Jeremy Slater’s Moon Knight (like almost every new Marvel project released in the last few years) was promoted as a “game-changer” within the MCU. A decade and half of films (and shows) ranging from a billionaire wunderkind grappling with Daddy issues, a Norse God constantly questioning his self-worth, to a serum-infused super soldier wrestling between “duty” and “loyalty”, most of them boil down to a simple question – What makes a hero? This core came to a beautiful conclusion in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, however, as goes with many profiteering factories, that tearful conclusion was soon transformed into a new beginning.
Following suit almost too perfectly in the latest Marvel show with a protagonist with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) tussling between two identities Stephen Grant and Marc Spector, the once-novel core now seems overcooked and templated in a manner that robs the story off its kooky individuality. And that’s a shame because Moon Knight is built around some really interesting ideas. Can we trust the POV of someone diagnosed with a psychiatric illness, as he drifts between multiple realities as a gift shop salesman inside a London Museum, his life as a ruthless mercenary, to a generous portion set around Egyptian folklore? Is he really an ‘avatar’ carrying out justice on behalf of an Egyptian God, or is he someone with questionable sanity and an overactive imagination?
Moon Knight keeps seesawing trying to trip its audience with gotcha twists, and yet as the show goes on the more convoluted it becomes. The messier it gets, the more you have to ask yourself: do you care enough?
By now the MCU’s ways of cutting off its own tail, only to drop a hint that it will reappear in a sequel - has begun to signal the studio’s desperation to keep the assembly line running for the foreseeable future. This desperation usually ensures that bold ideas are painted using the familiar broad strokes to capture a billion-dollar box office. Sometimes, it could result in something as frustrating as Eternals (2021) or the safer but crowd-pleasing Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). The truth about Moon Knight, like its merit, lies somewhere between the two films. The problem with MCU films and shows, is just how dissimilar they’ve begun to look. Not just the colour scheme, or how the sets that become New York, London or even an obscure street in Cairo, can now be strictly identified as a Marvel set. Moon Knight deserved to be less ‘processed’ than it is.
Oscar Isaac, playing the two personalities of the protagonist, challenges himself by playing an English buffoon (Grant) and an intense mercenary who speaks in low pitch like he were in a Batman audition (Spector), and also an avatar of Konshu – the Egyptian God of the Moon. An “acting showcase” for many – the character of a split personality patient plays right into Isaac’s pure actor ways, as he effortlessly switches between the bumbling Londoner and the brooding assassin, enacting his one-man buddy cop routine.
Ethan Hawke as Arthur Harrow, a cult leader searching for the tomb of Ammit — the Egyptian God of retribution – is chilling in the start. But once the eeriness wears off you notice the one-note, shell of a character Hawke is playing. F.Murray Abraham as the voice of Konshu in Grant/Spector’s head, is a solid presence, always speaking in riddles and weighing his words carefully.
May Calamawy as Layla El-Faouly exists purely as the ingenue who needs guidance or as someone to champion Marvel’s “the future is female” punchline. This restricts Layla from fully becoming a flesh-and-blood person, and instead she’s left with lines like “How dare you make this decision on my behalf?” to “What the hell is going on?” It’s a missed opportunity because Calamawy looks game for much more than being a straightforward ally.
Following the steps of many recent superheroes like Venom, Morbius, where the titular character is a vigilante anti-hero, Moon Knight accomplishes a bit more as a character study. And yet, there’s a dissonance when it switches from a comedy to a psychological thriller to a full-blown fantasy adventure along the lines of The Mummy and Indiana Jones. Almost as if it doesn’t know which lane to mind while channelling these multiple identities to keep the wheels turning inside the billion-dollar assembly line inside the Marvel factory. The result is everything looks shiny new, the locations are neatly lit to pop for the viewers, the stunts are simply too choreographed to surprise anyone. Ironically, Moon Knight seems to be wrestling with its own multiple identities never knowing which one to fully commit to.
All episodes of Moon Knight are streaming on Disney+Hotstar
Tatsam Mukherjee has been working as a film journalist since 2016. He is based out of Delhi NCR.
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