Moon Knight
Genre: Action/Superhero/Supernatural
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writers: Jimmy Ellis & Mark Newton
Based on Marvel Comics characters
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Rooney Mara, Babs Olusanmokun, Charlie Murphy, Marc-Andre Grondin, Colm Meaney, Michael Raymond-James, Joan Allen, Nicholas Pinnock, Christian Camargo, Amir El Masry (voice)
Plot: Archaeologist Dr. Peter Alraune (Colm Meaney) and his daughter/assistant Marlene Alraune (Charlie Murphy) are working on the site of a recently discovered underground tomb in the deserts west of the ruins of Kerma in Sudan. Peter is working on translating the hieroglyphics found on the walls of the tomb while Marlene explores and dusts off the artifacts. Marlene trips and stumbles through a wall, revealing a large pristine shrine to the moon god Khonshu. Next to the shrine is a large chest. Marlene opens the chest, revealing it to be full of ancient gold and jewels.
Marc Spector (Leonardo DiCaprio) sits on the edge of a helicopter traveling over the deserts of northern Africa. He is part of a CIA black ops unit along with his brother Randall Spector (Michael Raymond-James), Raoul Bushman (Babs Olusanmokun) and their pilot Jean-Paul “Frenchie” DuChamp (Marc-Andre Grondin). Marc goes over their mission with the rest of the group along the ride. Their goal is to protect the Alraunes and their findings from a local warlord and his army. When they land at the site of the tomb, Marc goes to greet Dr. Alraune while Raoul and Randall go off to scout out the perimeter. Peter and Marlene give Marc a tour of the tomb. Marc suggests that they pack up their stuff soon as their intel suggests that the warlord will be sending his army there soon. Peter doesn’t want to simply pack up and leave before they’ve had a chance to explore every possible inch of the tomb, pointing out that there may be more secret shrines filled with even grander treasures. Marlene talks some sense into her father though, suggesting that once the investors see the artifacts they found in person that funding will never be an issue again. Marc calls Frenchie down to the tomb to help pack up some of the Alraunes’ gear. Once they have all made it back up to the surface, they find Raoul and Randall waiting with guns aimed at them. Marc demands to know what is going on. Randall tells his brother that the warlord offered them a king’s ransom to secure the treasures of the tomb, keeping them in the Sudan. Randall tells Marc and Frenchie to drop their weapons and step away from the treasure. Marc drops a smoke grenade on the ground in front of him, using it as a distraction. He gets his gun back and opens suppressive fire in the general direction of Raoul and Randall, not wanting to shoot his own brother. In the process of protecting Peter and Marlene, Marc takes a bullet to his arm. Marc tells Frenchie to take Peter and Marlene and fly away in the helicopter. Frenchie does as he’s told. Marc provides cover fire, but Raoul sees them and shoots Dr. Alraune, killing him. Marlene tries to drag her father along, but Frenchie tells her that if she is going to live she needs to come with him immediately. Frenchie manages to fly away with Marlene.
When the smoke clears, Raoul and Randall don’t see Marc anywhere outside. Raoul suggests that Marc must have gone to hide in the tomb. Raoul reloads his gun and prepares to go down into the tomb after Marc, but Randall grabs him and reminds him that he promised that Marc would not be hurt. Raoul shoots Randall in the head, killing him instantly. Raoul spits on Randall’s body before marching down into the tomb. Marc desperately looks for a place to hide in the tomb. He goes into the shrine to Khonshu and hides a large statue of the moon god. Raoul taunts Marc, telling him that he and Randall had everything worked out ahead of time. Raoul listens closely to his surroundings, trying to get Marc to give up his position. Raoul then tells Marc that he killed Randall after arranging to split the treasure with the warlord, completing a triple-cross of sorts. This sends Marc into a rage. He tackles Raoul and is about to shoot him at close range, but Raoul pulls out a knife and stabs Marc in the neck with it. Marc stumbles back, holding his neck and blood gushes out. Raoul stands up and laughs at Marc’s predicament. Marc passes out from the blood loss. Raoul grabs the chest of treasure and drags it through the desert to rendezvous with the warlord, Sane Benga (Nicholas Pinnock), and his army.
Marc wakes up when he hears a voice telling him to get up. Marc struggles to look around for the source of the voice, only to discover that it is the statue of Khonshu (Amir El Masry) communicating with him. Khonshu asks Marc if he wants to live. Marc says yes so that he can kill Raoul Bushman. Khonshu tells Marc that he will gain power to become the moon’s knight of vengeance, but that in return Marc must serve as his avatar on the earthly plain. Marc agrees and is suddenly healed of his injuries. He also finds himself magically adorned in white armor, which Khonsou tells him is the uniform of the cult of Khonshu. Marc leaves the tomb, only to find himself in the middle of a sandstorm. He drags the bodies of Dr. Alraune and his brother Randall down into the tomb. He buries them with bricks from the walls of the tomb. Khonshu tells Marc that he is wasting time, but Marc tells him that his brother deserved better than the death he received. Marc then leaves the tomb, facing the sandstorm. He trudges through the wind and sand until he sees Benga’s compound off in the distance. Marc continues, unwilling to let the storm deter him.
Benga and Raoul celebrate the loot found in the tomb. They drink as a harem of topless women dance around them. Raoul asks Benga what he plans to do with his fortune. Benga smiles and says that he plans to buy his army proper weapons and training, and build a lavish palace with whatever is left. Raoul smiles and offers to train Benga’s men if the price is right. Raoul toasts to their future business endeavors. The two men then hear screams coming from outside. Benga looks out a window and sees a white figure violently slaughtering his men. He grabs a gun and prepares for battle. Raoul, meanwhile, sneaks out the back door and flees into the desert. Having killed Benga’s army, Marc as the Moon Knight kicks down Benga’s door. Benga shoots Marc in the chest with a machine gun, sending him flying back. Marc gasps for air as blood seeps through his Moon Knight armor. Khonshu revives Marc once again. He tells Marc that he has increased strength, speed and endurance, but he is not invincible. Marc nods his head and rises. Benga begins firing again. This time Moon Knight dodges the bullets as he leaps from wall to wall. He gets closer and grabs Benga by the neck. Benga calls out for Raoul to help, but he is long gone. Moon Knight throws Benga through a nearby wall, knocking him out cold. Marc is enraged that Raoul got away. The armor disappears and Marc goes back out into the sandstorm. He eventually passes out from exhaustion.
In the morning, Marc wakes up to a helicopter landing nearby. The helicopter is piloted by Frenchie and with him is their CIA handler, Jason Macendale (Christian Camargo). Jason tells Marc that Frenchie informed of everything, but Jason is hoping that Marc could fill in the gaps of what happened after - including the massacre at Benga’s compound. Marc tries to piece together fragments of the night before, but his memories are fractured. He then begins shouting out the name Khonshu repeatedly. Jason leads Marc onto the helicopter and gives him a sedative to calm him. Khonshu assures Marc that he will still be there when he wakes up.
Marc wakes up in a sweat. He thinks everything that happened was just a dream until he finds himself in a hospital room. Jason welcomes Marc back to the land of the living and tells him that he was out for a couple of days. Marc demands to know where he is. Jason explains that he is in a CIA facility in Casablanca that specializes in treating mental health and stress brought on by the things they do. Marc asks to leave, but Jason tells him that is out of the question until he has been cleared by the facility’s doctors. Jason tells Marc that someone wants to see him. Marlene then comes into the room. She gives Marc a kiss on the cheek and thanks him for helping her escape even if her father didn’t make it. Marc tells her that he buried her father in the tomb alongside his brother. She looks at Marc’s arm where she saw him get shot, but doesn’t see any wound. Dr. Allison Emmet (Rooney Mara) then enters the room and asks the others to leave so that she can begin her treatment of Marc. After Jason and Marlene have left Allison sits across from Marc and asks him his name and what happened in Sudan. Marc tells her his name and goes through the fragments that he can remember. When he gets to his brother’s death his mind goes completely blank. He gets confused and demands to know where he is. Allison introduces herself again and asks Marc for his name. This time he answers “Steven Grant”. Allison begins to feverishly take down notes. “Steven” kindly asks Allison what she’s writing, and she simply tells him that she finds him interesting. She asks Steven if he would like to go for a walk, which he agrees to. They walk down a long hallway to a large common area where other patients sit playing chess, listening to music and reading comic books. Steven realizes that he is in some sort of mental hospital and gets scared. He insists that he must be getting back to New York City to vote on a merger for his company. He frantically tries to open a door to get out, but he is pinned down and sedated by the orderlies.
Marc wakes up again in a sweat. He realizes where he is and quickly gets out of bed and tries sneaking down the hall. Allison calls out Marc’s name, which he turns in response to. She tells him that she was going to take him to get his medication. She leads him to a line of other patients. Khonshu tells Marc not to take the pills they give him. Marc pretends to take them, hiding them under his tongue before spitting them out when nobody's looking. Another patient runs and screams across the room. He is tackled into Marc by the orderlies. The patient screams that the alligators are trying to kill him. They give the patient a mild sedative to calm him down. Allison assures the patient that no alligators are going to eat him, but when the patient looks at Allison he only becomes more frightened. She tells the orderlies to take the patient to a safe room. They drag the man away and Marc can hear the screams quietly fade away.
During a therapy session, Marc and Allison ist across from each other in her office. She asks Marc who Khonshu is. Marc begins frightened by the name. She tells him that he has been talking to someone named Khonshu in his sleep. Marc tries to pretend that he has never heard the name before, but she pulls up a video of Marc pacing his room in his sleep having a one-sided conversation with someone he calls Khonshu. She then asks him if he is talking to the Egyptian lunar god. Marc continues to tell her that he doesn’t know what she is talking about. He tries to focus and turn into Moon Knight, but he feels like something is holding him back. She then asks if Marc has ever met anyone named Steven Grant. Marc once again says he’s never heard the name before, but this time Allison believes him. Allison tells Marc that she would like to try an art therapy exercise with him. She gives him a pencil and a piece of paper and asks him to draw himself. Marc feverishly sketches a detailed picture that looks like himself in the Moon Knight armor. Allison looks at the picture curiously, asking if that’s how Marc sees himself. Marc nods his head, not even realizing how he has drawn himself - in his mind the picture is a simple stick figure.
Raoul is hiding out in Khartoum with some of the treasure he was able to take with him. He begins sorting through it until an amulet of the Eye of Ra, the sun god, catches his eye. When he puts on the amulet, his eyes glow as bright as the sun. He speaks to himself in the voice of Ra, telling him what direction to go to find Khonshu. He begins marching northwest through the deserts toward Casablanca. Along the way, mummies begin to emerge from the sands around him and follow his path.
The next day, Marc is allowed to make a phone call, but he is warned that if gives away his location or details of his previous mission the call will be cut short. Marc agrees and takes the chance to call his mother Debra Spector (Joan Allen). She is happy to hear from him, although she expresses concern that she hasn’t heard from Randall either. Marc struggles with how to try to tell his mother about Randall’s death. He says that he doesn’t think Randall will be able to call her any time soon. Knowing that her sons are in a dangerous business of some sort, Debra asks Marc if Randall is dead. Marc tells her that he isn’t allowed to answer that question. Debra, through sobs, pleads with Marc to come home to see her. Marc faints from the stress of the call. Orderlies rush over to tend to Marc. When he wakes up, he once again has no idea where he is. Allison asks him his name. He says his name is Jake Lockley. He begins to fight off the orderlies crowding around him. He is soon overpowered though, as the guards kick, punch and even use a stun gun on him until he is unconscious. They then drag his limp and beaten body to a safe room, locking him inside.
In his dream, Marc has a vision of Khonshu sitting in front of him inside of a white pyramid. Marc then realizes that Khonshu and Moon Knight are real things. He tells Khonshu that he is confused about what is really happening. Khonshu explains that all of the ancient Gods of Egypt are physically trapped in a place called the OverVoid, but that they can act on Earth using avatars like Marc, giving them a portion of their powers. Khonshu says he is going to need to use the powers to escape the hospital as Dr. Emmet is not who she says she is. Khonshu stands up and touches Marc’s forehead. Marc then jolts awake in the safe room. Marc begins screaming as he tries to break down the locked door to the room. Guards hear the screams. They grab their batons and rush down the hall. The guards burst into Marc’s cell and tell him that he had better stop yelling before he wakes up the entire building. Marc holds his arms out and the Moon Knight armor materializes on his body. The two guards laugh before transforming into alligator men. Moon Knight raises his fists, and begins beating them to a pulp. With his white Moon Knight armor stained from the blood of the alligator men, he walks down the hall.
Moon Knight kicks in the door to Dr. Allison Emmet’s office. She is startled by him, asking Marc what he wants. Marc looks at himself, finding the Moon Knight armor has disappeared. He tells her that he wants to leave immediately. Allison asks Marc if he has ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Marc is confused, saying that’s what crazy people with multiple personalities have like Sybil. Allison tells Marc that she has seen evidence of at least four total personalities living in Marc’s mind: Marc himself, Steven Grant, Jake Lockley and finally Khonshu the moon god. Marc says he doesn’t know about Steven or Jake, but that Khonshu isn’t in his head, he’s real. Allison smiles at Marc, revealing jagged alligator teeth. Allison then begins to transform into Ammut - alligator head and tail, lion body and hippo skin. The Moon Knight armor returns to Marc’s body just before Ammut whips her tail at him, knocking him through a window and into the courtyard of the hospital. Marc struggles back to his feet when he is suddenly surrounded by a bright yellow glow. He looks over and sees Raoul, although his shadow features the falcon head of Ra the sun god. Moon Knight grabs crescent shaped daggers out of his belt and holds them between his knuckles. Raoul says that killing Marc will be even better now that it will also serve a purpose for Ra. An army of mummies then charges at Marc from behind Raoul. Marc begins to go on the offensive as he slashes his way through the mummies, turning them into piles of dust and sand. The sun begins to rise over Casablanca, even though it is in the middle of the night. The moon and the sun come dangerously close as Moon Knight and Raoul begin fighting. As they fight, their shadows appear as Khonshu and Ra fighting. Marc takes off the Moon Knight mask, telling Raoul that he wants him to see his face when he kills him. Khonshu provides Marc with a supply of silver crescent-shaped darts. Marc throws them all at Raoul, one of which severs the chain holding the Eye of Ra amulet around Raoul’s neck. When the amulet falls to the ground, the sun disappears from the sky and Raoul becomes just another human again. Marc takes this chance to stab Raoul in the chest with his daggers once for Randall and another for Dr. Alraune. Raoul, dying, offers to give Marc the treasures if he will get him to a hospital. Khonshu tells Marc to finish him and destroy the amulet of the Eye of Ra. Marc stabs Raoul one more time with a crescent dagger, this time in the neck, killing him. Marc holds the amulet and crushes it with his bare hands.
Marc leaps back through the broken window into Emmet’s office, but Ammut is nowhere to be found. Marc begins searching through the hospital until he feels the floor begin to shake. He turns just in time to see Ammut diving toward him with her jaws wide-open. Marc pulls a set of escrima sticks off his belt and uses them to jam Ammut’s jaw open. It only lasts for a moment though as her jaw soon simply crushes the sticks. She laughs and tells Marc that he cannot defeat a god. Marc tells her that he will die trying before running over and flying a knee into her jaw. Ammut grabs Marc and throws him back, before chasing him down and trying to bite him. Marc rolls out of the way of her attack and jumps up. He grabs spiked brass knuckles out of his belt and puts them on. Ammut continues to charge after Marc but now he is able to dodge her attacks and counter them with his deadly punches. Before long, Ammut begins slowing down and Marc realizes that now is his chance. He jumps on Ammut’s back and begins to repeatedly beat her in the back of the head. Eventually, her golden blood begins to gush out as she struggles to get Marc off of her. Finally, she shakes him off and Marc goes flying across the floor. Battered and beaten, Marc stands for one last time. Ammut turns to him, with her golden blood pouring down her face. She tells him that killing her will unleash the truth on Marc, and he won’t be able to handle it. Marc tells her that she underestimates him and it’s time to end this. Ammut says that she agrees before charging one last time at Marc, who backflips over her and lands a final devastating blow to her head. Ammut collapses down to the ground and lays completely still. Ammut’s body begins to break apart and dissolve away. Khonshu tells Marc that she won’t be gone for long as she will eventually find a new avatar to do her bidding. The Moon Knight armor disappears. Khonshu heals Marc’s wounds as he walks out of the hospital with the remaining guards simply looking on, too afraid to stop him.
Some time later, Marc and Marlene go to the tomb in Sudan and recover the bodies of Marc’s brother and Marlene’s father with help from Frenchie. On the helicopter ride back to civilization, Marlene holds Marc’s hand. Marc has Randall buried at a small cemetery outside of New York City. He takes his mother Debra to visit the grave where she hugs Marc, crying, and says she is glad she still has one son at least.
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