Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness Review: Truly Maddening

 

There is a pizza place a couple hours away from where I live that is simply one of a kind. The place smokes it's own brisket and puts it on a pizza with homemade barbecue sauce. It's delicious and it's probably the only halal brisket pizza in Southern California. It's an amazing treat and each time I ever have a chance to have it, I oblige. Sadly, those chances are very few and far between. It always strikes me as funny to daydream about a pizza place when there are just so many around (some with better quality pizza). All it takes is one refreshing idea to make pizza seem new and special. While being so far away from it can be a detriment, it somehow helps with adding quality to the experience. I savor the moment since there aren't many opportunities to have it.  

On another note, there is a shawarma spot near where I live that my friend owns. I've been supporting the place (and my friend) ever since they were selling sandwiches out of a pick-up truck at farmers markets. The food was always special, fresh. and extremely tasty. And it's not just my opinion only, the place is highly rated and has its own brick and mortar restaurant as well. I frequented the shop so much that my wife and I ended up getting burnt out the place. The quality is still really good but it started to become easy to start picking out the small things. Sometimes a sauce was forgotten on our sandwich, or the meat was not as fresh as it once was, or certain veggies were swapped out. These are such small things but it's what starts to trigger disappointment. The bar is set high and anything less can feel like a failure. 

The other issue is franchising. It's definitely an example of a successful business and should be looked at positively, but franchising also starts to remove the soul and love from a business. I mean, everything is corporate nowadays, but things become more about a bulk of it all and less about the art of it. Policy negates freedom but gives consistency. Customers mostly value consistent quality instead of the highs and lows of the game: "who's in the kitchen?" So it makes sense to successful business standardize their procedures and ingredients. 

So I've likened the MCU to more of the shawarma shop than the pizza place. I feel like Marvel has expanded and established its brand to a point where it can let gravity do its work. I liken it to a train going downhill with no steam. Nothing of substance is powering it, but it's still accelerating.  I know I've been critical of the MCU for a while now, but I still like certain characters of the universe and Dr. Strange is one of them. His solo movie was awesome and I was genuinely excited for this movie. Him and Spider-Man will still drag me to a theater just so I can see them on screen. But the shawarma shop effect weighs heavily on the Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. While there was a bit of brisket pizza in this movie, it couldn't come through amidst the layers of chicken on pita. Somehow I expected more when I got less and the movie seemed to expect more out of me than I could give it. 

Let's get this out of the way: The movie is definitely good. There is a lot of great stuff in this movie. It has some really cool action and fight sequences (one toward the end had me smiling the whole way through). But there was enough meh stuff and uninspired stuff to bring this experience down. So let's go through my likes and dislikes and see where we land. 

What I Liked:

Special Effects

Marvel's budget is near infinite, so it's no surprise that each entry into the universe is guaranteed to be a visual treat. Multiverse of Madness (MoM) definitely does not disappoint. Since most of the movie revolves around magic and witchery, there are plenty of amazing CGI sequences that blew me away. Not to spoil anything but there is a sequence where Dr. Strange and newcomer, America Chavez, fall through multiple multiverses while escaping danger. This and one other fight towards the end of the film were probably the best parts of the film. Just the amount of detail and variety in styles that rolled through my eyes in a few short minutes was impressive. 

Even the beginning of the movie starts off with a bang with Strange and Chavez running in a fantastical realm that seems to exist beyond time and space. Just the design and attention to detail got me interested in the movie right off the bat. 

Oh The Horror!

I can't talk about this movie without mentioning how scary the movie is at times. The main villain is an unstoppable force that ravages through this film with little to no regard for life. With only moments of respite for good ol' exposition (I'll get to that later), the villain demonstrates that there is no place nor time where the heroes are safe. There is no escape and there is literally no one that can stop them. The dread and suspense is well crafted and permeates most of the film despite the contrived and generic "Marvel humor" shoved in at random times. Sam Raimi was well known for his horror films like The Evil Dead prior to being famous for the Spiderman trilogy. In MoM he pulls a lot of horror tropes out of his toolbox with great execution. There are jump scares and grotesque character designs and...well...a lot of people dying in brutal ways. 

This isn't Hereditary scary. But it is one of the scariest films in the MCU to date. I also enjoyed how Raimi made a couple of nods to Evil Dead by adding a couple lines and Easter eggs for the audience to find. Easily my favorite portion of the movie. I don't normally like super scary and gory movies, but this felt just right for me. 

Wanda's Vision

The Scarlet Witch was teased in the trailer for MoM so it's not a spoiler to say she is in it. I actually liked what they did to her in terms of her arc despite not actually liking her motivations (Won't someone please think about my children?). Her character arc is actually pretty one dimensional in this movie but I guess watching WandaVision elevates her character by at least giving her emotional baggage to deal with. 

Moreover, hats off to Elizabeth Olsen! Olsen's acting chops came in full display and she really surprised me with her performance. And not in this movie, but in her portrayal of the Scarlet Witch through the characters everchanging personality. Sadly, only her and Cumberbatch were the ones who kept me invested in this movie. Much of the supporting cast actually brought down a lot of the experience. 

What I Didn't Like

The Multiverse

Oh boy this is a big one...I sorely disliked how they handled the multiverse. It might also be that may not even like the idea of a multiverse in movies and it's tough to describe why. I always imagined that Multiverses and major comic book events were just cop outs since writers wrote characters into storylines that really had nowhere to go. Or maybe because certain characters needed to be killed off due to their lack of popularity. And obviously Multiverses help retcon failed story experiments by comic book writers. Multiverses kind of have had this Deus Ex Machina feel for storytelling. No longer does someone die for good, instead they have another clone they can find that will be able to continue the characters storyline. It's what we used in the playground when we played pretend superheroes. 

The other part of my disappointment with the multiverse is how they didn't really use any creativity in the movie. Besides those cool moments I mentioned previously, the other universes Strange and Chavez travel to are just like...normal universe's with a different color of paint? It didn't feel like they took advantage to wow me. And at this point, I expect a lot from the MCU. I felt like there wasn't a real reason for the multiverse to exist in this movie. Especially since we already know of a certain gem stone that can control reality and a certain person who got their powers from that gem stone. So why do you even need a multiverse except to only complicate the movie more?

Also it's hilarious that every version of Dr. Strange and the Scarlet Witch are the same actor but apparently Spider-Man and the other avengers have VERY DIFFERENT actors playing their characters. And that's okay. It's Multiverse. Everything is okay, everything can work out because there's always another universe where it happened. 

America Chavez

Ugh. Talk about a McGuffin incarnate. Chavez literally has no personality and no backstory. All we know is she has two mom's and they got sucked into an alternate dimension. Almost every scene of the movie makes her almost feel like an object instead of a character. She is supposed to learn her powers but really she is only a vehicle to move the story along and give Dr. Strange something to protect. Maybe Chavez is terribly written but it could also be that Xochitl Gomez didn't really deliver her lines very well. 

I didn't care for her, like, at all. I didn't think she developed a great rapport with Strange and her power is literally just going through different multiverses and she can punch really hard. And somehow she was just super annoying at every chance she got. 

It's mentioned that she hasn't learned to control her powers but somehow has traveled through several different multiverses. It begs the question if the villain was after her this whole time or if she somehow just randomly opened portals for no reason (since she can't control her powers). It also begs the question...what about other superheroes in the other universes, why is this Dr. Strange, the only one that matters? I feel like if you kept getting burned by Avengers you'd try a different approach. 

Exposition

There are many more gripes I had with the movie but I'll stop with the way the plot was presented. There is just so much that gets explained on the fly. Wong was just a machine of exposition explaining everything about the multiverse and magic. America Chavez and other characters explain their motivations and history without much...showing. 

I mean, if this was a brand new IP, I might give this type of exposition a pass. But there is soooooooo much Marvel content now and they still can't find refreshing ways to introduce characters or present plot points? For shame. 

Conclusion

While I did think Dr. Strange and The Multiverse of Madness was good with some great moments, I felt the MCU tie-ins, exposition dumps and lackluster use of the Multiverse really brought this movie down. I really did enjoy the horror elements to the movie which gave some much needed tension. I'd probably give Dr. Strange a 6 out of 10. Mostly because the fact that it was just a good movie is, in itself, a disappointment. 

Dr. Strange is already smashing the box office so obviously my score might not even matter because the MCU train is still speeding down the mountain. 

I get it. There is a certain comfort food effect these movies have. But I also feel like people honestly believe Marvel is too big to fail. I mean, if they keep raking in billions of dollars so they must be doing something right? Right? I mean the banks in 2008 were doing something right? Right?