- Warning: There are minor spoilers ahead for "
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ." - The Sam Raimi-directed sequel is filled with sprawling action scenes that are fun to watch.
"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" is filled with mind-bending visuals and huge action sequences, but it's also destined to be
Marvel's 28th film is, unexpectedly, the studio's darkest film to date with many violent moments that may be a bit too much for a younger crowd.
Additionally, there are multiple creative choices that will be controversial among fans.
The sequel to the 2016 film wastes no time getting right into a big action sequence. We follow Doctor Stephen Strange (
Once you learn who is after young America, you may find yourself conflicted over the film's choice of villain.
Elizabeth Olsen gives a tremendous performance as the Scarlet Witch, but her role in the film may be controversial.
If you don't want any sort of spoilers, I'd stop reading here. I'm noting the following because it's a major plot point of the entire film which will likely divide fans.
We learn pretty early on in the film that Wanda/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) is the main villain who's after America's unique powers in order to find a universe where she can be with her children again. (Does she really need America to be able to get to another universe if she's an all-powerful witch? Debatable.)
I'm not sure if fans will accept that Wanda, a character who fans fell in love with as she navigated grief beautifully in "WandaVision," takes such a dire turn in this film so quickly to make her a full-blown villain.
Without getting into spoilers, she does some pretty horrific things in this film that may leave fans floored.
Those who have not seen "WandaVision" may feel a little lost here as it's not really explained how Wanda all of a sudden had children who somehow disappeared. Strange drops a line that they never really existed, but that may not be enough for general moviegoers who will then wonder how she has children in other universes.
It's also a tough sell that a mother would want to regain her children at the expense of someone else's child (America), suggesting that the film's script needed more of a woman's touch than just that of writer Michael Waldron.
That being said, Olsen is a scene-stealer in every moment of the film. She understands every nuance of Wanda and plays her to perfection. Here, she's allowed to dive into some of the scarier aspects of the Scarlet Witch as a dark magical book, the Darkhold, takes hold of her.
For those who complain that Marvel movies never have consequences, this film definitely does, but fans may leave the film unhappy with some of the big swings the film takes to villainize Wanda, a woman who is just yearning to be with her children again. Hopefully this isn't the last we see of her in the
The sequel's full of beautiful sequences and horror elements. It works to an extent.
You're never bored watching "Multiverse of Madness" as it moves quickly from one massive action piece to the next. But the film is a bit disjointed as it juggles being a horror
To his credit, director Sam Raimi injects the film with effective jump scares and some fun nods to his horror roots. ("Evil Dead" fans will be pleased.)
There are several gorgeously mesmerizing moments in the film, including one early on where Wanda finds herself inside a magical trap of Strange's devices. That's the only one that rivals the Escher-inspired mirror dimension in the 2016 film.
Instead, the movie is filled with many huge battle sequences that cleverly use magic. Most are entertaining to watch, except one towards the end which feels a bit random when two adversaries start using musical notes as weapons.
While more mature in tone, the film may be a bit too scary at times for youngsters. Parents taking children to see the film should know there are several brutal deaths on screen that were a bit shocking for a Disney film.
The film over-promises on delivering to fans.
"Multiverse of Madness" largely feels like Marvel is trying to replicate what Sony did in December with "Spider-Man: No Way Home," but with less success. Here,
Lower your expectations going into this film a bit. One of the most frustrating aspects of "Multiverse of Madness" is believing that it has more tricks up its sleeve than it actually does.
The film contains less variants, less cameos, and less appearances of alternate multiverse dimensions than the film's teasers may lead you to believe. The film's most satisfying surprises are short-lived, something which may also draw ire from fans. (If you've been online recently, just about every big cameo in the film has leaked, save for one.)
The film sets up the expectations of going through various parallel universes; however, it never really seems to deliver on the promise of seeing this entire mad multiverse. At one point early in the film, America says that she's been to over 70 different universes.
While the sequel zooms by a dozen or so different worlds in one brief sequence — most of which have already been shown in trailers — the film largely fixates on four universes while merely teasing some other more fascinating worlds.
Most frustrating is that the catastrophic events of "Loki," in which the multiverse was actually broken, have no effect whatsoever on this movie. (What's the point of these Disney+ TV series if they're not going to have some sort of payoff in films when they're meant to exist in the same world? Should we not be wasting time on them?)
Additionally, the film largely ignores the end of the first "Doctor Strange" film in which Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) swears he'll destroy anyone with magic. Here, we puzzlingly only see a variant of his character, despite trailers making fans think otherwise.
Gaping holes like that made me wonder what Scott Derrickson's version of "Multiverse of Madness" would've been before he departed the project over creative differences in 2020.
By the film's end, everyone seems to have a satisfying resolution except for Wanda. As the character says early on in the film, that just doesn't seem fair.
Also starring Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, and Michael Stuhlbarg, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" is in theaters Friday. As always, stay during the credits for two extra scenes. Only the first one is impactful to the future of the MCU.