Dick Van Moon Knight: why accents are Marvel’s worst special effect

The whole world is howling at Moon Knight. When it was announced Marvel’s answer to Batman was coming to Disney +, fans were looking forward to a moody new addition to an all-conquering superhero universe. But what they got in the first trailer was esteemed character actor Oscar Isaac putting on the worst English accent this side of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins. “Please sir, can I have some more,” joked one troll on Twitter, who couldn’t help rolling his eyes at the Dickensian man-waif around whom Marvel was seemingly building its new franchise.

The funny thing is that the one doing the mocking was Isaac himself, who, in a promotional video for the trailer, seemed both amused and low-key appalled by Moon Knight’s “Chim chim cher-ee!” cadences. It spoke volumes that Isaac’s comments were “liked” by Courtney Young – a Marvel voice coach. Is this yet more Marvel misdirection, or one big joke? And if so, at whose expense?

The superhero movie may be the international language of modern cinema. And yet, long before Moon Knight was reinvented as an Edwardian chimney sweep, accents have been Kryptonite to Marvel. Whether casting Brits as American or requiring Americans to pretend they are from Eastern Europe, the slickest force in contemporary cinema continues to come unstuck as soon as its heroes open their mouths.

With Moon Knight, though, there are additional subtexts. It may be that Marc Spector – aka the new show’s titular white-cowled crime fighter – is suffering from associative personality disorder. That is a theme which the comic book has explored and which has involved the character taking on imaginary personas.

And so, perhaps Spector is an American who thinks he is British. Which would explain why he speaks like someone whose knowledge of the UK in the 21st century was gleaned from binge marathons of Steptoe and Son. And then there is the additional ersatz wrinkle that, though Spector is supposedly employed at a London museum, filming took place at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

However, even with those excuses and caveats, Isaac’s terrible accent has put a wrecking ball through the fourth wall and taken fans out of the moment. Nobody is talking about Moon Knight’s supremely natty white costume. Or how fully Ethan Hawke has committed to the part of the evil Dr Alex Harrow. Isaac’s vowels and consonants have dominated chatter on social media.

Still, regardless of whether Isaac commits to the accent throughout Moon Knight, which comes to Disney + in March, it will be a long way from the worst to feature in the MCU. They are many, many other candidates – from Elizabeth Olsen’s Eastern European drawl as Wanda Maximoff to Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Holland’s atrocious tilts at sounding American as Doctor Strange and Spider-Man.

It is true that sometimes Marvel hits the mark. The late Chadwick Boseman, for instance, insisted his Black Panther speak with an African accent rather than sound American or British – and the film is much richer for it. And Marvel avoided the accent issue altogether in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings by stacking the cast with Hong Kong action movie veterans such as Tony Leung.

Shang-Chi now feels like a long time ago. And Moon Knight arrives at a dark moment for Marvel and wonky voice acting. We’re only just getting over Harry Styles trying – badly – to sound American in the post-credit cut-scene to Eternals (he is supposedly Thanos’s brother, Eros).

And that was preceded by Florence Pugh and her dreadful sub-Killing Eve attempt at Russian in the Hawkeye TV series. Pugh is usually the best thing in whatever she’s in. In Hawkeye, in which she reprises the part of Russian-raised trained killer Yelena Belova from Black Widow, she appears to be channeling a hungover Borat.

Early Marvel films got around the accents issue by largely letting the actors speak in their natural voices. When, in Iron Man 2, Scarlett Johansson was introduced as Russian assassin Natasha Romanov – Yelena’s semi-estranged sister – she was allowed to play American. This was hand-waved away with the logic that Natasha was raised in the United States. True, Australian Chris Hemsworth had to conjure his best cod-Shakespearean rumble as Thor. As he was an immortal being from Valhalla it seemed silly to quibble, though.

The problems only really began as Marvel started casting British actors en masse as Americans. As Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch brought an element of the uncanny valley. It was hard to pinpoint what it was about his American accent that rang hollow. Still, you knew it wasn’t the real thing. Ditto Tom Holland as Spider-Man, who recently revealed that an entire scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming had to be redubbed when he slipped into his natural London speaking voice. ("We're watching the movie, like going through it, like picking stuff out we had to change, and re-record," said Holland. "And I walk into this sandwich shop like, 'Ello mate, you aright?'")

And an honourable mention must go to Martin Freeman’s CIA agent Everett Ross, who sounded like Tim from the Office after a fortnight in Orlando.

It has been jokingly suggested Issac’s Dick Van Dyke impersonation is revenge for Cumberbatch and Holland’s crimes against the All-American twang. But it is also possible Marvel has learnt its lesson from Eternals, the closest the MCU has come to a straight-up flop.

With Oscar-winner Chloé Zhao bringing a more naturalistic style as director, Eternals broke several Marvel rules. Digital effects were used relatively sparingly, by Marvel standards. And stars Richard Madden, Salma Hayek and Barry Keoghan were allowed speak in their natural Scottish, Mexican and Irish accents. (Dublin-born Keoghan sounded as if he were auditioning for Fontaines DC.)

This made for a refreshing change from the cod-Shakespeare too often the lingua franca of blockbuster cinema. And yet it didn’t go down particularly well with audiences as Eternals stuttered to a lukewarm $400 million box office. That underwhelming performance can’t be blamed on Covid. Spider-Man: No Way Home, the double whammy of Cumberbatch and Holland’s American accents notwithstanding, has since grossed $1.5 billion and counting.

In other words, the less authentic the accent, the louder the tills chime for Marvel and Disney. What does that mean for Moon Knight? It is possible that all of the hilarity around Isaac’s speech patterns has had its intended purpose. Until this week Moon Knight was a third-tier Marvel hero. Now everyone is talking about it, and all it took was Oscar Isaac chatting like a chimney sweep. To which Marvel might offer a droll “chim chim woo-hoo”