Sunday, May 6, 2018

Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD (1998) and Grizzled Action Heroes


No action movie would be complete without an action hero.  A tough guy or woman (for the rest of the post it will be tough guy for simplification) becomes the main focus to bring the audience through from the beginning of the story to the end.  Action comedies may stray from that, but for the most part, it’s a tough guy participating in the action.  The action hero is someone who throws a punch as well as they can take one.  It’s someone who could set off an explosion and walk away without looking back.  This person doesn’t seem surprised by anything.  They will take the action scenario in stride and take down the bad guy to the best of their abilities.

There are five main action hero types that come to mind.  The first, which was already mentioned, is the action comedy type.  They’re the fish out of water that doesn’t look like they should be involved in the action, but they end up in there anyway.  Number 2 is the spy.  This is separate from most because they usually end up being stealthier, smoother, or more suave than the others.  There are also the martial artists and the body-building, muscle bound types that you know just by watching them.  One of the more popular action hero types, though, is the grizzled action hero.  These are the guys who have been through some shit.  They came through the other side beaten, broken, and scarred.  Something about these guys is fascinating to audiences.  People love to watch them.

Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD had one of those grizzled action heroes that people love.  Nick Fury (David Hasselhoff) had been kicked out of SHIELD at one point.  He was living in the Yukon, doing some mining by himself.  SHIELD came to him and asked for his help in taking down HYDRA, an evil spy organization.  His bitter confidence made him an interesting hero to watch as he worked to stop a chemical bomb from infecting the eastern seaboard with a deadly virus.
The foundation of a good grizzled action hero is a backstory.  There doesn’t need to be too much to give the guy a reason to be who he is.  There just needs to be enough to motivate his actions in the current story.  Nick Fury had that in the detail that he was kicked out of SHIELD.  His return was given an edge that it wouldn’t have had were he a simple recruitment.  There was a history between him and the organization that needed his help.  There was also a romantic history between Nick Fury and Contessa Valentina “Val” Allegra de Fontaine (Lisa Rinna), another SHIELD operative.  He left her on bad terms, and the tension would build throughout the movie until they made up.  It was the perfect amount of relationship stuff for a made-for-TV action movie.

Another example of minimal backstory adding depth to an action hero can be found in Die Hard.  John McClane’s entire backstory was that he was an NYPD officer in Los Angeles attending his estranged wife’s work Christmas party.  This was all that the audience needed to know about the character to justify the story.  He had gone through a lot in the NYPD.  Simply saying that he was on the force spoke to that.  That’s why he was the person who could take down the bad guys.  The little bit of history let the audience fill in the rest of what his life was like.  As for the romantic story, his heroic deeds helped him to win back his wife.  They were separate at the beginning and back together at the end.  Action hero is out there action heroing.
Another bit of the grizzled action hero that Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD hit on was the whole one-liner thing that action movies do.  They weren’t necessarily the jokey one-liners that people like Arnold Schwarzenegger were shooting off throughout their movies.  It was more a superiority thing, as if he knew better than everyone else.  In most cases, he did.  But he was always putting salt on the wound so that the audience and the characters knew he was above the others.  He was better and felt the need to show everyone through dialogue.

This is similar to Harry Callahan, a Clint Eastwood character from the 1970s and 1980s.  He was not known for making jokey puns when he was taking down the bad guys.  The things he said weren’t jokes.  They were clever lines that he said to taunt his opponents.  They were lines that he said to show that he had the higher ground.  He was flaunting his superiority with everything he said.  This quality, as well as the gruff nature of Clint Eastwood, made the character stand out among the other action heroes of the time.  The grizzled hero birthed a franchise.
The final piece of the grizzled action hero puzzle is seeing the scars of the action hero.  All grizzled action heroes need scars to fully find their place in movies.  The scars could be emotional or mental, but more often than not, they are physical.  Nick Fury had an eyepatch.  At some point in his past, something happened to his eye.  He was now working with a single peeper.  Something about a scar like that makes the action hero seem tougher.  Just looking at Nick Fury, you know that if he could lose his eye in battle, he’s willing to do almost anything for a cause that he thinks is right.  It’s the whole hero gets beat down but comes back up thing that makes for fun storytelling.

Of course, Snake Plissken has the same sort of look.  Let’s go with a more recent example, though.  This one showed the whole beat down and gets back up storyline, leading to the character having an eyepatch.  And hey!  It’s a Marvel movie.  Thor, through his first four appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was a pretty boy.  He had royal blood.  He was a god.  There was nothing about him that was all that exciting.  Then Thor: Ragnarok hit.  The whole movie was Thor being beaten down before finding what he needed in himself to be a real hero.  The first physical scar was when his hair was cut.  One of the defining features of the character was his long, flowing hair.  That was taken away early in the movie, leaving him beaten.  Then things went further downhill, leading to his eye being taken from him.  He became the grizzled hero that people wanted.  That led directly into Infinity War, where audiences connected with him because of how torn apart he had become.

Grizzled action heroes have been a mainstay in movies for decades.  Westerns had them.  The 80s action boom had them.  Superhero movies have them.  If an action hero is rough around the edges, people are more likely to enjoy watching them.  The way they act, talk, and look makes them more entertaining.  Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD played on that archetype to mild success.  Its weakness was that it was a television movie.  The grizzled action hero was fine though.  He got rebooted into the MCU with Samuel L. Jackson, and we all know that was a success.  The grizzled action hero is here to stay.
These notes are also here to stay:

  • Another Marvel based movie that was featured in the Sunday “Bad” Movies was Captain America (week 181).
  • Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD starred David Hasselhoff, who has been in many Sunday “Bad” Movies.  He was in Starcrash (week 1), The Christmas Consultant (week 55), Anaconda III: Offspring (week 80), and Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No! (week 190).
  • Garry Chalk made his fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance this week.  He had already been in Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (week 50), Warriors of Virtue (week 88), and The Karate Dog (week 281).
  • Lisa Rinna was in Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD after already showing up in Robot Wars (week 37).
  • Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD saw the return of Mina E. Mina, who was in Warriors of Virtue (week 88).
  • Sandra Hess of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (week 140) was also in Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD.
  • Finally, Bill Croft was in both Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD and The Karate Dog (week 281).
  • Have you seen Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD?  What do you think of the grizzled action heroes? Are there more characteristics that define them?  Share your thoughts in the comments section.
  • I’m open to almost any suggestion for movies to watch.  If there’s a movie that you think should be included in the Sunday “Bad” Movies, let me know by either commenting, or messaging me on Twitter.
  • When I’m watching bad movies, I sometimes like to share clips of them on Snapchat.  If you want to see those clips or any of the other stuff, add me.  (jurassicgriffin)
  • Next week might be the best week ever of the Sunday “Bad” Movies as I check out the film Best Night Ever, from the minds that brought you Date Movie (week 164) and Superfast! (week 229).  It’s one that I didn’t think was all that bad when I first saw it.  We’ll see how it holds up seven days from now when another post goes up.  See you then.

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