What can I say about Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness?

So, that’s not actually a rhetorical question. It’s a real challenge because between the things we were asked not to reveal and my overall desire to stay spoiler-free so as to preserve people’s viewing experience, it’s going to be hard to talk about this. 

I guess, to get things out of the way, yeah, there’s some cool stuff here and it will take you places you weren’t expecting. With how much material gets released, from casting announcements to production info and fan theories, it’s hard to be surprised by anything at this point. I know that a fair number of us enjoyed the last Spider-Man movie, but also sort of had a lot spoiled because of all that advance info. I will tell you straight up, if you can manage to avoid learning anything connected to the story before you see it, then it will make for a better viewing experience. I stopped watching trailers because I wanted to go in fresh. 

So if you’re a fan of these movies, then read no further. Go in there and have fun. For those who were always dreaming of a super-connected Marvel cinematic universe and are giddy for the ways that these movies and TV series all now work together to form a tapestry, then you will be very happy. 

We pick up very closely to where Spider-Man: No Way Home ended. And where that film brought in the other universes (though I think it can be argued that multiverse stuff had already shown up in other Marvel material, like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse and Marvel’s What If), here we have a story built mostly around Doctor Strange as he attempts to navigate the multiverse. New to the MCU character America Chavez, played by Xochitl Gomez, joins Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange in the adventure. Reprising their roles are Benedict Wong as Wong, Rachel McAdams as scientist and romantic lead Christine, Chiwetel Ejiofor as mystical rival Mordo, and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff. The emotional heft that Olsen has carried in her appearances, from Avengers: Infinity War to Wandavision and now this movie, are of real note. 

That’s the thing with this movie though. It, much more than anything else before it, is reliant on your having engaged with not just the movie that came before, but the entire body of work that has come before it. It isn’t just about Easter eggs to find, or things to speculate on. But rather, if you aren’t aware of what certain characters have been through, you will fail to grasp the emotional meaning in some of the things here. 

There are some that might find that shoddy filmmaking. We are trained to think that films should be one and done, or that even in a series a movie should stand on its own. Or at the very least, all you need is to have seen the movies in a series and not this “expanded universe approach.” This is to say that I don’t think that there is a right or wrong here, but that it will really fall to personal tastes. 

If you are tired of superhero movies, tired of Marvel movies, don’t want to be bothered to watch all the tie-ins and to understand the backstory of this or that person, then you will just be annoyed by this movie. And if, on the other hand, you are all in, then this will show that there can be value and enjoyment in this kind of storytelling. And if you kind of just want to go in there and have fun, well, there’s a lot of that to be had, too. 

I think one of the reasons this particular movie is so fun is that it is helmed by Sam Raimi. There are the things that you might expect out of something that is classic Raimi, for example an appearance by Bruce Campbell, or the POV shot flying around a location and then approaching a character. Though it was clear that some of Raimi’s creative tendencies were constrained (PG rating means none of the usual fun blood and guts) you could tell that in terms of story and just the plain level of darkness, the director was taking this movie as far as it could possibly go while keeping it accessible to a large audience. 

Beyond those recognizable signature bits that make it feel like his work, Raimi brings a brilliant balance here. One of the challenges for me, and one of the tiring things about superhero movies, has been that things have always been world-ending (in this, many worlds ending), nothing-will-ever-be-the-same kind of stakes. Sure, it makes sense that it’s those kinds of problems that superheroes would deal with. But at the same time, at the clip of two to three superhero movies per year, plus now the steady stream of series, these kinds of stakes get tiring. And with each world-threatening event, it feels like these movies just take themselves more and more seriously. 

Now don’t get me wrong; the stakes are similarly high here. But that does’t mean that everything is dark and grim. That’s because Sam Raimi knows how to blend black comedy and a penchant for the macabre throughout. Fans of anything Evil Dead know that he can have something disgustingly brutal, totally frightening, and knee-slappingly funny all in the same moment. And he brings that sensibility into the MCU. And the MCU is better for it. If nothing else, this signals that between Raimi, Taika Waititi, and James Gunn, we will have a good amount of humor in this universe and it won’t ever get too grim. That’s a clear win for me. 

I had a lot of fun, and while I am not sure that seeing it in 3-D is going to be for everyone, I found the experience to be very enjoyable. With Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, you get to visit the MCU, a good dose of Sam Raimi (some bits really feel like they could fit in an Evil Dead movie), and a superhero movie that knows how to have fun. – Rappler.com