Film Curated Raimi Fanservice
We're started to get inundated with Multiverses. Off of the back of Rick and Morty, we've had a Matrix sequel, We had a Spider-Man sequel that included all the Spider-Men (much like the cartoon movie a few years ago that already did that), and finally the unsurpassable Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. The Doctor Strange sequel comes to us after all of this and I don't know which is more exhausted, the multiverse concept or me seeing these movies.
The new Doctor Strange sequel comes with some hurrah for film buffs, as Sam Raimi, noted director of old Superhero and hyper gory horror movies, has been given the director's seat. For the first 45 minutes or so of the movie, it felt typically generic Marvel, but I can only assume the studio asked the director to "turn the Raimi up", because the movie suddenly bloats with all his classic tropes. All the most interesting or exciting scenes are shot in his high energy, surrealist, signature style, with wonky swooping cameras, wacky visuals, evil books, cheesy zombies, and even a bit of Disney approved hyper violence. People get mangled and killed in a variety of creative ways. I'm astonished by what Disney was willing to sign off on, but the movie benefits whenever it lets Raimi insert extended pastiches of his own movies.
The story, refreshingly, doesn't mess about getting on with the plot. Dr Strange has to protect a girl from Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch, who wants to use an evil book to kill and steal the girl's dimension hopping superpowers, all so that she can go visit her children in another universe. I was curious how the movie would handle Scarlet Witch, whose story follows a long sexist pedigree of women superheroes getting too much power, becoming emotional, and then wanting to destroy the World. Then there's the matter of her being the hero of her own show, Wandavision, which ended with her being morally let off the hook for enslaving an entire town. How do we square all that up?
Wanda in the movie puts a lampshade on it, noting there is a kind of sexism in how she is being treated, but she is still the worst version of the Trope: there's multiple scenes of men trying to calmly reason with her, whilst she stubbornly insists that she has to kill everyone for the sake of hanging out with her kids. She's like a super villainous Karen.
Jonathan Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness is a movie of two halves; one half is rote MCU stuff: lazy sarcastic one liners, distracting references to make comic book fans clap, and people shooting laser beams into other people's laser beams, and the two of them trying to shoot each other harder. The other half is all the good silly fun that Raimi was brought in for. I somewhat enjoyed the film, but am disappointed to see how all its best parts are stuck to the wearisome endless churn of MCU content.
Film [Slight spoilers] For a film about the multiverse, it doesn't really achieve madness
I was personally not all that hyped for this film. Strange is not my favorite Marvel A-lister onpage or onscreen, I was dreading the tired yet seemingly inevitable Unstable Powered Woman arc they have been building for Wanda, and Spider-Man: No Way Home soured me on multiversal "visitors" driving the plot. Nothing in the movie really changed my mind regarding the first two points, though it was slightly more graceful regarding the last one — slightly because a lot of them show up to job, YMMV if that's a feature or a bug.
First, the pros — Sam Raimi is obviously experienced with both superhero and horror, and you can see him try and inject (with various degrees of success) visual flair into the direction, with montages, wipes, and the occasional creepy contortion. The fights are more interesting than usual — using music notes as a Flechette Storm was very memorable, as was the stunt Strange pulled for the final battle. Danny Elfman comes along for the score, which is actually quite exciting. This film obviously had more fun with its technicals than the usual MCU project, and for that it's probably worth the theater trip.
Now, the rest.
For a movie with "Doctor Strange" in the title, and Cumberbatch does his best, but Strange just doesn't have that much of a character arc. The closest thing he has to one is "pining for Christine", a baffling choice considering how little their ex-romance has impacted much of anything since she was introduced. The second, but not as novel considering we just saw it in the last movie, is "grows fond of kid hero and sticks his neck out for them", referring to his cool-uncle relationship with a nerfed America Chavez, a relationship unique to the MCU that might cynically remind one of the Peter Parker-Tony Stark one.
The driving force of the film is instead Scarlet Witch, who, after a surprisingly nuanced take on the topic in WandaVision (much needed for understanding this film), backslides into havoc-wreaking characterization more reminiscent of her infamous "womb crazy
" story arcs from the comics here. She speedruns her Heel Realization, too, tying up the climax quickly and neatly. Elizabeth Olsen acts her ass off, but I just wish she was given more inspired material.
My final verdict is that...I wasn't expecting to like it, so it landed somewhere around the plane of my expectations. It's okay, but not great. There's a lot to enjoy on the technical side of things, and I think lore-lovers will have fun. But the Continuity Lockout may be overwhelming for the casual moviegoer, and for a film that hyped itself on the infinite, "mad" concept of the multiverse, it constrains itself to Strange sighing over various life choices and universes that look like the main one. The latter is given something of an explanation, but it doesn't stop the final product from feeling rather small.
Writing and execution-wise, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the better "multiversal heroes try to stop a dimension-hopping villain from trying to replace their family" film, and Everything Everywhere All at Once is the better "it's May 2022, let's jump through a bunch of bizarre universes and wrestle with the consequences of our alternate selves' choices" film, so I think I'll rewatch those instead.
Film How awesome the adventures of the Multiverse
I watched it, and I have loved it. I love how some of the monsters, like Gargantos, appeared, although wished he could’ve have more screened time, in the film.
I like how we were able to see some parts of the Multiverse, still, I did wish we could’ve been able to see more of it, hopefully, we do get more soon.
I do also love the mid-credits scene, which, I love, including the appearance of Clea.
Since the Sequel Hooks have set up DS 3, The Multiverse, and The Variants for the future, I am hoping we will get more of them later in the future.
Film Almost a masterpiece
Sam Raimi is back, baby!
The directing is nothing short of impressive in this movie. I loved the vibrant colors and punchy contrast created by the lighting. Camerawork and transitions were done masterfully as well.
Michael Waldron might not be the most amazing writer out there, but he's good enough at what he does. This movie has a little something for everyone: Stephen, Wanda, Wong, America, Christine and even Mordo. The fanservice was nice, nothing too explicit, nothing too subversive, it fit just right. I liked the music, the set design, the VFX and the practical effects. I only disagree with some of the writing choices.
Film Smaller on the multiverse but great on the Madness
Having seen Doctor Strange in No Way Home, I was hyped for the film but at the same time I was always a bit offput by the fans hyping this film up. I mean when people were hyping that Tobey would come back AGAIN as Spider-Man and that they would show Tom Cruise as Iron Man and seemed to legit believe that, I had a feeling this film would never fully fulfill fan expectations since it was overblown in my mind.
Having watched it, I loved the film for having a simple but well done narrative with Strange and Wanda having clear cut character arcs. Strange's arc was about his need to have control like 616-Christine said with his three variants, the zombie one doesn't count, showing the different sides of it. Supreme Strange being his refusal to listen to other's opinions, Defender Strange being his callousness in his decisions no matter the intention and his refusal to accept things can't be in his control like how Sinister Strange refuse to accept he could never get with any Christine.
While Wanda being driven crazy by her dreams of having a family and knowing that other dimensions have the happiness that seems to avoid her like the plague. I can understand why she would be driven to these extremes since her entire story just feels like her losing everything, over and over. Makes sense she simply wants some happiness, no matter the cost. That being said I can see how Wanda's arc can be seen as offensive but Wanda was a real scene stealer from her power and determination. You can see why the ever arrogant Strange instantly and correctly realized he didn't stand a chance against her.
I can understand fans maybe being mad that we didn't see more of the multiverse but personally I'd much rather seen a strong story over various cameos that overtake the movie. And with a movie exploring the multiverse, the possibility of it being confusing is far too easy so I understand Marvel not wanting to go overboard. Just like how the first Avengers film was simple in plot as it was the first ever team-up movie they did and didn't try to do something like Infinity Wars or Endgame.
So my take on this is, I enjoyed the film fine but I can understand why people can have some complaints over the film.
8/10.
Film Too Many Good Ideas Done Badly
I have so many mixed feelings about this film.
For the good: magic and the multiverse are brought to life with spectacular visual flair, there's an impressive horror element in which Sam Raimi's strengths as a director really shine, and Elizabeth Olsen's performance as Wanda/Scarlet Witch might just be one of the greatest in her career.
For the bad... there is simply too much going on. Strange and America Chavez scarcely have time to advance their own character arcs thanks to the tedious Illuminati plot, and with Wanda's story crowbarred into the mix, it's barely about Doctor Strange at all.
And as much as I liked her performance in this film, Wanda's plot is a mess: quite apart from not following on from the ending of Wandavision (so no word on what we were hearing in the post-credits sequence, or what happened to White Vision, what might become of Agatha, or any of that), we've catapulted her from "troubled character teetering on the brink of villainy" to "flat-out villain".
This shift in character has no buildup, no moment in which Wanda goes from unknowingly committing villainous acts and sustaining them out of denial and selfishness, to knowingly and remorselessly enacting mass-murder. We're told she's been corrupted by the Darkhold, but we never see it actually corrupting her. It's like showing a cut of the Lord of the Rings films with all the scenes of Frodo being influenced by the Ring removed. It's the same problem we had in Season 8 of Game of Thrones, complete with the professional point-missers crawling out of the woodwork to say, "I don't know why everyone's so surprised."
Also, after all the importance the marketing gave him, Sinister Strange has exactly one scene to his name. For this alone, he is easily the most annoying character in the film: the Illuminati have bloated this plot to the point of ridiculousness, Wanda's storyline has been rudely nailed to the film with no effort to do her justice, and along comes this bargain-basement Strange Supreme acting as if this story is still about Doctor Strange. Damn your eyes, Sinister Strange, all three of them.
Speaking of Strange Supreme, the most damning thing of all about this film is the fact that it's walking in the footsteps of TV shows like Wandavision, Loki, and What If...? (2021) - but with none of the nuance, creativity, time, or even fun that they demonstrated.
Compare and contrast: Peggy Carter taking Captain America's place? Ultron? Dr Strange turning evil? Battle between two iterations of Dr Strange? Multiversal collapse? Zombies? You name it, What If? did it better. The one exception to this is the Scarlet Witch horror factor, and that's only thanks to Sam Raimi getting a chance to revisit his roots.
In short, don't bother with this film. Just watch Wandavision or What If? You'll get the same experience with more depth and less intrusive cameos.