Sunday, May 08, 2022

Film: Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

 

GENRE: Fantasy, Adventure
RATING: PG-13 for violence and some language
RUNTIME: 2 hours and 6 minutes
PLATFORM: Movie Theatre
STARRING: Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock, Imitation Game)
Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision); Xochitl Gomez (Baby-Sitters Club)
DIRECTOR: Sam Raimi (Spiderman, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead)
WRITERS: Michael Waldron (Loki)
PLOT: Doctor Strange opens a doorway to the multiverse which causes loads of problems.     

FULL DISCLOSURE: Went in expecting to be confused.   

STORY STUFF: While I understand what a multiverse is, I find the concept a tad overused to get away with life and death rules. Don’t get me wrong, there is some entertaining stuff that can be done in a multiverse. In fact, there are some great cameos in this film due it: there were some mini-cheers in the audience (not Spiderman level cheering, but still). I won’t spoil them but one was fun if you’ve seen Disney+’s What If? series. The story confused me a little but I got the gist and it was mostly entertaining but didn’t blow me away. I also find Scarlet Witch is way too powerful, it’s a pretty unfair fight. You also should see Wandavision on Disney+ beforehand if you want to know Wanda’s backstory that plays heavily into this film.

ACTING STUFF: Cumberbatch gets to play some good emotions and laughs. Benedict Wong continues to play a fun sidekick but underused. Olsen was pretty one note for most of the movie which was a little disappointing. Her last few scenes make up for it though. I wasn’t drawn to Gomez as America Chavez, but I don’t really know why. Love seeing Bruce Campbell ham it up for his pal Sam Raimi.

ARTISTIC STUFF: Lots of cool special effects as they travel the multiverse. Some nice zombie make-up as well. There is a fight with musical notes that was cute but didn’t really fit within the gravity of the scene. Also wish the cloak was used more in this film – it stole the show last time.   

VERDICT: Three and a half stars out of five
SEE IT IF: You like Marvel films and have seen Wandavision.
UPCOMING REVIEW:  Top Gun: Maverick 

1 comment:

Sean said...

Fun, but really confusing and over-ambitious. The visuals were great, but it felt like Raimi was trying too hard to be relevant in the MCU by creating a Walmart Inception. Rules were rarely if ever mentioned about the multiverse, which may lead to the a eventual collapse of the system as a whole for marvel.