Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Moon Jones

Last night's Moon Knight had a good, old fashioned adventure serial vibe. Writers Beau DeMayo, Peter Cameron, and Sabir Pirzada took the show into a slightly different tone but director Mohamed Diab returned to give us quality action sequences again as he did in the first episode. Though again with strangely unfinished looking effects.

I've seen other critics compare this episode to Indiana Jones and I can certainly see it. Layla (May Calamawy) is kind of a more battle-ready version of Marian Ravenwood. Also like Raiders of the Lost Ark, we're jumping into the story between her and the male lead in the middle, rather than starting with their first meeting. Considering how much Raya and the Last Dragon seemed influenced by Indiana Jones, I wonder if Disney is doing this to subliminally seed promotion for Indiana Jones 5

The Marc/Steven (Oscar Isaac) relationship feels more straightforward, more conducive to a pulp story. In the previous episode, Steven mysteriously had aspects of Layla's personality, as though he may have been constructed from Marc's impressions of her. Now he simply seems to be an entirely different person with a complete and plot-useful expertise in ancient Egypt rather than an amateur fondness. The previous episode seemed to imply Layla had equivocal expertise to Steven but that no longer seems to be the case.

I really like the scene where Khonshu (F. Murray Abraham/Karim El Hakim) changes the night's sky though it seems like they could've found a way to calculate the stars' positions. Or maybe Khonshu could've simply conjured a picture of the night sky. But it was a cool effect.

Moon Knight is available on Disney+.

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