REVIEW: Sam Raimi Wrapped Up The Multiverse Like A Gift To Marvel In 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness had some big shoes to fill.
Not only is it following the amazing original Doctor Strange movie from 2016; it's also following Spider-Man: No Way Home as the second Marvel movie to premeiere in theaters after the pandemic; It's following WandaVision as the first on-screen appearance of our beloved Scarlet Witch since the end of the popular Disney+ series; and it's also following the entirety of the MCU Phase 3, as one of only two standalone sequels taking place since the events following The Blip in Avengers: Endgame.
So, yeah - especailly after the massive success that was Spider-man: No Way Home: HUGE shoes to fill there. Luckily, it seems directors Sam Raimi, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Xochitl Gomez, and Elizabeth Olsen were perfectly able to fill them. (Maybe not as much, but expecting them to be able to top a film that was literally two decades in the making would have been an unfairly high bar to set.)
Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness was every bit as good as I expected it to be - and also every bit as weird as you want a Doctor Strange film to be. Read on for my spoiler-free review of the movie - and then, if you HAVE seen it, (or just don't really care about that element of surprise) keep reading for my full, unfiltered thoughts.
A Spoiler-Free Review of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
For all its spectacle and, well, strange-ness, this second Doctor Strange film does manage to keep itself tied to a very poignant, touching theme.
Before, Dr. Strange had to learn to do what needs to be done, no matter the cost - he sacrificed everything, literally, to give them a chance at beating Thanos. As he says to his former coworker at the beginning of the film, "I made the only play we had."
This time around, though, the brilliant wizard doctor who is so used to having to make the tough calls has to learn to trust the others in his life to do it instead - and it's probably even more difficult for Stephen Strange to let go of the knife and trust others to take control for a change than it was for him to make that call in Endgame. It goes against his nature.
Even more difficult, then, is entrusting a child with those things, which is exactly what he must learn to do when Xochitl Gomez arrives on-screen for the first time as America Chavez - known in the comics as Miss America.
Gomez gives a stellar performance in this film, easily holding her own in scenes with Cumberbatch - and, even more impressively, with the formidable and singularly talented Elizabeth Olsen. She plays the classic teen girl superhero: She's tough and fiesty, but she's also got major trouble controlling her powers, and a huge amount of self-doubt because of it.
It may be a character we all know, but she does it so well, and with a certain unique spunk that I am sure must be pure Xochitl. I'm looking forward to seeing more from America Chavez in the future.
And, of course, speaking of Elizabeth Olsen, there is no knocking this spectacular actess' performance: The actress played two different versions of herself with such skill in this film that I entirely forgot that she's not the Olsen sister with an identical twin.
Her Wanda Maximoff was every bit the kind, sweet, loving mother I remember from WandaVision, but her Scarlet Witch was full of all the beautiful, terrifying, righteous fury that you would expect from a grieving mother who is also the world's most powerful sorceress.
The performance is beautiful, complex, and brilliant, and doesn't shy away from the gray area in between her better and worse halves - Marvel seems to be continuing with their running theme that even the villains aren't really villains. Scarlet Witch may end up playing the role of the bad guy, but nobody in this movie is legitimately evil.
Now that we're through with the heavier stuff - Sam Raimi also gets major points on this one for riding the line between "enjoyably weird" and "jarringly weird" so, so well. It has many trippy fun shots, like the first film in the series - but it was also incredibly voilent, almost to the point of discomfort, at multiple points.
The keyword there, though, is "almost."
The violence was never gratuitous - it always seemed necessary in the context of the fight. The reason it was jarring was that it was incredibly creative violence - The Scarlet Witch doesn't kill with a simple stab, she kills you by burning you to ash; shredding you to ribbons; fully slicing you in half. In this way Multiverse of Madness took on a bit of a horror element - I caught at least one direct reference to The Ring.
The horror element meshed well with the weirdness that is already inherent in Doctor Strange films - his last name is Strange, after all - and helped it to stand out from all of the other huge bang-up, knock-out, action-packed films exist in the MCU already.
Having said that, I do have one singular gripe that I don't need very specific context to make: Multiverse of Madnesss gets a pass, but after this one, Marvel movies need to STOP trying to top themselves in terms of how insane and high-stakes the fights can get.
Endgame was excusable because it was the finale to literal years of buildup. Same for No Way Home. This one teeters on the very edge of believability within the context of this universe solely because Wanda and Strange were already established as having crazy, world-bending powers.
This film was very good, and I had a lot of fun watching it, but it feels safe to say that after this, my appetite for whole movies filled with the type of who-would-win battles kids would have arguments about in grade school is fully sated.
And Now, For The Spoilers
Okay, I've officially warned you three times. After the completely unrelated video I'm going to put under the next paragraph so that you don't even accidentally see a word you're not supposed to see, if you DO end up finding out something before you meant to, it's DEFINITELY your fault.
Keep scrolling at your own risk.
Okay, so obviously I lied, and that video is completely related to what I'm about to talk about, because - as someone who has seen The Office so many times at this point that I put it on to soothe me to sleep when I get hit with a bout of insomnia - I audibly screamed in the theater yesterday.
I'd normally be embarrassed - maybe - but I wasn't the only one.
I knew the murmurings that John Krasinski might be playing Reed Richards in the MCU were probably true - they were just rumors at first, but as soon as HE started joking about it, I knew it was only a matter of time. That's Jim Halpert AND Jack Ryan. Everyone's favorite softie and an action hero? Marvel would never have said no.
BUT I DIDN'T EXPECT HIM TO JUST RANDOMLY APPEAR ON-SCREEN NEXT TO PEGGY FREAKIN' CARTER!
Nor did I expect he, along with Charles Xavier and all the rest, to be immediately massacred by the incredibly creatively violent Scarlet Witch. (Hey, she tried to be reasonable.)
Sam Raimi has a talent for playing things in the space between laughter and suspense - the entire multiverse crossover sequence was constantly dancing between cooly dramatic and ridiculously funny. I was constantly torn between taking this new group seriously, and laughing out loud every time I remembered that they were called the Illuminati.
It almost felt like a joke world, a Deadpool-esque throwaway to add more insanity - in any other film series, I would assume that these characters were probably never coming back. Even their deaths were shocking to the point of being comical - the fights that lead up to them never followed the cadence of a normal superhero fight. It was like Wanda was a boss battle in a video game they hadn't properly leveled up for.
(That said, this IS Marvel, and I can't wait to hear more about the Fantastic Four movie that I'm sure they're planning.)
That wasn't the only violent scene that bordered on the unbelievable - the fights and circumstances in this movie kept getting crazier and crazier, to the point where I can say that it definitely EARNED the title Multiverse of Madness. By the time we got to Zombie Strange and the whole "souls of the damned" thing, my ability to suspend disbelief would normally have been strained - but Raimi handled the rest of the film so excellently that it fit perfectly.
(Also, the sight of Zombie Steven flying with a cape made of wailing ghosts had such Crimson Peak energy to it that I couldn't NOT love it.)
So what DIDN'T I love?
Well, they did my girl Wanda pretty dirty.
Thanks For The Feminism, Doctor Strange
Poor Wanda. Her life just...fully sucks.
Her home was torn apart by war; she was scooped up by a program that told her she was special and tried to make her evil; her twin brother died; she had to kill her boyfriend for nothing - twice; she got him back, and had a life with him, had children, only to discover it was a fugue state created by her own mind and none of it was sustainable; now everyone is telling her her babies were never real to begin with.
This one was personal for me. Wandavision got me through the pandemic. WANDA got me through the pandemic. She took all her pain at all the loss she felt and did her best to escape into a happy little fantasy, to scrape together what she could of the life she once wanted so that she could ATTEMPT to be happy. She hurt so much - she just wanted to escape into the TV shows that had always gotten her through.
Ironically, at one of my lowest points, it was watching her attempts to get through on her not-so-little TV show that helped me hold on.
So, I think it's understandable for me to be more than a little hurt that Wanda - who they set up at the end of her show to finally be trying to move on, to heal from her ordeal and put it in the past - ultimately ends up committing suicide at the end of the film.
The only reason I'm not incredibly angry at this ending is that they let her come to the conclusion herself. It isn't Strange that kills her; it isn't even America. She finally sees herself through the eyes of her children, and realizes that her grief has made her a terrifying monster.
It is her love for her children that drives her destruction of the Dark Hold - she finally realizes that one of the things she needs to protect them from is herself - and, knowing that the Dark Hold is too much power for anyone, she takes that along with her. That is a powerful death - perhaps almost as powerful as Iron Man's.
Even more important than that, too, is America's victory, in which Stephen finally learns what Christine - who Rachel McAdams plays to perfection in this film - meant when she said he "always had to be holding the knife."
Dr. Strange is a singularly smart man - used to being the smartest person in the room. As such, it's not easy for him to give up control - which is ultimately the reason his relationship with Christine never worked out. At the very beginning of the movie, we see him take this painful burden on once again, almost as if he has no choice - as he nearly kills America and takes her power for "the greater good."
But this Dr. Strange - for whatever reason - finally gets that he can trust other people to make those big decisions too. And, very importantly, it's not just anyone he trusts, but a teenage girl - who doesn't even fully trust herself.
THAT is the most powerful moment in this movie, in a much bigger way than just the MCU - and, above everything else, THAT was the moment I was thinking about when I left the theaters. A strong, smart, successful, adult white man turned to a terrified queer (peep the pride pin!) hispanic teenager and said, "Trust yourself."
Just like when the Ancient One left him in a blizzard alone and told him to make his way back to Kamer-Taj; He trusted her with the fate of the world, and in doing so, taught her to trust herself.
Men in power: Take. Note.
The Final Verdict
All told, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was an excellent movie, that has done well to earn its place among other blockbuster MCU films. The pacing was strange, and it did have some unfortunate moments for some of audienes most beloved characters, but it had just as many unexpectedly awesome new ones.
Sam Raimi was given the task of bringing the multiverse into the MCU - he started with No Way Home, and he tied the package into a beautiful bow in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Now I've just got my fingers crossed that whoever's next doesn't accidentally ruin it while unwrapping.
