With no time left to stop the diabolical cult leader and the servant of the dark goddess Ammit’s power, Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac) reunites with Steven Grant and submits to the power of Khonshu one final time. All Egypt is set for an explosive final fight as Spector in the guise of Moon Knight, resurrected from the land of the dead and ready to fight takes on Harrow in a full-on brawl. And it’s winner take all.

Moon Knight director and shepherd Mohamed Diab amps up the volume for this, the penultimate episode of Moon Knight, ‘Gods and Monsters’ and he swings for the fences with one hell of a home run in this epic final episode. A fight of grand proportions has been growing and it all explodes in this final episode as Marc Spector/Steven Grant takes on Arthur Harrow and Khonshu takes on Ammit. And Diab fills up every part of the frame as he brings this epic fight to life. The action is big, wild and fun, but also serves the character and blends into the ‘action as narrative’ motif that I am quite fond of, and we see the full circle journey of Spector and Grant come to completion as these characters find a resolution with another, accept their mission as Moon Knight and square up to take out Ammit.

But it’s not just Isaac’s Spector/Grant who gets to have all the fun this time around as May Calamawy steps into the fight for the forces of light as Layla El-Faouly and finds her way into it. Pledging herself to the Goddess Taweret, Calamawy’s Layla becomes the avatar known as Scarlet Scarab, and she jumps into the action that unfolds before her. Together Calamawy’s Layla and Isaac’s Spector do a double tag-team double-take on Harrow’s forces and their co-battle is a hell of a lot of fun. It’s cool to see another Marvel couple battle it up on screen and Spector and Layla are the newest addition to the Marvel pantheon of husband/wife heroes and this action of seeing them together makes for some very fun moments on screen.

Audiences wanting some intense CGI action will also be pleased with the full-on battle between the Moon God Khonshu and the demoness Ammit, and these two mighty gods rip throw Cairo like nothing you’ve ever seen before in the MCU. This isn’t a group of humanoid superheroes battling it out, but instead two colossal gods of immense and unfathomable power, and Diab pulls out all the stops to show their destructive fury in all its glory. Diab doesn’t hold back and the visual effects in ‘Gods and Monsters’ elevate the intensity of the story that he is telling and helps to make this final episode stand out in the series.

‘Gods and Monsters’ has plenty of cool moments, and action junkies will get their fix with this episode and it’s a full completion of the series to date. Diab also packs in a few surprises for audiences and you’ll want to stay for the end credits thanks to the introduction of a dangerous new character who will shift up the presence of Moon Knight in future adaptations. Where we go next with Moon Knight is still to be seen, but it was great to see Marvel Studios experimenting with darker and more psychologically complex characters in this series, and I’m hoping that we’ll see more of this experimentation in future adaptations down the line.

Moon Knight comes to a complete ending with ‘Gods and Monsters’ and this introduction of a very different kind of Marvel superhero has offered up a brand new direction within the MCU and it’ll be exciting to see how Oscar Isaac and the character of Moon Knight develops within the MCU as we move further into it.

Moon Knight streams every Wednesday on Disney+

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

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Awakening as a mental patient at an insane asylum, Marc Spector comes face to face with Dr. Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) his psychologist and with himself. Seemingly existing in two alternate plains of reality, one with Harrow and the other with his other self, Steven Grant, he soon runs into the Egyptian deity Taweret, an Egyptian fertility goddess and protector of Mothers and Children who then gives the news that Spector and Grant are indeed dead and they are now in the Egyptian afterlife, The Duat, a seemingly endless desert where they are now on their final journey. With their souls in crisis and needing to be balanced, Spector and Grant must relive their past life to determine whether it’s hell or heaven that awaits them.

It’s time for the weird in this latest episode of Moon Knight and things get kooky and crazy quickly. Admiration and respect must be levelled on director Mohamed Diab for the creativity that he presents in ‘Asylum’ and this passage through the underworld leads to plenty of revelations about the character and inner nature of Marc Spector/Steven Grant. We bear witness to Spector’s traumatic childhood, and the incident that set him off, we learn of his fractured, abusive relationship with his mother and how the persona of ‘Steven Grant’ was first created. The tragedy lies at the heart of the character of Steven Grant and these early moments are confronting, and this deep sense of drama is shown through the performance of Oscar Isaac and his deep drama is incredibly moving to watch.

“Asylum’ also holds plenty of significance as we get to look into the past and see the character of Marc Spector grow. Leaving home he joins the military and then after a psychotic episode soon becomes a mercenary. Atrocities and murders follow, and on his way through the Duat, he comes face to face with the actions of the past and the audience is privy to his fateful first meeting with the god Khonshu. This meeting is an epic superhero origin moment and it allows Steven Grant to see the moment where Moon Knight was created and how Marc’s actions have bound the two of them to Khonshu and that Khonshu was far more manipulative than we could have ever foreseen.

This fifth episode of Moon Knight comes with many twists, turns and heavy emotions and the final moments of the episode are pure shock as Marc Spector/Steven Grant’s journey through the afterlife comes to an end and it’s anyone’s guess as to what happens next.

Moon Knight streams every Wednesday on Disney+

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

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Stripped of his powers following the imprisonment of Khonshu by the greater gods of Egypt, Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) is now back in control and refusing to let Marc Spector out! Together with Spector’s intrepid and adventurous wife Layla (May Calamawy), the two of them descend into the foreboding presence of Ammit’s tomb and the mysteries and dangers that lie within it. What results is an energetic, thrilling and scary confrontation with a dark evil that leads to one hell of a sudden plot twist. And this ending will have you in complete and utter shock.

Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead return to the director’s chair once more for Episode Four of Moon Knight, ‘The Tomb’ and the two of them raise the stakes to 11. And things get freaky quickly. As Oscar Isaac’s Steven Grant and May Calamawy Layla El-Faouly descend into the shadows of Ammit’s tomb things take a twist for the horrific and we’re in brand new territory in the MCU with this new twist. While there have been undertones of the horror genre within the MCU, this is the first time that we’ve seen them come up and a good helping of gore and Egyptian scares come to life as Grant and Layla have to contend with reanimated Egyptian mummies and the threat of living mummification! The scares come fast and things get crazy, and audiences will appreciate the thrills.

Twists, turns and hidden truths all come to light in ‘The Tomb’ and there are many unexpected moments that will have you giving this episode a second take. Of interest is how Benson and Moorhead bring real Egyptian history to the series and the source of Ammit’s resting place, and her final avatar, the famed conqueror Alexander the Great, who has been guarding her terrible powers for more than 2,000 years is sure to make audiences go ‘WOW’, and is a very clever narrative moment on behalf of Moon Knight’s storytellers. ‘The Tomb’ is also important because of a certain meeting of the minds between May Calamawy’s Layla and Ethan Hawke’s Arthur Harrow, where he divulges a devastating secret that has terrible consequences for Isaac’s Marc Spector. And this revelation opens up the dark past that is a part of Spector’s action as a mercenary.

Both the action, horror and drama of ‘The Tomb’ all come together in this episode, but it’s the episode’s explosive final moments that make you sit up and take notice. Never before has a series in the MCU been this clever or shocking, and just like the ending of Avengers: Endgame, audiences will be holding their breath and thinking ‘what the hell just happened here!’ While the less that is said about these shocking final moments the better, this twist changes everything we ever knew about Moon Knight and it’s anyone’s guess as to where the series will go now. The crazy is here and it’s fully insane in its presentation.

The surprises just keep on coming in Moon Knight and just when you thought this series couldn’t get any stranger or daring its filmmakers throw one hell of a twist at the audience and the result will have you wide-eyed and daring to know what happens next. And what comes next you ask? Well, we’ll have to wait and see. But damn is it about to get exciting from this moment going forward.

Moon Knight streams every Wednesday on Disney+

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

The post ‘Moon Knight’ – ‘The Tomb’ – Review appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Finding himself transported to Egypt, split-personality mercenary Marc Spector (Oscar Isacc) is trying to narrow down the resting place of the demoness Ammit, which fanatical cult leader Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke) is eager to find. Finding a partner in his estranged wife Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy), who happens to be a skilled archeologist, the two of them venture out into the desert in search of the resting place of Ammit. But things don’t go according to plan, and soon Spector finds himself brought before the gods for judgement.

Marvel Studios’ Moon Knight takes on the epic scope of both ancient and contemporary Egypt as Marc Spector/Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) finds himself in this exotic location eager to track down and stop fanatical cult leader Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke). Director Mohamed Diab once again returns to the directing chair and he’s very pleased to be back in his hometown of Cairo, and he pumps up the action quickly. Whether he’s battling a host of dangerous mobsters who are assisting Harrow, coming face to face with the mysterious and capable antique collector Anton Mogart (Gaspard Ulliel in his final performance) or being brought forth before the gods of Eygpt themselves, the events of Episode Three ‘The Friendly Type’ move at a firm pace and there’s plenty to be intrigued within this episode.

I for one was interested to again see Diab drawing on Spector/Grant’s split personality in the episode’s demanding action scenes and this again is brought into the narrative which keeps the visuals and excitement of ‘The Friendly Type’ jacked all the way up. ‘The Friendly Type’ also gives us a taste of what Spector is like in his Moon Knight guise when he has to take on actual human combatants and not just mere demon creatures. And it’s fun to see Isaac cut loose in the suit. His combat style as Moon Knight is fast paved and dynamic, and there’s a great fluidity to his aerobatic fight style and he uses his curved crescent moon shaped blades to deadly effect. We’ve been yet to see Moon Knight really cut loose and it’s a lot of fun to watch him go to work here in this latest episode.

‘The Friendly Type’ is also an important episode to the larger context of Moon Knight as it gives clarity to the importance of the greater gods in the MCU and the power that they still control and contain. While the belligerent Khonshu might be an outcast trouble-maker, his power and lack of decorum draw him into the line of sight of the other more powerful gods and Spector is brought before to answer for Khonshu’s trouble-making. It’s a very interesting scene that has some very big implications for the greater MCU as a whole, and the episode’s final moments, which are some of the most visually astonishing we’ve seen so far, will have your eyes open with wonder and amazement.

Episode Three, ‘The Friendly Type’ ends on one hell of a cliffhanger and it’s about to get very interesting for Marc Spector/Steven Grant as we move forward into this next part of Moon Knight.

Moon Knight streams every Wednesday on Disney+

Image: Walt Disney Pictures

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