DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS - REVIEW

Doctor Strange is a bit of a… erm… strange one. 

The first film arrived back in 2016 and, while it received positive reviews, it has never felt like it has made it’s way into the Pantheon of Marvel films. 

It can be said for both the film and the character that they were no ones favourite, or least favourite, in the franchise. In fact I think you would be hard pushed to find many people that held particularly strong views on it at all.

Take for example the Rotten Tomatoes score. The first film holds score of 89%, which on the face of it indicates an excellent film. But when you dig down into these scores a little deeper, that 89% only translates into an average rating of 7.3/10 (*see image below)

It was good. Nothing more, nothing less.

Yet, despite this mild ambivalence towards him, Doctor Strange has found himself elevated to being the spearhead of the franchise. The Tony Stark figure. The elder statesman, who will inevitably lead a new band of heroes into battle against whichever big bad this new phase of marvel introduces.

I’m not sure many people saw that coming in 2016.

Here though, we have him leading his second film. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has been billed as Marvel’s first horror film, with esteemed horror and superhero director Sam Raimi taking the reigns from Scott Derrickson.

Let’s first discuss this billing of “Marvel’s first horror film”. It is true that it is, in places, darker, and more brutal, than we have seen elsewhere in the MCU, and some of the imagery used throughout is genuinely creepy. The problem really is that, one jump scare aside, it isn’t actually very scary, 

In the UK it is has a 12a rating from the BBFC, and it was almost as if you could feel Marvel ready to jump into more adult centred territories, but had family friendly Disney holding them back. I’m speculating here but this looks to me like the type of “creative differences” which saw the original director leave the project.

What we were left with felt oddly sterile. As mentioned, some of the dark imagery, and cinematography is superb, and Danny Elfmans score - which I’m listening to while I write - is atmospheric, but it felt very much like someone had just held a horror filter over the lens of a superhero film, rather than effectively combining and integrating the two genres.

The special and visual effects are something else worth talking about, because, whilst so many of them are excellent, the ones that aren’t, really pull you out of the film. Towards the start there is a section which is so obviously green screened it is distracting. Obviously all superhero films use a huge amount of green screen, and audiences are willing to accept this, so long as it’s done well enough that you don’t actively think about it while it’s happening. 

Onto the cast, we have Marvel newcomer Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez, a young girl who has the power to travel between the multiverses. A power which she is unable to control, and which she is under threat of having stolen from her. 

Gomez has good chemistry with Benedict Cumberbatch, and shows range to flit between the carefree teenager, to the young person riddled with guilt and grief.

Because at the end of the day, this is a film about grief, and loss, and the corruptive power that they can hold over people, and nobody portrays this better in Multiverse of Madness than Elizabeth Olsen.

Olsen, last seen in Marvel TV series WandaVision, returns as Wanda Maximoff, and is clearly relishing showing a different side to the character, and to her trade. She is the best thing about Multiverse of Madness, and steals every scene that she is a part of. It may be Doctor Strange’s name on the poster, but this is Wanda’s film. She shows more character development than everyone else on the screen combined, and it will be her that viewers come away from the film thinking about.

Benedict Cumberbatch is solid as always as Strange. And honestly there’s not a huge amount more to say about him than that. It’s the performance he has given throughout his time with the MCU. 

And I realise that all of this sounds like I didn’t like the the film, but I did! I thought 80% of it was really good. It’s just that it could have been so much better. Everything was there for it to be one of the greats, but it didn’t hit the heights that it could have. 

Without wanting to sound like a parental cliche, I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. And unfortunately that feeling of disappointment is the one that permeates this review. Because it is the one that has grown strongest in the 48 hours since seeing it. 

And I appreciate that this is not the view of everyone. There are people I’m close to who loved it. I just wish I was one of them. 

Overall, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a good film, that falls short of greatness. It is a film with a sheen of horror, but often undercuts this atmosphere with a gag. A film with some great visuals, but a couple of hokey visual and special effects.

Doctor Strange will return. But unlike with Tony Stark, I can’t see there being too many tears if he didn’t.