Doctor Strange in The Multiverse of Madness Review: Things Just Got Out Of Hand

Non Spoiler Review:

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is probably one of my most anticipated recent MCU films. Of course, Spider-Man No Way Home was the biggest one for me but other than maybe Thor Love and Thunder my hype hasn’t been as high for some of these films. I have really liked most of them don’t get me wrong and I have reviews on them that are fairly positive but I think my hype was lower simply because they weren’t characters, I knew, and while I was still excited as I am with every MCU installment I wasn’t as excited as like a new Doctor Strange or Thor film. All that to say I was quite excited about this film and I believe this film delivered overall. I will say two things upfront about this film it is both the weirdest and scariest film the MCU has produced up to this point. The film really does justify the term madness in the title though I would say it’s not just in reference to the multiverse. 

This review is going to be a little vaguer as I think the best way to see this film is going in blind so I will try to avoid spoilers to the best of my ability. The story is about Doctor Strange trying to protect a young girl named America Chavez from a threat who chases them through the multiverse. Any more than that and I get into spoilers. I can talk about my thoughts on the plot though and I think that my best word to describe it is simple. It’s set up pretty quickly the goal, the threat, and the emotional conflict is established early in the first act and then we jump straight into the action. This is a movie that doesn’t slow down as it is constantly moving and introducing new plot points and ideas. Though on the negative side of that I did feel that there were certain things that could have been more fleshed out. I did enjoy that this film embraced the weirdness and I liked how it through just so much at the audience.

In terms of characters, I’ll again keep it vague, we of course have Doctor Stephen Strange who since working with the Avengers is more well known now by the public and who is also grappling with the events of Spider-Man No Way Home though he has forgotten parts of them. Wanda’s character is a direct continuation of where she left off in Wandavision and we see where she is now. Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen do amazing jobs with their roles as I feel they both continue to become these characters with each new outing.

The visuals in this film are fantastic and as I mentioned early they fully embrace the weirdness and take the whole film to another level. The horror elements felt appropriate for the film and they were well ingrained in the plot and tone of this film though I might advise taking any young kids to this film as I could see it scaring them. The action scenes in this film are fantastic and take full advantage of the magic users and the cool things you can do with magic.

All in all, this is a great film with lots of crazy visuals, interesting characters, and cool fights and I am eager to see it again. So head on out to the theatre to check it out!

Spoilers:

I could probably write a whole other page about the cool spoilers in this film but I want to keep this as a reasonable read so I am going to hit the highlights.
Wanda as the villain was a surprise to me but I thought it set up an interesting character for this film. We haven’t seen an Avenger go bad so I was invested and engaged in this character already. Her interactions with Strange, Wong, and America Chavez fit with her character’s mental state at this point and also the hold the Drakhold had on her mind and morals. I thought she proved to be a worthy threat and she certainly was deadly with her magic to anyone who stood in her way. I would be curious to see how her character continues moving forward and also if she can be forgiven.
Of course, I must also mention the Illuminati and they were really cool in general but the three cameos I liked the most were Captain Carter, Mr. Fantastic, and Professor X as I just found those characters proved to be really cool to see them interact in the MCU with Doctor Strange.