative anymore. Now, that could change in the later episodes of the seasons, and perhaps it will be revealed that the Skrulls are integral to the future of the franchise, but for now, it doesn’t work.