In general, I liked it. It’s probably not one of my top 10 MCU films, but that’s only because there’s so many excellent MCU films now. (Which reminds me, I need to update my ranking list one of these days.) This one is just a little too uneven and weird to make it that far up the list. But it is fun.
It’s jarring to me that this is only the second Doctor Strange film. Between Ragnarok, Infinity War, Endgame, and No Way Home (not to mention the What If? TV series), it feels like he’s had so much MCU screen time that we should be on Doctor Strange 3 by now.
Spoilers from here on out.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it still wasn’t what I expected. I thought this was going to be about wrapping up the side effects from Spider-Man: No Way Home, with the Illuminati punishing Doctor Strange for interdimensional tampering. Kind of like the plot of the Loki series. But no, apparently there were no repercussions from the last movie, and it’s just a coincidence that Strange’s next adventure also involves the multiverse. If the mid-credits scene is anything to go by, it actually sounds like the next movie will be closer to what I expected this movie to be.
I also thought there would be a lot more world-hopping. In fact, I was even dreading it a little. I’ve mentioned it before, but the Arrowverse’s version of “Crisis on Infinite Earths” was a major letdown. Great fanservice, but incoherent and not enough substance. I was afraid Multiverse of Madness would do something similar, with so many references-for-the-sake-of-references that they wouldn’t be able to cram in a cohesive plot. Thankfully my fears were groundless, though I was a little disappointed that most of the movie was spent on the same three worlds.
The tone was darker than most MCU films, and many are calling it the MCU’s first horror movie. I don’t know if I would go that far. Director Sam Raimi definitely showed off his “Evil Dead” style, but then, I’m not sure if I consider Evil Dead a horror movie. Is it really horror if you spend more time laughing than jumping at shadows? But I will go this far, Multiverse of Madness may be the first MCU film I’d think twice about showing to a child.
I feel really bad for Wanda. The writers have her locked into a specific type of plot. I believe she’s a good person at heart, but she’s a magnet for tragedy and bad influences. Ultron, Agatha Harkness, and the Darkhold all take advantage of Wanda’s emotional scars, constantly turning Wanda into the Dark Phoenix of the MCU. She’s becoming the poster child for the “Heel-Face Revolving Door” trope, and I would love it if the writers would break that cycle. I realize her current form is too powerful to be a hero, her stories would be boring. But I’m just tired of the repetitive “Wanda does a bad thing, then says sorry at the end” plots. Either make her a full-on-villain or depowered good guy, I don’t really care witch. I mean, which.
I liked the Illuminati a lot, my only real complaint with them is that the trailers didn’t leave enough surprises. I kept hoping they were holding something back, like a RDJ cameo as an alternate version of Tony Stark. Sure, there were a couple of unexpected characters, but none of them were as good as the ones spoiled in the trailers.
But yeah, the star of the show was Sam Raimi’s directing style, the Evil Dead references, and just how over-the-top bonkers the movie was. Critics often complain that all MCU movies are basically the same movie. They can’t say that about this one. They took a big chance and it paid off. I hope they keep taking chances. They’ll produce a bomb now and then, but the winners will stand out so much more.
