Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

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Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is still dealing with the aftermath of opening the multiverse. When young America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) comes into our universe with monsters hot on her tail, Strange along with Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong) have to help her along with keeping the world in order.

Full disclosure, I have a longer post set to come up tomorrow specifically on how this movie handles Wanda Maximoff. That's going to have a fair amount of spoilers about how her arc ends, but this review will remain spoiler free.

My biggest takeaway from this is that I hope Michael Waldron never writes these characters again. He was fine as a writer in Loki but the dialogue and characterizations here borderline on being awful at times. This is a film that truly only works because of its actors and the director's signature style.

If you like how Raimi shoots his films, you'll love this. His weird camerawork is back and there's a scene he does with piano notes that is truly stunning and was my favorite thing in the whole movie. Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen give amazing performances. Ones that honestly deserve a better film.

Wong doesn't get a ton to do, but I'm glad he's here. I wish they had made him a bit more powerful now that he is the Sorcerer Supreme. Gomez honestly spends the entire movie running and screaming but she's got a lot of potential. Her scenes with Wong and Strange were cute. 

I'm bitterly disappointed with this film overall and it was the MCU film I was the most excited for this year. I really hope Thor and Black Panther make it right again. More on this in my rant tomorrow.

Grade: C+

Comments

  1. thevoid99May 8, 2022 at 4:44 PM

    I do like this film I think a lot more than you did as I'm just starting to work on my own review. I understand your qualms as I think Michael Waldron is best with just doing TV as the script was a mess. Sam Raimi thankfully saved the film. Olsen of course, killed it. She is great while I was happy to see Wong do more as I liked his role in this while I was also happy to see Christine Palmer be given more to do. I'm still processing it right now as I might have my review done later tonight or tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamMay 9, 2022 at 7:52 AM

      The only thing that saves me from going completely insane about Wanda is that Lizzie was fantastic. lol

      Delete
  2. Kat ImpossibleMay 11, 2022 at 11:30 AM

    I'm going to just say it, but ... I dislike Waldron so much at this point. The Loki series was my least favorite last year and it was mostly because of the writing. His projects always just leave me sad, despite featuring my favorite characters and that's wrong on so many levels. I'm off to check out your longer Wanda post now!

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    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamMay 12, 2022 at 7:57 AM

      Yeah, he's not a good writer. I didn't love the Loki series either, but he wrote that better than he wrote this.

      Delete
  3. ruthMay 11, 2022 at 4:55 PM

    We're in the same camp on this one. The performances are good but overall just too chaotic. I wish Wong had more scenes too, he's always so fun to watch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamMay 12, 2022 at 7:57 AM

      He is. I was so happy when he popped up in Shang-Chi

      Delete

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