‘Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness’ review
The Marvel cinematic universe has been strongly a little bit since the end of phase 3, to be fair topping Avengers: Endgame was never ever going to be an easy task. Marvel have had a few good stabs at matching the success of the endgame but ever attempt falls just a tiny bit short. Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed mourning for Tony stark in ‘Spider-man: Far from home’ and seeing all three cinematic Spider-men in appear in ‘Spider-man: No way home’ made me lose my damned mind. Another fair point is, ‘Moonknight’, ‘Wandavision’ and ‘Loki’ have all been pretty solid TV experiences. None of this prevents me from having to say that Marvel studios is slacking in the cinema releases, ‘Eternals’ and ‘Shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings’ were just fine but not rant worthy. To cut this rambling short, does ‘Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness’ fix this problem? There are a good few talking points.
Firstly, to talk about the multiverse of madness is to talk about the villain! Elizabeth Olsen returns as Wanda Maximoff, now more than secure in her identity as the scarlet witch, and she is scary as hell. Scarlet Witch steals the show as an unstoppable force relentlessly assaulting Strange and his companions. It appears literally nothing but herself can stand in her way, that’s compelling viewing with our heroes scrambling to escape. This is by far the films greatest strength, but this isn’t her film so that turns it around to being a negative.
Secondly… Oh My God, is that Patrick Stewart back as Professor-X? did they play the fox kids X-men theme as he entered the room? Have they cast John Krasinski as Reed Richards just like the fans asked? Damn, is Hayley Atwell playing a live-action Captain Carter? This film provides the audience with a whole lot of cameos from other properties or fan theories, and it is glorious. I really liked seeing all these characters that I have loved for many years of my life. However, this segment of the film is nothing more than an overwrought cameo, it just didn’t need to be done. Every piece of information given in the section of the film could have been placed somewhere else, delivered by other characters.
My last good talking point is that this is quite obviously directed by Sam Raimi, Raimi brings a nice touch of horror spectacle to the show. Scarlet Witch is horrifying when she comes after the protagonist’s throughout, limbs bending unnaturally or covered in blood. Dr strange also has a short stint as a zombie who wields the souls of the undead. Isn’t that just so Evil Dead? I didn’t know that that I needed a Marvel film featuring spookiness, but I did, I do, and I want more of it, maybe Blade? Oh! Ghost-Rider, please make a good Ghost-Rider film.
Dr Strange and the multiverse of madness is perfectly good film, it has some great visuals and is the pay off to a story that has been building for the past few films and show sin the marvel cinematic universe. Benedict Cumberbatch is just as form fitting for the role as he always has been and if he continues like this Doctor Strange will remain consistently watchable, which is a very loose and not great compliment. I’m just not a major fan of this character and the fact that Marvel studios seem to be revolving everything around him currently isn’t my favourite thing.
Despite the negatives this movie is pretty decent, just not one that I love. Do watch this, especially if you are interested in keeping up to date with the MCU. No this film does not fix the Marvel Studio’s MCU problem. You won’t hate it, but you probably won’t really love it either.