Moon Knight (2022)

Title:  Moon Knight

Year: 2022

Genre:  Action | Adventure | Drama |

Seasons: 1 |

Runtime:  50 min/episode

Creator: Doug Moench

Directors: Mohamed Diab, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead

Starring: Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, F. Murray Abraham

7.6/10

Oscar Isaac has in some cases become the poster boy for Disney when taking on some roles in both Star Wars and now Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s a prominent and built case of roles that makes him an attractive actor and it pays well.  This series follows Steven who works at a museum but then gets involved in the hunt for an ancient goddess that an evil wizard tries to use to take over the world. Moon Knight tries to simulate a dual role of both Steven and Marc Spector, with flumming comedy and horrible dialogue with green screen effects in the background. Everything is digitalized, and this million-budget series is no exception for such action.

The writers keep a mystery intact with who Khonsu is and his relation to Egypt, which builds attention to what might come next. Weird stuff starts to happen after the fourth episode and concludes instead of Marc/Steven being shot and end up at an asylum where they meet an Egyptian hippo. It tries hard to emulate for the audience the unstable psyche of Marc/Steven and the affection in his world. It bleeds fantasy and comedy with a twisted sense of adventure to distract the audience.

It has a good, decent pace up to the series finale. The sixth and final series episode doesn’t bring a satisfactory conclusion and rushes things and makes a lot of the build-up feel anticlimactic and underdeveloped. It’s like an abusive relationship that pushes the story forward, with no plot whatsoever, making any sense just to make it more appealing to a broader audience instead of making a good, sensible story. It ends up being predictable and the final episode excites no one from the adventure it once was.

Oscar Isaac pushes his boundaries when being a British, decent citizen and a crime-fighting mercenary with no limit when it comes to the lust for blood. Ethan Hawke, as Arthur Harrow, doesn’t bring any depth to the character and becomes rather bleak. He’s a villain who wants to do something that’s bad. He has a scowling voice and goes around judging people. May Calamawy doesn’t need to be in the series, she brings nothing besides being Marc’s forgettable wife. Khonsu, the creation that brings super healing powers to Marc voiced by F. Murray Abraham, is occasionally funny and his relationship with Marc is one of the more interesting parts of the story, as Marc is his avatar and doesn’t always agree with his bidding.

The special effects are decent for being made in 2022. The dependence on a green screen and the fake canvas is clearly visible, enough that it becomes a tedious thing. It’s a decent, entertaining story but the progress is not like how the producers came up for WandaVision which is clearly the best series post-Endgame.