Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness: So Many Maestri, So Little Time

***NO SPOILERS FOR MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS, BUT SPOILERS FOR PREVIOUS MARVEL MOVIES AND TV SHOWS - ESPECIALLY WANDAVISION, NO WAY HOME, INFINITY WAR, AND THE ORIGINAL DOCTOR STRANGE ABOUND WITHIN. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.***

Maybe in an alternate section of our multiverse, this Doctor Strange sequel would've dropped in May 2021 like nature intended. And maybe Scott Derrickson would've still been able to direct?

But no, the version we got comes to us from another horror maestro, one who also has well-established previous experience in the world of superheroes. And I just can't imagine how anyone could've done this movie better justice than Sam Raimi in the director's chair. With a touch of the old Spider-Man style from the 2000s - Raimi gets a fair few fight scenes choreographed in such a way that Tobey Maguire would feel right at home if he ever got the chance to pop through one of Strange's sling ring portals again - and a generous helping of Raimi's Evil Dead vibes, plus the welcome returns of Danny Elfman behind the conductor's stand and Bruce Campbell getting another most memorable cameo?

All on a backdrop of multiversal shenanigans to rival Fringe, or even Agents of SHIELD - which I do highly recommend you catch up on, especially since Season 4 was the first intro to a key concept around which this film revolves.

It's Raimi's funhouse. We're all just running through it.

"Things just got out of hand..."

Though Marvel has been teasing the multiverse for years now, and dipping ever more toes into scientifically-infused magic for just as many, let's be honest. Marvel spent so many years building up the multiverse that by the time we get an intentional exploration of it (no, No Way Home doesn't count, because the accidents caused by Peter constantly screwing up Doctor Strange's spellwork are just that, accidents that brought Maguire and Garfield and all their villains back after so many years' absence, though still better than the troll job that was Far From Home trying to promote the multiverse and yanking the rug out with the truth of Mysterio's identity), it may or may not come off a bit derivative of other, previous works. Namely, Tomorrowland, which is where I suspected some inspiration for Earth-838's lovely tree-lined New York came from, and of course the recent indie smash Everything Everywhere All At Once, whose cast and crew are losing no time shading their Marvel rival on the internet. (There's one particular visual in the film's climax that so strongly resembles EEAAO's deadly Everything Bagel that it can't be a coincidence.)

But this particular hop, skip, and jump through the multiverse doesn't run on gleeful intentional nonsensoleum to mask its emotional complexity. Hell, even Strange's notorious snark (though still present whenever he talks with Wong, of course) is noticeably dialed down in this installment - one of those talking points to which critics might point when they declare that this movie strays too far from the Marvel formula, and yet that's supposed to be a bad thing? I mean, I love Marvel, but the movies of the last few years were starting to develop some of the same flaws all over the place. (The biggest pet peeves for me, at least, being uninspired climactic battles and some really ill timed humor.) But here, we get a bit less humorous and a bit more of a deep dive into the complex characterizations of our protagonist Strange and our antagonist the Scarlet Witch.

Yep, Wanda's morality has shifted again, and this time, it's all because of the Darkhold she picked up around the end of WandaVision. As any Agents of SHIELD fan can tell you, it's a dangerously corruptive little book, and as a grieving wife and mother (to children who don't exist on this plane), Wanda still maintains strong sympathetic undercurrents even as she lets her unresolved traumas take advantage of her and bring her to the darkest places, mentally and morally, that she's ever known.

And in a world where the main connection to the multiverse only happens during sleep, well, what Wanda wants is someone capable of freely traveling between dimensions.

Or maybe not.

See, our new heroine America Chavez (to whom I, as a fan, have now been introduced for the first time with this movie) can jump from universe to universe, but not willingly. Not quite. It's fear activated for the most part - in fact, the first time she broke a star-shaped hole across the multiverse, it was because a bee scared her when she was little. Since then, she's become a formidably resourceful girl with tons of magic built up - if only she knew how to properly channel it. And alongside that limited confidence is a relatable and damaging loneliness - the source of which is her knowledge that unlike almost everyone else with a multiversal counterpart, she has none. And she knows this because she never dreams. Still, for how lonely she is, nothing can tarnish her heart of gold, and along with the return of Wanda's twins Billy and Tommy from across the multiverse, we're starting to get somewhere with planting the seeds for the formation of the MCU's Young Avengers.

For two hours, Strange and America journey at odds with Wanda, who's developed some particularly dangerous skills to help herself out in her goals. Her psychic powers can work at greater distances now, and even when Strange traps her in the famously Inception-like mirror universe, she can simply phase through any reflective surface to get back to the real world. (Well, not simply, because she has to contort her body in all sorts of unnatural ways to make it happen.) And even when acquaintances of his Earth-838 counterpart warn him of the dangers his arrogance may put the multiverse in, Strange, no stranger to making hard choices (he still gets a ton of flak for giving Thanos the Time Stone from the Eye of Agamotto), steps up to the plate with unorthodox methods for taking on Wanda and other assorted threats. Including, of course, at least one alternate version of himself (as seen in the very first trailer.)

If this movie has a flaw, it's that the writers find themselves hamstrung by a few obvious corporate mandates from above (no wonder Scott Derrickson left, though I suspect that Raimi probably put up a pretty good fight to maintain his own vision too.) The Illuminati scene in particular, revealing a council of alternate Avengers of sorts, features several welcome cameos, at least one of which was spoiled majorly in the Super Bowl trailer (and another one which had my entire showing in the theater applauding, except for me, because I thought this particular cameo was just so much blatant fanservice and that that character would absolutely benefit from being played by a different actor going forward.) And then the script just kinda glosses over a few past Marvel works' cliffhangers - notably the villainous turn of Baron Mordo at the end of the first Doctor Strange in 2016, to which Strange alludes that he's been getting in occasional battles with his Earth's Mordo while meeting 838-Mordo; also, the very end of WandaVision where Wanda hears her boys calling for help, and yet when we reconnect with her, she's still all alone and incredibly desperate to see them again. Deleted scenes, perhaps? Did Marvel mandate a runtime under 130 minutes on this one? Hard to say.

Still, though, for their first feature film of 2022, Marvel pulls out all the stops with Sam Raimi's assistance, plus top-notch performances by Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, and all the rest of the cast. (Well, maybe not so much Michael Stuhlbarg in an utterly waste-of-time cameo.)

Welcome, one and all, to Raimi's A-grade multiversal funhouse.

Till next time, Pinecones...

#FeedTheRightWolf

Remember: Denis Leary is always watching. Always.