The Multiverse of Madness keeps Doctor Strange weird.
Sam Raimi’s horror-iffic take on the MCU made a big decision I didn't like, however.
The Short Take:
Marvel gave Director Sam Raimi a long leash with this one. If you’re a fan of his campy horror-leaning work, like The Evil Dead series, this is the MCU film for you. I was not thrilled about the treatment of a certain character, and this actively interfered with my broader enjoyment of the film.
Image Credit: The LA Times
The Long Take:
Marvel fans may know Director Sam Raimi as the creative mind behind all three Tobey McGuire Spider-Man films. In this context he holds an important place in comic book movie history, as those early Spidey films popularized comic book movies in a way their predecessors had not. Long before Spider-Man (2002), however, Raimi had made The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness 1992.
Raimi’s latest film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, crosses these two streams. For some, this will be a delight. For others, an un-ironic horror. And that’s okay. I’m here to tell you that this is one of the MCU films that may not be for all MCU fans. If you enjoy campy zombie films, then you will appreciate Raimi’s vibes. If you’re going to stress about jump scares or balk at above average violence and gore, then you may want to sit this one out, at least until it hits Disney+ so you can control when, where, how, and how long you watch it. (I know, I know, Feige has us all trapped and we can’t miss a single film or series at this point.)
To be clear, this film isn’t extremely gory or scary full stop; it’s just a darker turn relative to most MCU installments. Grotesque corpses lie prone, in full view. Necks snap. Blood streaks down faces. Things go boo. Things go bump in the night. There were a couple of scenes that prompted me to either groan, flinch, or think to myself, “That was savage.” But it’s also all very over-the-top, with tongue firmly in cheek. Sam Raimi clearly had fun making this film, and, for many, that should translate into the audience having fun too.
I like the concept behind this film. Give an acclaimed director some amount of leeway to do their thing, to build their own unique sandcastle within the MCU sandbox. This is, after all, the line of thinking that gave us Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok (2017), which falls in my top three MCU films of all time. I want more Taika Waititis, Ryan Cooglers, James Gunns, and Sam Raimis to put their own spin on the MCU. I also, by the way, want more female directors, like Chloe Zhao, to have a crack at the multiverse. Eternals (2021) didn’t totally pan out, especially critically, but at least Kevin Feige had the creative bravery to take a chance and let her make a superhero movie out of a William Blake poem. The lukewarm to cold reception that film received shouldn’t preclude directors like Zhao — especially directors that might diversify the MCU — from executing their vision.
But this means that there may be more and more MCU films that won’t be everyone’s jam. Again, that’s okay; they’re clearly not slowing down the production of these movies anytime soon, so there will be plenty of genres and styles to go around. (Can you tell I’ve been perusing wild, polarized discourse about this film on Twitter?)
Specifically pairing Sam Raimi with Doctor Strange’s corner of the MCU makes a lot of sense. The Doctor Strange-focused What if…? episode had already shown me that Doctor Strange stories can get Lovecraftian in their use of magic and the supernatural. A version of him becomes a tentacled gargantua with satan horns, for crying out loud. And with a focus on magic and other realms, a standalone Doctor Strange movie naturally lends itself to a spookier and weirder mis-en-scene. The signature levity of the MCU + the potential (for lack of a better word) strangeness of a multiversal Doctor Strange story + Sam Raimi’s affinity for grotesque goofiness = a winning combination most of the time. I caught myself chuckling, even guffawing, quite a bit.
This particular standalone Doctor Strange movie finds “our” version of Doctor Strange (from our universe) attending the wedding of his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Christine Palmer. We see him struggling to accept that she’s the one that “got away,” but an otherworldly attack down the street interrupts his wallowing in anguish. A new character, making her jump from the comics to the MCU, America Chavez, can jump between multiverses using her unpredictable supernatural powers. She’s on the run because someone or something is after her. In the process, she’s been betrayed by other variants of Doctor Strange, and must decide whether or not she wants to risk accepting help from our Strange. Slightly morbid, usually wacky high jinks ensue.
In order to make an MCU-branded horror comedy, Raimi needed a monster. And therein lies the problem I have with this movie.
[SPOILER WARNING: I’d love to explain what I mean by my previous statement, but, unfortunately, in order to continue, I will have to spoil major plot points in the film. Hopefully I’ve given you enough to help you decide if you want to see this in theaters. Put a pin in this review and come back whenever you have seen it! Also beware spoilers for the Disney+ series, WandaVision. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the series is a prerequisite to watching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but having seen it will certainly explain how we arrive at the circumstances of that film.]
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Image Credit: Variety
Sam Raimi made a monster movie, and Wanda is the monster.
If I weren’t being so sensitive about spoiling the film — I didn’t go into it knowing that Wanda would be THE villain of the whole movie, and I think that preserving that revelation, if possible, is best — I might have titled this review “Justice for Wanda.” We last saw Wanda in the end credits scene after the WandaVision finale. She’s reading the Darkhold, a book of dark magic that could unlock secrets of the multiverse, allowing Wanda to reunite with the two children she conjured as a part of a simulated life of domestic bliss in the Westfield Hex. In that scene, however, she’s merely reading the Darkhold; she hasn’t yet done anything objectionable with it.
In Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, however, she has apparently advanced her studies of the Darkhold to discover that reaching her children in other universes is possible. She discovers America Chavez’s ability to spontaneously skip to another universe, and wishes to possess her powers so that she might do the same. She also learns from the Darkhold to “dreamwalk” into other universes, possess the body of another Wanda, and enjoy the company of her children, who actually exist in that universe. The film’s explanation of Wanda’s motivations here is somewhat specious. When asked why she needs to kill America Chavez, who is also “a child,” she simply says that if she can reach all versions of her children in all universes, she can protect them all; a problem in one universe can be solved by something taken from another.
Image Credit: The Ringer
But I’m getting ahead of myself here, as I just wanted to unpack my emotional response to Wanda going from horrified with her own behavior and repentant in WandaVision to full on supervillain, innocent teenager-murdering evil in The Multiverse of Madness. I get how this must have seemed like a logical next step in the broader MCU plot after WandaVision. Wanda acquires the Darkhold, and in reaching her full potential as the Scarlet Witch, and desperate to reunite with her children, she loses control.
But no matter how I tried to rationalize this decision in the context of the story Raimi and Loki head writer Michael Waldron try to tell, I couldn’t help but get mad about Wanda. Because of WandaVision, I became very invested and attached to her character, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself that no, this makes sense, or, no, they had to do this, or, no, I should have seen this coming…I didn’t like it. I wanted Wanda to fight the monster, not act as the monster herself. And after the resolution of WandaVision, this seemed more like a regression in Wanda’s journey rather than a next step. Even actress Elizabeth Olsen has said that she had a hard time wrapping her head around why Wanda would go on a killing spree like this.
The representation of Wanda here and, more importantly, the motivation for her morally questionable demands for Strange to “not get in her way” and just “hand over” America Chavez (in what universe was Strange going to actually do that?!) also becomes problematic in a feminist context. As someone who has studied British literature, I know that female “hysteria” became an excuse to institutionalize Victorian women against their will. More broadly, it’s a precarious undertaking to equate a woman’s grief and a mother’s love for her children with pure, satanic evil, even if we’re trying to use it as a way to make her hellbent, violent agenda more sympathetic. Demonizing motherhood with a theatrical release on Mother’s Day weekend seems like an especially odd choice; I can’t decide if it’s better or worse as an intentional marketing ploy.
What gives me a sliver of hope, though, is Wanda’s line to Steven about hypocrisy. She says, ““When you break the rules, you become a hero. I do it and I become the enemy. I don’t think that’s fair.” This indicates that the film might be trying to say something about a gendered double standard. I start to think that even more once I consider the multiversal indictment of Doctor Strange by the Illuminati — that all versions of him are the biggest threat to the universe because his (male) ego and arrogance will always lead him to making reckless decisions. Could there be a subtle acknowledgment of how problematic the Wanda Maximoff as villain and Steven Strange as hero paradigm might be, built into the film? Perhaps. For me, it just wasn’t enough. In the end, Doctor Strange still defeats the Scarlet Witch and we all go back to laughing at Bruce Campbell getting punched in the face by his own hand.
Plus, there was a less offensive version of this story RIGHT THERE. I would have been much happier had another variant of Wanda from another universe incurred the 616 to try to kidnap America Chavez and absorb her powers. Then our Wanda — who has learned from WandaVision that while her grief is valid, violating other people to cope with that grief is not — can try to talk down this other Wanda we don’t know, who has let the Darkhold and her grief corrupt her. Let our Wanda and our Steven team up to defend Earth against another less complicated and more evil Scarlet Witch. Then we deflect that problematic representation of motherhood onto another variant we don’t know and don’t mind defeating (which would more clearly communicate the film’s disapproval of such a trope), rather than punishing a beloved character and robbing her of her complexity.
Image Credit: Indiewire
In fear of creating a hypocrisy of my own, I must acknowledge that in the comics there is precedent for Wanda being out of control and becoming a major threat. Brian Michael Bendis’ House of M in 2005 shows a bevy of Marvel characters — including Doctor Strange — trying to keep Wanda’s reality-altering powers at bay, leading to a discussion of whether or not it would be better for the greater good to kill Wanda instead. But, to my knowledge, Wanda herself never does or says anything overtly reprehensible; the story very much frames her as not in touch with her own reality, in a manner similar to WandaVision. I still finished reading that comic feeling bad for Wanda and feeling like it wasn’t her fault; her powers were just too great and terrible. I don’t get that same impression from this film. Raimi’s version of Wanda seems completely in control. Regardless, I don’t think Wanda as full villain makes sense in the current MCU continuity.
Image Credit: IGN
I want to like this film more than I do. I really like the idea of a more horror-heavy Doctor Strange story, and I generally enjoy Sam Raimi’s sense of humor. The Bruce Campbell cameo made me very happy. (Though the amount of time it took my theater to realize he was someone they were supposed to recognize was a little depressing.) And I’m a fan of Team Strange/Wong/Chavez/Palmer. Wong, as always, was an utter delight, even though he spent most of this film passed out on the ground. The tunnel scene where someone (I think America) says, “Where…is she?” and then a bloodied murder Wanda jumps out to scare them was fun (but again, make it a different Wanda). So if you have a way to appease my own pro-Wanda ire, please try.
Image Credit: Forbes
I can’t close out this review without mentioning the MASSIVE cameos this film had, especially when we visit universe 838 and meet the Illuminati. I kind of love that Raimi completely toys with MCU fans, who have come to expect and constantly theorize about these kind of surprise appearances from beloved characters. It’s almost as if he says, okay, I’ll give you what you want: Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, fancast (or fan-rumored?) John Krasinski as Reed Richards, Haley Atwell as Captain Britain, and Carol Danvers’ best friend, Maria Rambeau (who is also the mom of Monica Rambeau from WandaVision) as Captain Marvel. But then I’m going to savagely execute them one by one. Seeing Professor X go out like that hurt the most, but I appreciated the dark humor behind this choice overall. Again, we don’t have longstanding relationships with these particular variants, so it’s okay to dangle them in front of us only to tear them away a few minutes later.
As for the second post-credits scene, I had no idea that Charlize Theron’s character was Clea, who has a history with Doctor Strange in the comics. I had never heard of Clea before this, so her appearance wasn’t particularly exciting. But I’m generally a big fan of Theron as mega-watt action star (see Mad Max: Fury Road), so I’m here for it.
And now we wait for Ms. Marvel on Disney+ June 8 and Thor: Love and Thunder, which hits theaters July 8. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it’s much less likely that Taika Waititi will do something with Thor that will bother me. Just don’t blow it with Natalie Portman’s Mighty Thor, okay?!