Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness Review

By: Logan Williams

    Doctor Strange: In The Multiverse of Madness is the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). It also is director Sami Raimi’s first MCU outing and compared to his previous Marvel works, this one barely holds a candle to them. Previously, Raimi had worked on the original “Spider-Man” trilogy that starred Tobey Maguire. If you’ve watched those before, this film may seem familiar. There were multiple times when I was watching the film where I was thinking, “Where have I seen this before?” The movie just throws us right into the action. After we get past the opening credits, we’re immediately greeted with an action sequence that starts to set up the plot of the film. Due to the nature of this being a comic book film, which most people prefer to not have spoiled, I won’t get into too much detail. 

    Let’s get into the good aspects of this film. Despite some minor CGI (Computer Generated Images) flaws, most of the visuals in this film were very top notch. I thought Benedict Cumberbatch gave us a very good performance. It’s definitely not “The Imitation Game”, but Cumberbatch still did great. Overall the acting was decent. I thought Elizabeth Olson could’ve done much, much, better this go around and, sadly, her acting was subpar. However, both Benedict Wong and Patrick Stewart gave us very good performances. One of the biggest strengths that this film has going for it is that despite dealing heavily with the ‘multiverse’, it’s primarily just a Dr. Strange film. Which is a very nice change of pace for Disney’s Marvel films. Speaking of pacing. This film comes to a runtime of 2hours and 6minutes. Trust me when I say that it definitely doesn’t feel like it. When I watched this film, I couldn’t believe that the credits were rolling that quickly. 

    Now that we have looked at some of the good aspects of this film, let’s take a look at the bad. This is the first MCU film to actually utilize the shows that have been released to Disney+. And to no-one’s surprise, apart from a name drop here and there, it’s not really utilized all that much. Hopefully, in the future, the shows will actually make an impact. I can’t go into it all that much but there are some sequences that take place around the halfway point of the film that are just downright stupid. This film may have good pacing but it had some atrocious writing. This film also served as the MCU debut for America Chavez (portrayed by  Xochitl Gomez). Her introduction and how this film ended left me fearful for what her character might be used for in later films. Apart from the writing being horrendous, the marketing was also pretty damn bad. All the promo material had it set up to make us believe that, by messing with the multiverse, an evil Dr. Strange got released. This was not the case. The real villain (revealed about five minutes into the film) is actually Wanda Maximoff. 

    My final complaint is that this film should’ve been rated R. The aforementioned sequences would’ve been able to benefit from a mature rating. Not only that, this is a film with a much more serious tone. I truly believe that if Sam Raimi could be given the opportunity to direct an R-rated superhero film, it would be one of the best. Overall the film was alright. While there were definitely some highlights, the final product was a little too ‘strange’ for my liking. Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness laments itself a solid 6.5/10. I’m sure it’ll come to Disney+ soon, however, I do urge everyone to go out to see it in theaters. Not only will it be a better experience, it’ll also continue to support the cinema.