Disney Plus Review: Moon Knight Touches On Mental Health and Egyptian Gods
What happens when a man that suffers from multiple personality disorder is tasked with saving humanity and serving an ancient Egyptian god? Pure chaos. Read on for a spoiler-free review of Disney+’s new show, Moon Knight.
Note: Disney+ provided the first four episodes of Moon Knight in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Moon Knight begins by introducing audiences to Steven Grant (Oscar Issac) a shy museum worker obsessed with ancient Egyptian history. Steven seems to be missing time in that he often wakes up in strange places with no knowledge of what happened the previous night. The anxiety of not being aware of his surroundings at all times takes its toll quickly. Steven chains himself to his bed and pours sand around it to track when he is seemingly sleepwalking but often time there are no footprints in the sand showing that he physically was out of bed.
Steven soon realizes that he has another being within him, Marc Spector (also played by Oscar Issac) who is working on behalf of Khonshu (an Egyptian god) to complete missions. Steven finds himself in the middle of a battle between a cult leader named Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) and Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham.)
Confused yet? I was too, but I’m here to say the plot reveals itself in a truly satisfying way.
Oscar Issac is brilliant in this role and as the series goes on, there are subtle changes in his performance. His face becomes more haggard with the lack of sleep and uncertainty of what is real and what’s not. That scenario shapes so much of how we see this character throughout the series.
When we meet Steven his mental health isn’t great but over the course of the first four episodes, we see him spiral even more. Issac embodies this character by balancing a shy museum worker personality with one of a far more aggressive chatter (Marc Spector) who needs everyone to get out of his way so he can complete his mission. I thought the two different accents Issac uses to show the difference between Marc and Steven provided just the right buffer so that viewers can distinguish between the two characters.
Episode four feels like a short film and has several tense moments. It feels almost like a different show since the characters are in a whole new environment. Episode four starts to bring things into clarity with just how complicated the work on behalf of Khonshu becomes and there is a jump scene that is made ten times better because the viewers don’t get a full look at the monster.
There’s a universal feeling like something is off but you don’t exactly know when the jump will happen. Without spoiling, I will say that it’s a very well-done sequence with cool CGI and a heroine whose sigh of relief will be felt by every viewer watching.
So will Moon Knight be as popular as WandaVision or LOKI? It should be. Not only is this the first time an Egyptian god is introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but I also liked the inclusion of Steven’s fragile mental health. I don’t know if we will see Issac in future MCU films but I thoroughly enjoyed Moon Knight even if it ends up being a stand-alone story.
