“Moon Knight” Episode 1 Review
Time to meet the most loveable museum worker since Ben Stiller’s Larry Daley in “Night at the Museum.”
“Moon Knight '' is a darker, gritty hero that many fans have been craving since the cancellation of Netflix’s, now Disney+’s, Marvel shows. Ironically, the first episode was relatively light while dealing with themes of cults, mental illness and loneliness.
Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow jumpstarts the miniseries by filling up his shoes with glass and then walking outside while wearing the shoes.
Then, the audience is introduced to the hero, Oscar Isaac’s Steven Grant. In a dark twist to a Marvel intro, Grant wakes up with a restraint on his leg. Grant removes the restraint and the audience gets to see his morning routine, including feeding his one finned goldfish.
When he gets to his job as a museum employee, it is seen that, even though he is knowledgeable about Egypt, his boss, Lucy Thackery’s Donna, just bullies him to do inventory and demoralizes him.
Eventually, he leaves work and talks to a statue about how he got a date and needs to remove his restraint on the bed so he doesn’t set off any red flags. He also explains that the restraint is for his sleepwalks and that he needs to stay up if he can so he doesn’t end up somewhere unfamiliar because his “body” seems to wander.
After a short montage of Grant trying to stay awake, he falls asleep. When he awakens, he is beaten up in a field of grass. Suddenly, a voice starts talking to him, calling him the stupid one and to bring back Marc. Next, two guys start shooting at him. Grant flees into the town to escape the gunners and runs into a gathering.
At the gathering, Harrow is judging whether people are good or evil with the power of the Egyptian god Ammit, which is tattooed on his wrist. Harrow seemingly stole the life out of the one he deemed bad. He then spots Grant in the crowd of followers and asks him who he is.
Grant panics and tells Harrow his name and where he works. Harrow is then informed by his cultist that Grant stole a scarab. Harrow demands Grant to return it and Grant tries but the voice in his head and his body fights back, not allowing him to return it.
The cultist precedes to chase him to get the scarab back, which leads to one of the most unique chase sequences in film, where there are cuts of Grant going in and out of conscience and each time he passes out he wakes up in a deadlier scenario until he wakes up in bed.
His celebration of these events is short lived because he notices his fish has two fins. He confronts a pet shop worker about his fish being abnormal. Slowly, it was revealed that the time is different and that he was there yesterday. Before he can question things further, he realizes he is late to his date and rushes to get there on time.
He arrives, but no date is in sight. He calls his date, Layla, who’s angry, saying that he stood her up and their date was two days earlier. Grant denies it, but then the waiter also tells him it's two days later than he thought it was. Defeated, Grant returns home leaving a voicemail to his mom, making it seem like his date went well.
In his apartment, he starts investigating oddities until he finds a phone and has dozens of missed calls from Layla. Layla then calls and keeps calling him Marc. Then the voice comes back and the Egyptian moon god Khonshu appears before Grant. Grant, in horror, runs away trying to escape Khonshu from catching him.
Right before he is caught, Grant is on his train for work. He sees Khonshu outside and when he leaves, he sees Harrow following him.
In his work, Grant gets surrounded by Harrow and his followers. Harrow started to judge him, but the scale couldn’t decide on what Grant is besides that he is filled with chaos. After the judging, Harrow allows Grant to finish his shift, but at the end a Hellbeast attacks Grant.
Grant locks himself in the bathroom. He gazes into the mirror and the mirror turns out to be Marc, who is played by Isaac but with a different accent. Marc asks Grant for control of the body and when Grant gives it over, the audience gets to see Moon Knight beat a Hellbeast to a pulp.
The episode was phenomenal.
The highlight is Isaac’s performance. He is a one-man army that managed to easily jump from a loser to a vigilante. He seems likely to carry the show on his back.
The portrayal of how lonely Grant is, and the slow reveals of different personalities was unique and well executed.
The jump from comedy to pure horror was surprising and welcomed. The one flaw was the Hellbeast CGI. The CGI for Khonshu was so good that it was disappointing to see the cheesy-animated Hellbeast.
Overall, the themes of the show provide a uniqueness that Marvel needs and will be exciting to wait for the next episode these next several weeks.
Ethan Hetrick is a first-year communications major. To contact him, email eth5186@psu.edu
