The Mummy (1999)

Black Adam, DC’s October blockbuster starring The Rock, was unfortunately quite a predictable bore. DC is darker for sure, but it also lacks the spark and amusement of Marvel and their MCU. Black Adam is based on the DC comic book first published in 1945.

The Black Adam story is a blander copy of The Mummy, Moon Knight, and other Egyptian films made by Hollywood, taking place in the fictional Middle Eastern Kahndaq, without possessing anything really novel throughout the whole film. It’s almost as if the creators, led by director Jaume Collet-Serra, ran the story, cast, and script through “the standard Superhero algorithm” to generate the movie. However, to be honest, I think Artificial Intelligence would’ve done a better job.

I love Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He’s super cool with his incredibly bulging muscles even without CGI, his charismatic smile, along with his colorful heritage and corresponding responsibility. He gave a decent performance, playing the anti-hero Teth-Adam called to the present day from ancient Kahndaq. Adrianna, the modern mother character whom Black Adam kept saving, was played by Sarah Shahi, of Iranian and Spanish descent. Amon, the son whom Black Adam also kept rescuing, was played by 14-year-old Bodhi Sabongui, of Egyptian, Liberian, and French descent. The protective mother and good-but-rascally son delivered lines that could’ve been written by any random customer at a café.

Moon Knight is the newest Marvel series to premiere on Disney Plus.  The pilot aired about a month ago.  He is a lesser known character in the Marvel universe.  As someone who’s been reading comic books and obsessing over Marvel lore for decades, I admit I was unaware of the character for many years.

Moon Knight begins with Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), a straitlaced, fairly insecure British man who works in a museum gift shop.  Mr. Grant has trouble when he sleeps at night.  He surrounds his bed with sand to monitor footprints and braces his ankles to the floor to trace his somnambulism.  But it gets worse.  Mr. Grant starts experiencing black-outs in the daytime, waking up in strange places, not knowing how he got there.  He then meets Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), a mysterious, cult-like figure in search of a golden scarab.  You get the impression that Harrow is not up to anything good, and he sends a few goons after Steven.  Steven loses consciousness once again, then wakes up to find himself surrounded by the same men now bloody and beaten.  

We begin to piece things together and discover that Mr. Grant has dual personalities.  One being Steven Grant, the other being mercenary Marc Spector.  Spector is Moon Knight, an avatar and servant of the Egyptian Moon God Khonsu.  Khonsu is a tall ghostly creature with robes and the skull of some type of bird in place of its head that follows Steven and Marc wherever they go.

Toward the end of the first episode we meet the eponymous Moon Knight, a superhero cloaked in Egyptian burial threads, a hood and a cape beating some hell hound dog creature to a pulp.  He's a cool-looking Marvel character right off the page!  He’s got these glowing eyes and he just kicks ass everywhere he goes, seemingly impervious to pain.  

From there the series follows Marc/Steven and his partner Layla (May Calamawy) on their quest to track down the scarab which leads to a lost tomb filled with otherworldly power. It’s up to Moon Knight to save the world from annihilation, all the while struggling with multiple personalities that tend to get him into serious trouble.