Moon Knight Episode 2 Review: A Great Personality Duel Between Oscar Isaac And Ethan Hawke

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Ethan Hawke and May Calamawy

Directors: Justin Benson, Mohamed Diab, Aaron Moorhead

Streaming Platform: Disney+

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Moon Knight Episode 2 Review: The new MCU superhero has yet to fully take off… If Oscar Isaac’s character manages to furnish his head. We begin to dive into real Egyptian mythology, with all its consequences. After the pleasant surprise of Moon Knight episode 1, viewers seem to have set their sights high… But they don’t really know what to expect next. As we already commented at the time, that is one of the virtues of this Disney Plus series, which becomes as unpredictable as the personality changes of its protagonists, who is played by a magnificent Oscar Isaac.

Moon Knight Episode 2 Review: The Story

The first episode of Moon Knight had a certain component of terror and mystery. While the second is completely maintained (and new avenues of suspense are opened), the first has practically disappeared, assimilating what the god Khonshu implies for Steven Grant and Marc Spector. In exchange, we start to get a little more of that desired superhero action, seasoned with a Marvel humor that perfectly matches the “personality clash” that takes place in the head of the hero. Once again, we urge you to watch the episode in the original version, to enjoy the difference in accents.

After giving his body to Marc and fighting as Moon Knight the Egyptian jackal who chased him in the museum Steven (Oscar Isaac) wakes up with a start in his bed, still doubtful about the nature of these events. Did they really happen or is his head reaching the heights of madness?

Arriving at work, however, he discovers that someone has indeed smashed the bathroom, despite the security cameras only showing a terrified and whimpering Steven running around between the various attractions and, most importantly, no signs of dogs, hounds or jackals. One detail, however, captures him: the self he sees coming out of the toilet, according to him, is absolutely not him, but another person with very different attitudes. He then decides it’s time to face his fears and finally find out what lies behind the mysterious Marc.

And, like last week, he can only surprise us positively how disinterested the new Marvel series seems to take simple paths or easy trivializations of events, which would have made the task much easier and given the fans several more sops, at least in terms of rhythm and spectacle. Moon Knight, on the other hand, abandons any unnecessary action ambitions and adopts – like a good psychological thriller in the MCU theme – its own exquisite background slowness, or, it would be better to say, a frenetic mixture of braking and continuous accelerations to paint its main actor in the various shades and the wonderful mythology in which it is immersed.

Moon Knight Episode 2 Review and Analysis

But the differences also affect the aesthetic, because the series begins to be more generous with the transformation of Moon Knight so that we can see it in action… From the points of view of the two personalities of the hero, which leads to moments funny, both in the script and visually. In fact, the recreation of a certain character is quite a challenge, in the sense that it is supernatural, but at the same time believable and threatening. What exactly does he play? And, of course, mirrors are used again as a simple but effective mechanism to communicate with the characters. The staging composition is crucial here.

But not everything is going to be the role of Oscar Isaac, since Ethan Hawke also shines with the role of Arthur Harrow. If in the first episode he seemed like a mysterious and disturbing person, here they exploit the “seductive” side of him, in the sense that all the gurus of sects like his seem to have. They convince you with evidence of the apparent happiness of their acolytes and try to blow your brains out with their speech. Here, that duel between the verbiage of Arthur and the skepticism, cowardly but intelligent of Steven, is very important for the story.

Moreover, that residue of Egyptian mythology that was already anticipated in the first minutes begins to be structured at last. This is more important than it seems, because after all it opens a new melon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: that of the pantheons of gods. With the Thor movies, we saw what Asgard had to offer later Eternals deconstructed the concept of what it meant to be a god among humans. What will there be, then, of divine, in Khonshu and the rest of the gods of the world of the pyramids and the sphinxes? Diving into it little by little is also part of this journey that already begins in the second episode of Moon Knight.

It is true that perhaps this episode is somewhat more formulaic regarding the Marvel “canons” in its tone and script, but that does not mean that we do not want to sink deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. Not only because of that mythology that we were talking about before, but also because of that latent concern about Steven/Marc’s mental health. To what extent are his senses fooling him and, therefore, us too?

We cannot fail to mention Layla, the character played by May Calamawy (The Long Way Home), who, beyond being the mere romantic troupe, promises to give a lot of play in the next episodes, also as an action heroine. Thus, episode 2 of Moon Knight follows the good path of the first, while laying more foundations for a story that has yet to fully exploit, as we will see later. Perhaps the “dosage” of the action around certain specific sections of the footage is not to the liking of all viewers, but for most, the moon will continue to cast its spell. And you can’t say no to that final cliffhanger…

The incredible initial victory of Moon Knight is, in fact, precisely enclosed in these nuances that were anything but obvious: in the intensive exploitation of an extremely fascinating background of the character, in terms of moral consequences and more; in not offering clear positions, a glaring good side and a bad side in the clash between Marc and Arthur ( Ethan Hawke ), but a gray scale where he is inclined to lose the right moral compass; in the delineation of a tormented protagonist, tired and subjugated by an ambiguous and selfish divinity. Especially at the end of the episode, the peaks of characterization and drama, inherent in Marc/Steven himself without the need for external factors, explode in sequences that are nothing short of amazing.

Since the announcement we were somewhat skeptical about how Moon Knight could be treated by the Marvel formula and how it could fit into the shared universe, but now there is really a tangible change of tones and themes. Of course, as in the debut, sometimes the comic streak continues to always go a little further and the action scenes are still below the standards that the MCU has accustomed us to, but the series still has a lot of time to prove us wrong. On Moon Knight it was perhaps more important to frame the tragic essence of the character, which seems to be there fully and triumph over everything else.

Moon Knight Episode 2 Review: The Last Words

It’s not as shocking as the first episode, but it’s still fun and engaging as the action really starts to come. And we promise you that this is the tip of the iceberg… Once again, the interpretive duel between Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke. The recreation of Moon Knight and his mythology is very attractive.