I'm going to review this as the end of the season rather than of the series, though I doubt whether the show will return at any point in the future as it feels like the story is told. Whilst I don't think that "Secret Invasion" was bad, it did feel lowkey and am not sure why it fits into the wider story here.
Since the Skrull's arrived on Earth, Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) has employed them as an army of covert operatives across the world. Over the years, though, his failure to provide them with a new home of their own, as well as the nature of the operations he's sent them on had led to frustration and a young Alien, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) leads a secretive uprising, replacing high ranking Government officials with Skrulls and orchestrating a conflict to bring the World to the brink of war.
So, it's not that the show has nothing going for it. The performances, from one of the best casts ever assembled for an MCU project, are great. Particularly from Kingsley Ben-Adir - who continues the recent Marvel mini-trend of allowing British actors to use a wider range of accents. Erin Kelleyman used her own in "Falcon and The Winters Soldier" and here Ben-Adir adopts a South Wales tone. Olivia Coleman, Charlayne Woodard and Emelia Clarke join the MCU - as well as returning Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Don Cheadle.
The special effects are patchy. Generally, the Skrull effect is practical, and that's fine but the CGI blending in human and alien elements as particularly some aspects of the climactic battle are awful.
It's worst problem though is that it doesn't feel like it carries any stakes. I'm guessing that essentially, it's an elaborate prequel to "The Marvels" fleshing out a Skrull storyline for that film. They're not confident enough with this to make any major retconning of what we've seen before beyond one character and even that doesn't resonate as we don't see enough of the real aftermath for that to affect us. It also comes at a weird time. It feels like the Multiverse storyline should be the focus of the MCU at the moment, so teasing and then not really delivering what could or perhaps should be another major storyline doesn't make sense.
As ever with a Marvel property, there are a bunch of characters that I'd like to see come back and a few strands of the story that can be worked back in. Though I genuinely didn't dislike this, I'm still left wondering what it was for.
Since the Skrull's arrived on Earth, Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) has employed them as an army of covert operatives across the world. Over the years, though, his failure to provide them with a new home of their own, as well as the nature of the operations he's sent them on had led to frustration and a young Alien, Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) leads a secretive uprising, replacing high ranking Government officials with Skrulls and orchestrating a conflict to bring the World to the brink of war.
So, it's not that the show has nothing going for it. The performances, from one of the best casts ever assembled for an MCU project, are great. Particularly from Kingsley Ben-Adir - who continues the recent Marvel mini-trend of allowing British actors to use a wider range of accents. Erin Kelleyman used her own in "Falcon and The Winters Soldier" and here Ben-Adir adopts a South Wales tone. Olivia Coleman, Charlayne Woodard and Emelia Clarke join the MCU - as well as returning Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn and Don Cheadle.
The special effects are patchy. Generally, the Skrull effect is practical, and that's fine but the CGI blending in human and alien elements as particularly some aspects of the climactic battle are awful.
It's worst problem though is that it doesn't feel like it carries any stakes. I'm guessing that essentially, it's an elaborate prequel to "The Marvels" fleshing out a Skrull storyline for that film. They're not confident enough with this to make any major retconning of what we've seen before beyond one character and even that doesn't resonate as we don't see enough of the real aftermath for that to affect us. It also comes at a weird time. It feels like the Multiverse storyline should be the focus of the MCU at the moment, so teasing and then not really delivering what could or perhaps should be another major storyline doesn't make sense.
As ever with a Marvel property, there are a bunch of characters that I'd like to see come back and a few strands of the story that can be worked back in. Though I genuinely didn't dislike this, I'm still left wondering what it was for.