Marvel Studio’s Moon Knight is finally here, and it is a showcase of Oscar Isaacs’s amazing acting range. Right from the beginning, the audience is treated to Oscar Isaac giving an incredible performance as he acts against himself.
Marvel’s Moon Knight
If you’re unfamiliar with the characters from this new series, then that is ok. Here are the basics: Moon Knight has been around in Marvel Comics for almost 50 years. Moon Knight first appeared in the Marvel comics in “Werewolf by Night” #32 in 1975. The main thing you need to know about this character is that he is a person that was always dealing with his own mental health. And while the team at Marvel Studio’s is all about paying homage to the comics by embracing the darker, grittier aspects of the original character, the television series will aim to show a modern version of the character.
The series will premier exclusively for Disney+ and stars Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke, and May Calamawy. The story follows Steven Grant, a mild-mannered, average, everyday person who is plagued by blackouts and mysterious memories of a life separate from his own. Steven discovers that he has Dissociative Identity Disorder and shares a body with Marc Spector—a former mercenary and the ruthless avatar of Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the moon and vengeance.
The series will take us through Steven’s world as he learns how to adapt to his new reality and work with Marc. With other godly motives at play, the two must navigate
their complex identities amid a deadly battle played out among the powerful gods of Egypt.
Oscar Isaac gives an incredible performance
In the debut episode of Moon Knight, we are viewing the world through the eyes of persona number one, Steven Grant. We are given only a small bit of context in which to understand what is happening to Steven. All we know is that Steven is having trouble staying in his bed at night. He believes he is suffering from a sleep disorder, and it is starting to affect his work and personal life. He is confused and somewhat disoriented and never really has a clear idea of what is happening to him. He even struggles with even knowing what day it is or where he has been.
What is really outstanding and notable about Oscar Isaacs’s acting is that you can see and feel his frustration around that. He feels like he is going crazy. You feel the confusion. You see the stress in his eyes, the exhaustion, and can almost feel his yearning to just be normal. And in some moments, you even see the terror in his eyes. As Steven Grant, he is believable and endearing.
In a fifty-minute episode, Oscar Isaac gave a one-of-a-kind performance. Switching flawlessly between meek and timid, and socially awkward to a man rattled, shaken, and terrified. He goes through an unbelievable range of emotions in just one episode. But it’s not only that, but also even in the way he runs as Steven Grant, you truly believe that he is just an average guy who has no idea what is happening to him.
As you start to see Steven Grant really losing his grasp on his reality, you can’t help but feel sorry for him. You can see it is torturing him. Properly representing Moon Knight was very important to Isaac. “What’s so amazing about this character, and the mythology around it, is that it’s so rich,” he explains. “Our job was to put a lens on the things that we found the most interesting or that had the most dramatic juice while taking the mental health aspect about it incredibly seriously. I really wanted to do a character study, a point of view experience, so you’re not sitting back and just watching the story unfold, you are within the eyes of Steven and experiencing this thing that’s happening to him. And it’s quite terrifying.”
Marvel Studios worked with Dr. Paul Puri, a board-certified psychiatrist, who is an Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA and past president of the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty Association. Dr. Puri consulted on the aspects of Dissociative Identity Disorder to help both the actors and the filmmakers understand the disorder and its implications.
Moon Knight is completely different than anything we’ve seen before
Moon Knight strays from the usual Marvel formula with this new series. As we are introduced to this new hero, there is little that ties this series to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. No talk of the Avengers or other characters we know from the MCU. It feels like something happening in its own stand-alone universe.
The first episode is set up like a psychological thriller and is a little scary at times. Some of the scenes even have some supernatural elements. But just as scenes start to get a little too intense, there are hilarious moments that balance it all out. Ethan Hawke is intriguing as Arthur Harrow, and you are left feeling unsure and uneasy about him. He has cult leader vibes all around him.
Ethan Hawke explains what he found fascinating about his character by saying, “I find it really interesting when you think about cult leaders throughout history, those megalomaniacs very often start out extremely idealistic and then the idealism takes a hit or they compromise themselves in some way. Most people who commit terrible crimes in this world don’t wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’m the bad guy.’ They have their reasons, and hell is paved with their reasons. So as an actor, I had to come up with Harrow’s reasons and make them as rational and sane and compelling as possible.”
After almost 15 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s exciting to get something completely different from a Marvel series. It could be argued that Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of The Ten Rings are also very different from other Marvel franchise properties, but those still clearly existed in the Marvel Universe, even if it’s by just a mention of Thanos or Iron Man. Moon Knight hasn’t given us anything like that just yet.
The tone and look of the series resemble a little closer to the Netflix Marvel shows like Jessica Jones or Daredevil. More gritty and less campy. It will be exciting to see how they plan to bring Moon Knight in with the rest of the franchise.
Moon Knight is streaming now exclusively on Disney+.
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