Critique: Moon Knight

The plot was rewarding. The dark moments were handled well, letting the audience feel the pain without bringing the mood of the whole show down.

 

Stephen ends up being the avatar of Khonsu, Egyptian god of the night sky who punishes people for actions they’ve already done. They aim to stop Harrow from resurrecting Ammit who would punish people for what they might do in the future.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

There were many positives.

To start off with, the show made out like Stephen was the main personality and Marc was the additional personality. So, when it turned out that Marc was the main one, it was a complete shock. The show managed this reveal tactfully.

The animation for Ammit, from her clothing and the way her tail dragged. And the hair! My goodness, her hair was amazing. Ammit looks like a humanoid crocodile, or a crocodilian humanoid in the show. Ammit is traditionally depicted as a crocodile head on lion forequarters and hippo hindquarters. Seeing hippo feet and leonine arms poking out of her dress would have been more accurate, I suppose, but Egyptian gods took many forms. There’s no reason why Ammit couldn’t be a crocodilian humanoid. (Plus we’d be left without her tail animation.)

All Marvel productions have the same kind of feel to them. As time has gone on, the films and tv series have leant more into this identity. It’s lead to more attempts at humour and a desire to deal with more serious issues which has produced a string of films and shows that feel disjointed with themselves. Moon Knight has its own identity which is refreshing. Its humour and seriousness fit together rather than being forced together.

 

Taweret was my favourite character. At first I thought it odd that she guided souls to the afterlife, considering Egypt had plenty of gods whose job that actually was. In my research, I found out she did have a role in dealing with the souls in the afterlife. It was nice to learn something new.

            The costume they designed for Taweret’s avatar was spectacular. It’s hands-down my favourite super hero suit. The wings, especially, were brilliant.

            At one point, Taweret talked to Layla by possessing her briefly. Layla’s actor imitated the animated Taweret’s hand actions and facial expressions with complete accuracy. Did she copy the animators, did the animators copy her, or did the director direct Layla according to what he wanted the animation to be? To have this consistency was a really nice detail and proves the talent of the actor and the animators.

            Tawaret had a hippo head. Her ears twitched in the same fluttering way as a real hippo’s would.

 

There were, however, several major setbacks.

There was a failure to understand DID. Marc said that Stephen was made so that Stephen wouldn’t remember the abuse. But the point of DID is that a person’s additional personalities are so the main one doesn’t have to experience and remember things. So, considering Marc is the main personality and Stephen is the additional one, the one that experienced the abuse, it should be Marc that doesn’t remember the abuse. If a show’s going to depict a condition, they need to present it correctly. The fact this show didn’t is quite simply a failure.

Whilst Stephen and Marc were both still on the boat to the afterlife, their scales wouldn’t balance. When Stephen went overboard, the scales balanced to Marc. Considering Marc is a murderer and Stephen is a gentle soul, one would have thought Stephen’s heart was the thing keeping the scales from falling unfavourably.

Marc had no problem killing anyone. As avatar of Khonsu, he is the protector of the night’s travellers and killed to punish people for their crimes. So even though Ammit and Harrow both individually caused loads of people harm, let alone together when they inhabited the same body, Marc wouldn’t kill them. This was completely against Marc’s previous behaviour and I’m not convinced he would have changed his behaviour. This change in behaviour was necessary to the plot to introduce the third personality in Marc-Stephen: so for it not to be convincing is a setback.

Ammit grew to a mighty size because she was feeding in souls. Khonsu grew in size to match her yet he wasn’t eating souls. So how did he grow? Considering he needed to grow to have that fight with Ammit, leaving the explanation out without even a hint wasn’t great.

 

This show was rewarding despite some terrible errors. It’s odd, feeling disappointed and pleased at the same time about the same thing. The prospect of a few more personalities within Marc-Stephen is interesting. (My brother suggested four in total to match the phases of the moon.) I’m intrigued to see this show’s future.