At Marvel, they know how to have fun. They must too. Colorful superheroes are basically a (sometimes unintentionally) comical affair. For a few years now, the Marvel studios have been pursuing the strategy of using anticipatory self-irony to immunize themselves against criticism of their somewhat one-sided business model with the “Thor” and “Ant Man” films. The new series now seems to be part of this strategy Moon Knight to be with Oscar Isaac.
Because Isaac doesn’t play a real superhero in it, but a snuggly bookworm who can’t get anything together and sorts the souvenir store of the British Museum. Marvel always tries to include cultures other than America. A well-intentioned approach, but it did lead to bizarre scenes, like in the first “Avengers” film, when the cinema-goers were suddenly presented with Stuttgart and Arabella Kiesbauer instead of New York and Robert Downey Jr. Or in the series The Falcon and the Winder Soldier, in which Munich looks suspiciously like a Prague backyard and otherwise only seems to consist of endless forests of fir trees. Because it was filmed in the cheaper Czech Republic and not in Bavaria.
Marvel is now leaving out what they do best – action scenes
Now should in Moon Knight the Arabic region are processed, more precisely: Egypt. But it wasn’t filmed there, but in Hungary. At least the Egyptian director Mohamed Diab, who recently criticized the portrayal of his home country in the superhero film “Wonder Woman 1984” from Marvel’s competitor studio DC, will be there. But he doesn’t get the chance to do better here, at least not in the first episodes of the series. They play mainly in London, that is, in the British Museum, where all the Egyptian treasures that were stolen by the French and English in the 19th century are.
After all: With Ahmed Hafez and Hesham Nazih there is also an Egyptian editor and composer. But with Egypt has Moon Knight still about as busy as the shop at the British Museum with real pyramids. At least the Marvel Studios are largely consistent. London may feel as bustling and exhausting as it actually is, but if Egypt is a pharaoh’s wonderland in a museum, then it makes sense if the Alps are all sunny meadows of flowers and pastel-hued doll’s villages.
It’s in just such a setting that Oscar Isaac finds himself as Steven Grant, a souvenir dealer after he’s actually just gone to bed in London, and just as suddenly gets caught up in a scuffle with a band of mercenaries. So far, so Marvel. What’s new: Marvel now omits what they do best, which is action scenes that are choreographed right down to the last slow-motion shot. Why? Marc Spector, as a kind of battle mummy, beats up some mercenaries and pharaoh monsters in rows, but because he somehow has no idea of his second life as a bandaged superhero, you don’t get to see it (immediately) as a viewer either. The scenes are simply missing, as is the journey from London to the Alps. Because Spector seems to suffer from a mental disorder, he doesn’t even know how many identities actually share his body.
However, this somewhat desperate-looking trick cannot save the series. It fails above all because of its main actor, who seems as if he had no desire for the (multiple) role as a sloppy good-for-nothing and violent corpse of a pharaoh. Although he also worked as a producer on the series.
Another problem: Mental health problems are not really cool as a superhero ability. Not funny either. could have known. The American Magazine IGN once published a ranking of the best superheroes. Moon Knight is ranked 89th. Another list of the best Avengers places him 49th out of 50.
Moon Knight, 6 episodes, on Disney+
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