As of writing this, I have just gotten home from the theater after watching the new MCU film Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Overall, it was an incredibly entertaining film with dazzling imagery and cool action. Here’s my spoiler review of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And yes, there will be spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t seen the film. And with that, let’s begin.
First of all, Multiverse of Madness was a fine film. If you saw my MCU ranking, you’ll know I gave the film an 86%. The film was full of great action, special effects, and compelling story. However, it’s one of those “the fate of the universe depends on it” movies, which I never think are done properly. While it was significantly better than Eternals, it still had some shortcomings. It tried to fit too many plot lines into one movie. There was so much going on in a film that barely scraped the 2-hour mark. And also, it didn’t even touch on Loki or No Way Home at all. What happened after Sylvie broke the sacred timeline in Loki? Or what about the entire world forgetting about Peter Parker after No Way Home? If you’re looking for answers, you won’t find them in Multiverse of Madness.
Speaking of multiverses, this isn’t an epic multiverse-switching action adventure like I thought it was. They go into like three different multiverses in the movies. Even when America Shavez (who was awesome in the movie) and Strange are blasting through multiverses, we see each one for like 3 seconds maximum. That’s what I call a missed opportunity.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23434707/Screen_Shot_2022_05_03_at_3.59.40_AM.png)
Next is the cameos. Holy crap. John Krasinski as Reed Richards, Monica Rambeau’s Captain Marvel, Black Bolt, Captain Carter from What If?, and even Professor Xavier himself. Epic right? Well, Wanda kills them all in like 10 minutes. Seriously Marvel?
Speaking of Wanda, she’s actually the villain in this film, and is a pretty terrifying one to say the least. She looks like a zombie, she’s trying to steal Chavez’s powers to find her boys in the multiverse, and she’s killing basically everyone. There’s also a zombie Doctor Strange like in What If?, though it seemed to serve not much purpose except a way for Strange to ‘dream walk’ in other universes.
So, even though I’ve mostly talked about the negatives of the film, it was still an enjoyable adventure filled with lots of action, suspense, and superheroes. Overall, it was an entertaining and epic yet messy Marvel film.