Moon Knight: The Goldfish Problem – Review
Warning: This article contains spoilers from the first episode of “Moon Knight: The Goldfish Problem”. Read at your own risk.
The latest Disney+ original series from the Marvel slate, Moon Knight, dropped today, and introduced us to Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), an ordinary everyman living in London and working at The British Museum, who struggles with sleep issues. The first of a six part mini series, drawing heavily from the art of comicker Declan Shalvey.
History
The character of Moon Knight has been in comics since the 1970s, a sort-of mythologised version of Punisher, if Punisher had the blessing of an ancient deity and a lot less guns. More recent iterations of the character have looked more into the fact that Mark Spector – the original Moon Knight – suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder, which causes him to manifest more than one distinct personality.
It appears that the show is going to lean into this angle, as Grant hears voices, loses time, and starts receiving calls for someone else. There are several moments of confusion, for both Grant and the viewer, as people reference previous conversations.
Acting
There is a pretty decent slate of stars in this show, as you would expect given the type of budgets Disney Marvel can wield, and they are all having a great time. We have Oscar Isaac (Star Wars, Ex Machina) playing down his Hollywood good looks to be the gift-shop-working, bus-missing, ordinary guy. His counterpart is a long haired guru type in the form of Ethan Hawke (Reality Bites, Gattaca), who plays the bad guy with relish. His portrayal of Arthur Harrow is sublime, clearly thinking that he is the good guy and that Grant is trying to ruin his life’s work.
Isaac steal the first episode though, whether it is bumbling through conversations with his overbearing manager Donna (Lucy Thackeray) – who is instantly recognisable to anyone that has worked retail – or trying to decide how best to deal with a group of armed thugs. He carries the viewer along with him in this first episode, and although we get glimpses of Khonshu and Moon Knight, this episode is all about Grant.
Accents
Okay, so let’s talk about the big British elephant in the room. Isaac’s accent is not “Karl Urban in The Boys” bad, but there are some pretty dodgy moments where you have to question how an actor of his caliber can do something so wrong. At times it goes almost comedically Dick Van Dyke, and there are other actors on the show that don’t do much better. On the plus side though, he may well have an excuse in future episodes…
At one point he actually mocks his own accent, emphasising the fact that he lives in “Lahn-dahn” to a group of non-Brits. It is moments of humour like this, breaking up the tension, that make this show so appealing to me.
Final thoughts
If it were not for the likes of Loki and WandaVision I don’t think that we would be getting this type of show from Disney, in which they explore severe mental health issues, without the expected glamourising or othering. Grant is experiencing frightening episodes and we are right there with him. The show leans much more into the realms of horror than previous Marvel TV shows, and there are some genuine edge-of-seat moments, as we see horrors through Grant’s eyes.
Follow Moon Knight online:
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | #MoonKnight
