Moonknight – First Impressions
I’ve tried to start a review for Marvel’s MoonKnight four times now and I can’t get anything down on paper.
I have standards as a pop culture reporter. They aren’t high standards but at least I have them. One of them being that regardless of whether or not I detest the creator, I will judge the creation on its own merit.
And I can’t seem to do that tonight. And it’s all because of Disney.
What does the Disney brand mean to you?
More importantly, what did it mean to you?
A lot of that opinion depends on your age. For Gen-Xers it usually means distant memories of NBC’s The Wonderful World of Disney on Friday nights, hoping the anthology series would cough up some decent cartoons or better yet something on the latest attraction at a theme park my family was too poor to go to. Occasionally a special (pre-Star Wars) treat of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea would show up in November.
Or if your family lived in the right place and had the right income Disney, meant themed amusement parks that were the absolute gold standard.
Or maybe it meant a movie night that your parents wouldn’t turn down because all of you trusted Disney to deliver on something. If you were a kid the Apple Dumpling Gang or The Cat From Outer Space was hilarious (because you were a kid) and your folks knew that in an increasingly degenerate world, Disney films would be safe.
But it’s 2022 and all of that is gone. The Wonderful World of Disney has been replaced by Disney Plus, Disney World has turned into Six Flags Over Orlando and I would no sooner let my children walk by themselves through Pattaya’s red-light district than trust Disney kid shows at this point.
After digging through Christopher Rufo’s reporting on Disney’s Reimagine Tomorrow company meeting, I am faced with the chilling reality that all of my worst suspicions about today’s Disney were drastically too optimistic.
Consequently, giving an honest opinion about Marvel’s Moon Knight is proving difficult.
The first episode of Moon Knight is better than any of the other Marvel shows to include Wanda Vision. Keep in mind, the first episode of a Marvel show is absolutely no guarantee that the rest of the season won’t be crap.
Oscar Isaac turns in a typically stellar performance as Steven Grant. A man with quite a few problems. He has a secret life, and he doesn’t know anything about that life. He has more than one personality. His body is occasionally occupied my Marc Spector, a mercenary. And of course, he also functions as the avatar for Khonshu, the Egyptian god of the Moon.
Steven’s problem is that Marc and Khonshu’s enemies have found him, and his personality is helpless against the power they possess.
The premise is decent. The episode was well written and the Woke hasn’t made itself felt yet, but I am quite certain it will.
And that is the problem I’ve got with Moon Knight. I know it has to be coming because it’s 2022 Disney. Consequently, I am instinctively sniffing the wind for it rather than just relaxing and immersing myself in a show.
I literally can’t sit back and enjoy a show under these circumstances. Let alone give an honest opinion about one.
Thanks, Mickey!
