THE FOLLOWING FILM CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM AND SERIES. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Fans of Marvel Comics have adored Doctor Strange since first written in the 1960s. After his 2016 solo debut in the MCU, he was quickly beloved by moviegoers. And after being a likable character in each entry since, many wondered when would he have another solo adventure. The wait finally concluded in 2022 with an experience we never thought we’d get through.
PLOT
The sequel dubbed the Multiverse of Madness takes place after the sorcerer Stephen Strange conducted a spell in which everyone including himself forget the identity of Spider-Man by making them not remember Peter Parker at all. While he still does his duty as a protector to his universe, Wong is the current Sorcerer Supreme as the result of him being a Blip victim. Shortly after attending the wedding of his ex girlfriend Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), he resumes his duty by protecting a teenage girl named America Chavez from mystical creatures. The girl explains that many creatures have been hunting her down because she is capable of traveling through the multiverse. She has been only been capable of opening star shaped portals whenever she’s afraid and the last variant of Strange she encountered was willing to kill her to protect the multiverse. The current Strange however is able to convince her to give him a chance as he offers her sanctuary in Kamar Taj. Recognizing witchcraft runes on the demons, he goes to Wanda Maximoff for help. Little did he expect that she is responsible due to acquiring the Darkhold book as a result of accepting her identity as the Scarlet Witch. She believes that if she harnesses Chavez’s powers, she could live in a universe where her children Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne) are alive, in which she’ll replace her variant. She originally created her sons during her tenure in Westview, New Jersey, but they disappeared after she released the energy field that surrounded the town. Strange is completely against her plan as he realizes the Darkhold is corrupting her. This would be the end of her mercy as she quickly decides to attack Kamar-Taj to get to Chavez. She is able to wipe out a majority of sorcerers except Wong. Chavez and Strange are able to flee by going to a totally different universe dubbed ‘Earth 838’, where Stephen’s main universe is ‘Earth 616’. When a sorceress from 616 sacrifices herself to destroy the Darkhold, Wanda demands Wong to take her to Mount Wundagore, an ancient fortress that originally transcribed the said book. There, she is able to 'Dreamwalk', possess her 838 variant to find Chavez. At the said universe, Chavez and Strange meet a variant of Karl Mordo who is the current Sorcerer Supreme of Kamar Taj after his Stephen was killed in action. Instead of helping them with finding another copy of the Darkhold, he takes them to face judgment of a secretive society of heroes in which he is part of, known as ‘The Illuminati’. The team includes: a super solider variant of Margaret ’Peggy’ Carter, a variant of Maria Rambeau that has the same cosmic abilities as Carol Danvers, the Inhuman Blackagar Boltagon whose voice carries hypersonically amplified sound waves, Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic of the Fantastic Four who has an elastic body and the telepathic Charles Xavier. They explain that they are more scared of Stephen than Wanda because their Stephen lost control after using the Darkhold, which led to an ‘incursion’, in which two universes destructively collided. Once Thanos was defeated, they decided to kill him to prevent any more harm caused by him. Before the Illuminati could vote on what to do with him, they are slain by Wanda who is still determined to get to Chavez. Mordo is spared when 616 Stephen fights him long enough to be free of 838 restraints that suppressed his powers. He then flees with Chavez and the 838 counterpart of Christine who is a scientist of the Illuminati. They go to a space between universes and retrieve the Darkhold’s antithesis that is the ‘Book of Vishanti’, which was used to defeat 838 Thanos, but Wanda destroys the book and takes Chavez back to 616, while taking Stephen & 838 Christine to an incursion destroyed universe. There, 616 Stephen kills a corrupted version of himself to get a hold of his Darkhold copy. With it, he is able to dreamwalk a deceased version of himself to reach 616 Mount Wundagore. Upon arrival, Wong returns as well to help after being left for dead by the Scarlet Witch. They are able to save Chavez from her, encouraging her to control her powers. She quickly does so by opening a portal without being afraid. She gives Wanda what she wants by taking her to Earth 838 but the second she enters and attacks her variant, her kids are only scared of her. Realizing that she went too far, she chooses to sacrifice herself by destroying every Darkhold copy in the multiverse. Some time after this, 838 Christine returns to her universe, 616 Kamar Taj is getting rebuilt and Chavez trains to be a sorceress. 616 Stephen has now developed a third eye as a result of using the Darkhold. The film ends in a mid credits scene, showing him join a fellow sorceress into the Dark Dimension to undo an upcoming incursion.
THOUGHTS
With every post-Endgame released film, I’ve done my best to have low expectations, hoping only to be impressed. With this one, I wasn’t impressed, I was blown away. In his return to the comic book genre, Director Sam Raimi maintains this film to be a mind bending experience, but also dreadful/horrifying. This actually suits the tone of the story because it represents how traveling to new places won't always go smooth. It is even proven so with such graphic death scenes, it surprises me that this was rated PG-13 instead of R. While Danny Elfman's eery score reminds viewers that the multiverse is shown to be a dangerous thing to explore, it doesn't mean that it's not stunning to witness. The visual effects definitely paid off in the long run as each universe we get to see gets you interested and makes everyone blown away with the various fight scenes like the attack on Kamar Taj or the Illuminati Massacre. You still get a fair share of laughter when seeing Bruce Campbell's Pizza Poppa get put in a spell to kick his own ass, resulting in a clever physical comedy performance. To me though, the reason this movie works as a whole is because it has a lot to say metaphorically and it's beautifully explored through the cast full of iconic characters. Continuing his position as the new anchor of the MCU, Benedict Cumberbatch basically gives his best performance as Doctor Strange for not only playing one but four versions of the character. You could say five if you’re counting the zombie version of Defender Strange. The craziest thing about each variant is that they were all different despite also being similar. Defender Strange was extremely pragmatic, Sinister Strange was extremely cynical & obsessive, while 838 Strange appeared to be carried away with the power that he had. All of this made it easier to mainly root for the Strange we’ve known from the beginning, from 616. Cumberbatch is at his most dedicated with this variant because this is the one who does a better job thinking through his tough decisions that only make him more selfless than first introduced. A great trait about him is that despite going through a ringer of emotions, he doesn’t let it cloud his judgment. His feelings for Christine will never change, but since she doesn’t feel the same anymore after moving on during the Blip, he is only concerned with continuing his duty as a protector because he understands that he doesn’t need to be with somebody to be happy. He straight up shows that moving on is good because it helps clear your path for something better. If he happens to find something new with the sorceress Clea, played by Charlize Theron in the mid credit scene, then good for him. Seeing him control the souls of the damned while dreamwalking and gaining a third eye due to his Darkhold knowledge, it is easy to say that future enemies have no idea what they’re up against when colliding against one of the most powerful heroes of Earth 616. I also admire that he acknowledged his deceased sister, as that implies what led to his path on wanting to help people. Although Strange shows the benefit of moving on, the Scarlet Witch shows the other side of the coin when we choose to let grief consume us. Elizabeth Olsen pulls a shocking 180 as she goes from a tragic hero to a merciless villain. After WandaVision, I assumed that she was on the right path that would lead to her own redemption. Little did I expect for her desire for happiness to worsen. Seeing her go so far proves exactly what happens when your good intentions make you selfish once you make it your only mission and don’t think of others along the way. It made sense for her to sacrifice herself because that is how ashamed she was of herself. I’m not gonna take a bet on the possibility for her to return, even though anything is possible in this particular franchise. But if she really does, she has a long way to go to be fully redeemed. Turning to the rest of the cast, it was a treat for Benedict Wong to play Wong once again. I liked him a lot more here compared to the first time we met him because he continues to show how capable he is despite Strange being more advanced with his powers. He earns the position as Sorcerer Supreme because he is more organized with his surroundings and isn’t as distracted as Strange. And when you display that level of selflessness, it’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve to be a leader. While Strange does his own thing to protect the multiverse, it is good to know that he has a friend like him. As I said before, new heroes will keep things fresh and we still get that feeling when America Chavez is onscreen. Breakout Xochitl Gomez gives a memorable performance out of the young heroine because her curiosity made her more adventurous. She was always hesitant to control because the day she unlocked it cost her both of her mothers, setting up her own set of grief. Luckily, she gained a great friend out of Strange who taught her to trust herself. Im glad she gets to learn the mystic arts in the end, because that would only make her stronger and prepared for whatever else would dare to come her way. Last but not least, the big scene stealing moment has to be the appearance of the Iluminati to prove that anything is possible in the Multiverse. Any list of characters from Marvel's catalogue could've made the cut, but the version we got here is very creative. You play it close to the chest when Hayley Atwell returns as Captain Carter from What If and Lashana Lynch gets to be her Captain Marvel variant fans would recall her being known as Photon in the comics. You nail the fan service when Sir Patrick Stewart and Anson Mount respectively return to play Charles Xavier and Black Bolt in comic accurate costumes. But you truly succeed in getting the audience to go nuts with the fan cast come true that is John Krasinski playing Mr. Fantastic. They all stand out for having that visible presence of being noble heroes, but the difference they have from the 616 Avengers, minus Xavier, is that they're visibly terrified for the worst to occur and still choose to be overconfident for judging a book by the cover. As much as it hurts to see that become their greatest flaw that led to their tragic demise, it only further reminds viewers that heroes are not ever perfect. But it was sweet for Charles to give 616 Strange a chance to save Chavez because with his powers, he knew that not everyone thinks the same. This film definitely has many elements that make it better than the predecessor, yet there were still moments that still upset me throughout. To get it out of the way, I was completely disappointed with Chiwetel Ejiofor's return as Mordo. They straight up ignore everything about his 616 counterpart and skip his rivalry with Strange, which likely happened before the Blip and only focus on a whole new version of him who is much of the same. If he wasn't gonna be as integral as he was supposed to be, then he should've not came back. If it is true that Wanda killed 616 Mordo in an early draft of the script, that should've made the cut to give better acceptance of the introduction to the 838 variant. Going into the story, how come Doctor Strange is the only hero Chavez has ever encountered in the multiverse? She said to have explored 72 other universes and it's crazy to believe that he was the only one to have seen in her lifetime. It is an interesting plan for Wanda to replace her variant to be the mother she desired to be, but how has she not found a universe where her sons were orphans? If she couldn't find one of those, then I'm not sure if the multiverse is really infinite. And why didn't Strange use the same spell on Wanda that he used on Spider-Man? If he remembers the spell, it's not like he can't use it. I did say it was funny for Pizza Poppa to kick his own ass, but how did he not recognize Strange? Yeah the 616 variant has a goatee, but it's not like the one from 838 didn't have one at least once. I said before how much I despise continuity errors, so you already know how baffled I got when after 616 Stephen's nightmare of Defender Strange, his watch is on his right on one shot, only for it to be on the left the next shot. It is cool hearing that the MCU we've been following since Iron Man has been taking place in the popular 616 universe, but it would've been a better call if it was its own distinct universe that has a resemblance to the well known universe. Wanda is pretty cold throughout her personal mission and acts ahead of the curve when killing everyone in sight, so I found it pointless when he chose to send 616 Stephen and 838 Christine to another universe when she could've just killed them on the spot. She can't guarantee if the other universe would kill them and although she's rushing this, this wasn't smart at all on her end. 616 Stephen was smart to reference his sister when talking to Sinister Strange, but it wasn't wise to say 'we' instead of 'I'. The latter could've not had a sister and the fight could've been worse. I did think it was a funny post credit scene for Pizza Poppa's curse to reach an end, but I'm surprised no one tried helping him. In a universe full of superheroes, it's not like a few bystanders weren't guessing he was cursed/possessed. And the biggest irritating moment for me, like many, was that Mr. Fantastic proved to not be the smartest man alive when revealing Black Bolt's weakness and strength. There is booksmart and there is street smart. And that moment proved that Reed is not the latter. That was dumber than the biker trying to drive through the monster in the opening. Other than that, you're still in for one hell of a ride. In short, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness brings the right amount of elevation needed for the franchise to keep the ball rolling. If you've enjoyed Doctor Strange from the beginning, you're definitely gonna love this too.
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