Film Reviews & Movie Analysis

In true Marvel madness, we were surprisingly given a horror movie in the middle of May...

It’s strange (sorry couldn’t help myself) although it has been six years since we were introduced to Stephen Strange in his flagship movie, he feels like an old friend. He has popped up and been a key part of the storyline in Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: No Way Home and even Thor: Ragnarok.

In this, his second titular movie, Stephen Strange is dealing with the contemplation of his own happiness when a teenager, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) crashes into our New York. With the ability to travel through the multi-verse, she is targeted by Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) who wishes to steal her powers and travel to another dimension to be with her sons.

Chaotic doesn’t even begin to describe the facets of this movie.

I am partial to the theory of a multi-verse. That alternate realities exist where different versions of ourselves live lives we may yearn for, or doomed fates narrowly missed? Chills.

In what felt like a plot twist, Wanda Maximoff’s Scarlet Witch was the movies antagonist, and I won’t lie – I was kind of rooting for her to win. After America’s powers she did some pretty dark stuff in her attempts to obtain them for herself. I’m talking straight up murder and multi-dimensional body possession. Despite being one of the most (if not the most) powerful beings we’ve met throughout Marvel, there still managed to be an air of jeopardy in her unstoppableness that hug over the movie like a thick choking fog.

Knowing all that Wanda had been through during Avengers: Infinity War and WandaVision, I was clinging on to the inevitability of her success. We weren’t invested enough in America’s backstory or her hardship to care too deeply about her. We knew Wanda. We knew her pain, her fragility, her desperation. I can’t be the only one who was hoping the poor woman would finally get a win.

Wanda came full circle in the close of her arc. The former adversary to the Avengers, turned hero, rightfully reclaimed villainess.

For all there is to say about the movies foe, there is little to add in regards to its friend – Doctor Stephen Strange. Funny? Yes. Grey streak? Cool. Bromance with Wong? Adorable. Pining over a woman he’s never willing to sacrifice everything to have? Yawn.

Therein lay the sum total of Stephen’s arc and emotional bandwidth as he travelled through the multiverse – realising something both he and the audience already knew. There’s a joke in there about how many times you need to hammer a nail before it goes into the wall but I can’t find it.

With the lack of a substantial story or learning curve, Stephen was a cog in the wheel, reminiscent of his involvement in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Thor: Ragnarok. This was Doctor Strange featuring Doctor Strange. It begs the question, what went wrong when the main character feels like a cameo in their own movie?

At this stage we’ve put off talking about the elephant crawling upside down on the ceiling for as long as we could. It didn’t take long for the penny to drop that we were all sat watching a horror movie – or perhaps better dubbed a super-horror in one of the first genre-bending combinations of its kind? Witches, warlocks, body possession, a haunted house, the undead – this movie had it all and then some. When you look at director Sam Raimi’s body of work, it no longer becomes so surprising that a Marvel movie decided to confidently walk through the valley of the shadow of evil.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a lot of fun watching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, because of all this madness. Let’s face it the story itself was weak and the characters didn’t bring anything new to the table. It was Raimi’s take that makes it memorable.

One thing I’ve come to enjoy from Marvel, are having other characters drop in and help out and I loved the alternative way we got that through the council on Earth 838. Subsequently the subtle What If…? tones that were prevalent throughout.

The movie was oodles of hollow fun. I would recommend watching WandaVision before embarking on the Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but you could skip What If…? Doctor Strange will indeed return, so here’s hoping that when he does, he can hold up the movie all on his own.