doctor strange in the multiverse of madness

Is there even a point to reviewing Marvel movies anymore? If you’re still keeping up with these “movies,” it’s either because you’re a Stan Lee-ordained True Believer or, like me, you’ve put in this much work keeping up with the sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe and you feel obligated to see the latest entry. As such, this review will be less about Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness per se, and more a generalized broadside (read: a rant) against The House of Mouse. The Marvel machine continues to grow ever stronger and after 28 (!) entries in the MCU, any sense of personality or identity has been completely scrubbed.  Each movie has to be a cog in the machine and must serve an ever-expanding mythos, at the cost of wit, pathos, and originality.  It’s no wonder that directors like Edgar Wright and Edward Norton have been rebuffed by the MCU.  God forbid someone leave their mark on their own film! Granted, there are exceptions to the rule. But these diamonds in the rough are dwindling in number.  The last wholly original entry was Chloe Zhao’s unfairly maligned The Eternals, a sprawling family drama full of quiet beauty and aching tenderness, that just happened to have superheroes in it.  Yes, Spider-Man: No Way Home had its moments (ahem, Andrew Garfield in literally any scene), but by and large, it was a movie designed to keep the Marvel machine moving forward. Always, inexorably, inexhaustibly forward. Which brings us to the next pile of cinematic vomit, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness.

Devoting time to describing the plot would imply that this movie has a distinct narrative identity.  If it tells you anything, the only plot element that stuck with me is that Doctor Strange dyes his hair. Apparently, the master of the mystic arts isn’t above vanity. (Okay, so this isn’t made explicit, but c’mon, you’re going to tell me that a middle-aged man who’s had to save the world multiple times has jet-black hair? Riiiiight.) Instead, it suffices to say that this movie further pushes the MCU into multiverse territory, building on the excellent Disney+ series Loki and WandaVision.  Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen, doing her best with a two-dimensional role) is still reeling from the events of WandaVision and finds herself making certain decisions that put her into direct conflict with one Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch, who is almost certainly counting the days until he can return to indie film territory ala the excellent, wrenching Power of the Dog). Multiverse antics ensue from there, as Strange and America Chavez (newcomer Xochitl Gomez) must save not just one, but, y’know, all of the universes.

One would think that the premise would lead to a wacky, Antman­-esque romp through the multiverse. Heck, moviegoers can still catch Everything Everywhere All At Once in theaters for an example of how to do this, and do it well. But Doctor Strange 2 squanders its premise; it spends much of its runtime in the same one or two locales (“universes”), both re-skinned versions of New York, with the exception of one brief sequence featuring Strange and Chavez being flung through different universes—one in which they’re animated, and one in they literally fall to pieces (an arresting, disturbing visual). The movie instead lurches from one cacophonous CGI battle scene to the next, with the rare ‘quiet’ scenes completely devoid of any dramatic heft.  This is a shame, because the first Doctor Strange was a quirky delight.  As superhero origin stories go, it was run-of-the-mill—a rich jerk gets injured and begins a redemptive journey, becoming a rich jerk with superpowers. But the fight sequences were a joy to behold, with creative physics-defying choreography that called to mind the hallway fight scene from Inception. This movie holds no such pleasures. Despite being helmed by Sam Raimi, fresh out of superhero jail for his Spider-Man 3 crimes against humanity, the movie could’ve been directed by anyone. It dips definitively into horror at times, to amusing effect—at one point, Dr. Strange mind-controls a zombie version of himself—and there are occasional Raimi-esque touches that evoke Evil Dead. Tilted camera angles, first-person shots of characters being attacked by the undead, and so on. But these are few and far between and don’t do much to differentiate this movie from any other entry.

Part of what makes Doctor Strange 2 particularly disappointing is that it has the benefit of following Marvel’s excellent foray into television. Almost all of the MCU’s small-screen entries have been lovely and moving in their own right. WandaVision was a lovely, moving exploration of grief and loss (featuring one of the most exquisitely crafted lines of dialogue ever—“What is grief, if not love persevering?”). Loki was a fun, anarchic, at times wickedly funny romp that wrestled with the notion of free will and fate. And Moon Knight was a flawed but fascinating portrayal of mental illness and Egyptian mythology that mostly served as an acting showcase for Oscar Isaac (no complaints here). The point being, the Disney+ shows had the creative freedom to really flesh out their characters and explore themes that their big-screen cousins didn’t have time to. (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while admirable in its acknowledgement of systemic racism, was ultimately brought down by its lack of psychological depth and unwillingness to take advantage of the expanded format. Hawkeye was a modest pleasure—I particularly enjoyed the accurate portrayal of hearing-impairment and deafness as being two separate subcultures—but it ultimately was a low-calorie, forgettable snack.) All that is to say, it’s disappointing to see Doctor Strange 2 reduce WandaVision’s complex, flawed heroine to a two-dimensional, cookie-cutter villain; all of her melancholy, grief, and longing have been subsumed in favor of a bland universe-destroying rage.

Another reason this film is disquieting is because it’s been assigned the task of shepherding the MCU into its next big phase—the multiverse. But this is an inauspicious start, devoid of any sense of whimsy and lacking any narrative cohesion. Say what you will about the earlier movies—the whole Infinity Gauntlet saga was a bit silly, yes. But it was a unifying, concrete plot and one could easily identify the overall ‘goal’ of the characters (and the movies themselves), even if the actual details regarding these MacGuffins could sometimes be difficult to keep up with.  This is now the 6th film since Avengers: Endgame, and I’m still struggling to define the current phase of the MCU (Phase 4, if you’re counting).  Yes, there’s a multiverse, but…what’s the point? Beyond giving Marvel and Disney loopholes to bring in fan favorite characters that were previously excluded due to rights issues, the overarching plot of these movies is still unclear. (This movie has the obligatory fan-service cameos, which are handled in a surprisingly dark fashion. Without spoiling anything, the particular plot mechanics associated with these cameos have been done before, and to much greater effect—see: Deadpool 2.)

I still remember the sense of wonder I felt when my college dormmates and I went to see Iron Man way back in 2008. Superhero movies had been done before, but that movie felt different. It was fun, exciting, and even a bit irreverent. And that was before anyone had heard the words ‘cinematic universe.’ 28 films later, it’s becoming more difficult to maintain the same sense of wide-eyed wonder and enthusiasm. With any luck, the MCU narrative pendulum will eventually swing back toward fostering the likes of outings such as Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok. If not, there’s still hope. All we need is for America Chavez to show up and teleport us to a universe in which there’s still room for originality on the silver screen.