Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) is a meek gift shop worker in a British museum who aspires to do more meaningful work as he researches Ancient Egyptian history and language in his off hours while being ignored by his colleagues. As Steven suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), he is prone to blackouts and takes precautions to prevent himself from blacking out or wandering off at night. When Steven awakens in the middle of one of his episodes, he discovers he is living a double life as Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) who is facing off against charismatic cult leader Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) who leads disciples who worship the Egyptian goddess Ammit. Now Steven finds himself on the run uncertain of reality as he deals with the conflicting voices of Marc Spector and Egyptian moon god Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham) in his head.
Moon Knight is yet another MCU series for Disney+ that sees the introduction of the character of the same name. As the character (at least as revised past his initial appearance in Werewolf by Night) was heavily entrenched in Egyptian mythology, the series was set to be directed by acclaimed Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab who although surprised by the "out of the blue" offer to helm the series saw it as an opportunity to give a unique portrayal of his native Egypt portraying it in a more modern and light eschewing many of the ethnic and cultural stereotypes surrounding various horror and adventure stories related to Egypt. Jeremy Slater worked on the pitch with his intention to go as dark as Marvel would allow while still telling a fun adventure story in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Upon release the series received strong reviews mainly centered on Isaac's central performance and was a success like it's various miniseries that preceded it. There is a lot to admire in Moon Knight from a strong central performance to a unique take on Egyptian lore, even if I did feel somewhat underwhelmed by the ending.
As expected, Oscar Isaac does really well playing a mentally troubled man who finds himself in over his head with two distinct personalities vying for control of the one body. Isaac does well playing the more meek Steven Grant while also playing the distinctly more assertive and cold Marc Spector, and it's engaging character in performance that Isaac really sells. I also rather enjoyed May Calamawy as Layla El Faouly who is a former associate of Marc's and she makes a welcome ally on the adventure who's able to hold her own as well as provide valuable insight. Ethan Hawke is fantastic as Arthur Harrow and from his first introduction he plays the character with menace and allure so you can understand why he'd be able to draw such devoted disciples to his cause. Mohamed Diab does a solid job of directing the series playing the material for psychological horror/thrills as well as the pulpy adventure elements you've come to expect from something like this and while there is humor, Diab does take the material fairly seriously and gets some solid mileage out of the material. The one downside to the show is the ending which leaves the series feeling like it's without proper resolution. Despite leading to a creative and engaging climax there's no real epilogue and it feels like we're not given closure on several points as the series gives us one final "reality bender" that leaves you scratching your head going "what just happened?" and certain threads such as Layla's character just feel pushed by the wayside. Apparently Marvel designed the series to be more "open to coninuation" in comparison to stuff like Wandavision or The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but not only is Oscar Isaac not signed for any follow-ups at the moment (at the time of this writing at least) but even Loki which did end on an open ending had a greater note of finality to its first season despite the promise of a second one.
If it weren't for a frustrating ending that feels like it left too many dangling threads, this would probably be one of my favorite MCU projects. It's got a great cast, a memorable hero, and a memorable villain but I really felt let down by the brazen season baiting of the ending. I will say that it's nice it kept the references to other MCU properties to a minimum, but despite standing on its own the way it finishes feels like it's missing parts of the resolution.
