It’s unfortunate that the second Doctor Strange outage came right after the hotly anticipated and fully satisfying Spiderman No Way Home. With the Spidey gig giving the audience and fans everything they wanted, expectation for Doctor Strange, especially with the directing trailers, were ridiculously high.
However, most forgot that, this Doctor Strange story is nothing but a continuation of what happened in Spiderman No Way Home and WandaVision. The writing is on the wall but at this point nothing matters for the fans.
That doesn’t mean that it did not deliver, but any mis-steps will lead to frustration and disappointment that does not necessary be warranted.
As mentioned, the premise of this movie continues the story of Spiderman and WandaVision. New characters were introduced but for me, it feels more like a new appendix finale for other movies and TV series. Doctor Strange, who was in the title role, feels more like a plot mover than a main character. For anyone who followed the movies and Disney + series closely, they are well aware of the intricacies of the story. However, for those who only followed the movies but are not a Disney+ subscriber, everything will be confusing, and I think that’s where this movie fell short.
The concept of the multiverse is not new, especially for comic book readers, and people who have been following the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) and the latest phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCDU). The Crisis of Infinite Earth on the CW channel that crossed overed all of their main DC properties successfully set up the multiverse concept for DCEU, and the same was with the Disney+ series in Phase 4 and the subsequent Spidey and Doctor Strange movies. However, the multiverse is more than just introducing the same characters in different universe or worlds, although that was the main purpose.
The difference between DCEU and MCU in this phase is, DCEU simply used it to tidy up all the loose and disorganised movie properties in the last few decades; while MCU is trying to tell a carefully crafted and continuous story about the multiverse. Because of the this the expectation of continuity is much lower for the DCEU compared to the MCU. What the latest Doctor Strange movie suffered most is the requirements for the audience to follow their series on Disney+, which a number of them may not have done so. As such, no matter how brilliant I personally think Doctor Strange 2 continued with the Disney+ series story, it became confusing and hard to follow for others who have no idea what happened in, for example WandaVision.
Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness is definitely not a bad movie. I totally enjoyed it and there are lots of fan service moments. And for anyone who like the Evil Dead series, there were lots of moments playing homage to the famous Sam Raimi series. But is that enough?
Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen Strange delivered as he always did. But for me it was Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff, now officially ordained as the Scarlet Witch who shines. However, this was very circumstantial because her storyline gave her a lot more materials to work with, and her materials were a lot more layered, coming off the events of WandaVision. For Benedict Cumberbatch, attempts were made to provide a coherent storyline for him. Coherent was the storyline, but it was less impactful considering the premise and events of the whole movie. Xochitl Gomez’s America Chavez was supposed to be a pivotal character despite being a new comer, but then she lacks materials to shine apart from two scenes throughout the whole movie. I like the usual dynamic between Stephen and Wong, but then there were quite a number of things that was murky in terms of the narrative so far, with the role of the Sorcerer Supreme, the realisation of Stephen Strange with Wanda being a magic user (last time she was still being seen as just a mind stone powered miracle), the existence of multiple copies of a magic book while the counter magic book has only one copy. Not that they seriously hindered the movie’s progress, but for me, someone who follow the narrative closely, those were just questions popping up during the session.
There were some harsh critics of the move, but I personally did not think it is anyway bad at all. I in fact love it. I could be bias as I always have a soft spot for Elizabeth Olsen’s character, and how the character evolves over the years – from a sideline character to now a prominent player with layers and layers of story to tell and emotional roller-coaster to ride on. And Elizabeth’s ability to deliver those stories certainly helped.
I wished the movie had touched more on the ending of WandaVision at the beginning so people had an idea what’s happening, especially those who did not follow or subscribe Disney+. And I think moving forward, Kevin Feige might need to consider this.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now in the theatres.
