- Reviewing ‘Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness’
With everything going on in the country, a much awaited movie release was the least of everyone’s thoughts – or so we thought, until we attempted to get tickets to watch Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Each time we tried, the theatres were fully booked.
Eventually, we did manage to watch the movie and while we wouldn’t say it was worth the effort attempting to acquire tickets, it wasn’t a complete waste of time. It didn’t have the allure of most Marvel movies; but as a stand-alone, it was worth the two-and-a-half hours spent on it.
Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness is certainly one heck of a psychedelic experience. The movie gives us a glimpse of what Marvel has to offer going into Phase Four. Immediately, we noticed that it is one of the most unique and different Marvel movies ever. This is the craziest film Marvel has made up to date, presenting the most horrifying scenes Marvel has offered yet with hints of drama and action. The cinematography, CGI, music, visuals, psychedelic effects, and the unusual elements of horror and surprise add to the flummoxing experience. The entire movie is riddled with a ton of references to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and also the comics, but while most fans would enjoy and understand those references, someone that isn’t familiar with the timeline or hasn’t read a handful of comics will be left in the dark at times. Other than that, there were remarkable appearances and somewhat glorified cameos, which have greatly ignited fan interest, but failed to take off as they were quickly blown off by the sequences that follow. Don’t expect Spider-Man No Way Home-level collaboration from this film, since it’s still a Dr. Strange stand-alone movie after all.
In our opinion, the direction of the movie is exactly what made it entirely different from a typical MCU movie experience – due praise must be given to Director Sam Raimi, who did wonders in directing the film. With Raimi at the helm, his expertise on making horror films were put to good use. There were nods to iconic horror films like Carrie, The Ring, and The Exorcist. Despite its horror elements, the feel of the film is overshadowed by the emotional arc of Wanda for this movie. Her struggle through grief portrayed by a terrific performance from Elizabeth Olsen steals most of the show. As for Benedict Cumberbatch, he seemed to be enjoying playing different versions of himself, and each were believably unique in their own ways.
When it comes to the story and plot of the movie, however, it focuses more on the character of Wanda Maximoff and Scarlet Witch, surrounding her character development and backstory; although the screen time allocated to Dr. Strange is more than that of Wanda, the movie could easily have been titled around Wanda. In the screen time where Dr. Strange was featured, we can see different versions of him from alternate realities that have been explored in the movie, which in turn, provides a deep insight into the multiverse and its infinite possibilities – an idea rather untouched, that the previous marvel movies hadn’t dived too deep into. The character of America Chavez has also been brought into limelight in this movie, although to us, the plot made the character develop very randomly and the film could have done better with giving more importance to the character development of Chavez, who was undoubtedly supposed to be a main character and the cause of all the madness – albeit at the end of the movie she plays an important role.
A disappointing factor was the length of the movie, which, we felt, could have been a bit longer – the director seemed to just want to end the movie by the last few minutes. We must note that the whole movie seemed too fast paced – the first 20 minutes itself could easily have been shown towards the end of the movie. They immediately dove right into the action scenes and left the talking and plot catch-ups to the last few minutes.
Overall, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, like its name, has many unexpected turns and elements of shock and startle – one could even say the plot is utter madness. While some people were disappointed in the mess the plot had become (due to a change in directors, rescheduling, and switching places in the grand scheme of the MCU) the disarray played perfectly into the “multiverse of madness” theme. We personally enjoyed the chaos. The story isn’t continuous with the character and does leave you with mixed emotions of confusion, excitement, astonishment, and grief, but is worth the watch. The movie is dark, trippy, surprising, and bewildering. We think it would be highly oversimplified to call it the best Marvel movie, but it is definitely the most unique one. The film is undoubtedly a proper opener for Marvel’s Phase Four films and the infinite possibilities moving forward.
