Moon Knight - Season One

Even though I finished this show weeks ago, I haven't gotten around until writing about it until now. At first, it was to search my feelings. Did I like the show? Am I only liking it because it's a Marvel product and I'm such a fanboy? Then it turned into, "Man, I don't want to talk about this, I don't remember anything."

However, I have an obligation as "that guy that loves comics" that you know, so here we are. Ultimately, this show is kind of a mess. Before I go further (and I will probably say this a lot), Oscar Isaac is fantastic. He and he alone is the reason to even give this show a chance.

I'll spare you my thoughts on what I know about Moon Knight. Like most of the audience, barely enough. He has always had a cool look, but in the Marvel Universe, there is a glut of characters all based out of New York, fighting crime. Not all of them are winners. Marvel has spent a lot of time trying to get a guy over that has a cool look, but not much else. They have even leaned into his multiple personalities as a way to freshen up his character. The fact that he has multiple volumes of a series, but never a sustained run in the past twenty years should tell you everything.

When it was announced they were making a show, it was one of those moments where I was like, "Cool! I don't care for him THAT much, but glad he's getting a shot." Disney is clearly digging deeper into that Marvel toybox to see what sticks. I can applaud that.

I will say that I appreciated that this show takes place in London and then Egypt, fully moving the character out of New York. All these shows are dead set on using new locales and I love that. It at least makes the shows feel fresh. I even love that they got an Egyptian director to add Egyptian representation to the entire show. That was obvious in watching it and I'm a big fan of that component. It makes it feel more diverse and different.

Unfortunately, here is where most of my praise will end. I wrestled with this and I don't think this show is particularly good. It's not bad, per se. It's just boring. Outside of Oscar Isaac playing essentially dual roles and infusing each character with a lot of differences, there's not much else going on. The show tries to be smarter than it needs to be with a lot of misdirection. It tells you, but doesn't show you. For example, the bulk of the show bounces between Moon Knight's multiple personalities. It cuts away when action is about to happen and then cuts back to the aftermath. As a storytelling device, it is cool AT FIRST. The fact they keep doing it and don't reveal to us what happens in between the spaces by the end of the series is annoying. We are told many times that the Marc Spector personality is a bad ass, but we rarely see it represented so we can believe it. The rest of the events are fine, but not particularly exciting.

So the show gets away with not showing us a lot of action. There's some cool hand to hand moments spread throughout, but it's not enough to make this show a joy to watch. I shouldn't have to wait 5 episodes to see a cool fight. I also want to add, the pacing on this show is really weird. Additionally, there are some real TV quality special effects here. I know Marvel puts some money behind these shows and probably why they are only six episodes each, but they didn't stick the landing on this one. There's a lot of digital stunt work with Moon Knight. Most of the time it didn't look like an actual human doing anything, which is unfortunate. It takes you out of the action.

I'm also being on the record of saying I like smaller stories that don't have world ending implications. This story grows in scope to have Egyptian gods fighting each other and I didn't like that at all. I got major "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" vibes at the end. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. I'll use one word. Animalities. Anyway, in a Cinematic Universe where we see large villains fighting the Avengers, it is weird to see one guy protecting the world like this. Moon Knight has a lane and it needs to stay in it. Small stories for a small character.

I also had trouble imagining where Moon Knight even fits into Marvel's larger tapestry. You know they can't resist bringing everyone together, so where will this guy even fit in thematically. I don't know. We deserve more Oscar Isaac and I love what he brings to the show. I just think this project failed him in a way.

Out of all the Marvel Disney Plus offerings we've gotten (and there has been a lot), this was by far my least favorite. Would I watch another season? Of course, because I'm a fan boy. They leave enough of a mystery at the end, but I don't think that means it will be great. This show is and always will be powered by the brilliance of Oscar Isaac.