Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen are back again reprising their roles of Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff in probably one of the most hyped movies ever in a long time. The hype for the multiverse in the MCU has been around for a few years now with so many Easter eggs sprinkled in previous Marvel movies starting from the previous Strange movie, Spiderman far from home and no way home. Going into phase 4, it was pretty obvious that Marvel wanted to lead with Doctor Strange with little hopes for another Avengers movie. To be very honest, it's going to take a long time before people are on board for another Avengers movie and Kevin Feige himself has stated that they don't intend to do another Avengers film anytime soon.
The multiverse of madness, a visually spectacular mess suffers from a serious case of sequelitis, a commonly used movie term where a sequel doesn't live up to the standards of the original movie, the classical example in the MCU being iron man 2. While Marvel has continuously and consistently managed to impress audiences in the past, most recently with Spiderman no way home, there was very little to stay connected with Stephen Strange here. This film feels like an Elseworld story and the Strange character depicted here doesn't feel like the Strange we have known and loved in the past.
For a Doctor Strange movie, there's actually very little involvement from Strange himself as he mostly feels like a side character in his own movie, with Wanda taking up more screentime than him and it felt like Strange's complete absence still wouldn't have affected how the events actually turned out. The plot of the movie was all over the place with some serious pacing issues.
With Sam Raimi and Danny Elfman returning, I was expecting an OG Spiderman-type movie which this movie certainly was in a few scenes, especially in the beginning. Raimi went with a slight horror type of filmmaking which weirdly didn't work given the kind of reputation and style that Marvel had set up in the past even though we can argue that this isn't exactly in the same timeline as the others. A lot of people loved the new style, personally, I wasn't a fan of the horror elements that were there, this could have maybe worked for a DC Constantine movie and certainly not for an MCU movie.
Danny Elfman did manage to do a decent job with some of the scores but for the most part, the score wasn't nearly as good as Michael Giacchino's original soundtracks for the previous Doctor Strange movie. I'm still scratching my head as to why MCU went with a fresh start with this sequel. This movie certainly isn't anywhere close to how good the first one was in terms of music, cinematography, plot, and especially the climax. The Dormammu time loop will forever remain one of the most unique endings for any movie in cinema history.
The climax here was so underwhelming and predictable and felt like if that had happened in the first 10 minutes, nothing would have changed. The characters themselves hint at a slightly different version of what would be the climax later and that is exactly how the events turn out, almost like a spoiler being dropped in the very beginning. As a fan of Elizabeth Olsen and her work in the past, I was disappointed with how they butchered her character and I'm reminded of a quote from the Dark knight, "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain". It was unnecessarily dragged along the entire movie and was so boring and underwhelming to watch what she did and her motivation behind it, It really felt like a cheaper version of Mal's character from inception. I think I'd have liked her more if she somehow died in endgame along with black widow and Iron man.
I didn't like why they pointlessly stretched her story arc and how poorly defined her motivation was to do what she did in the entire film. The movie just drops random exposition bombs at us whenever it felt like and at times it felt like it was a messy explosion of fan theories we've been hearing every now and then. There was definitely some forced fan service here which didn't feel organic at all unlike how it was in Spiderman no way home but still, sadly it turned out to be the best few minutes of the film following a boring first half.
The chemistry between Strange and Dr. Palmer here seemed to be completely nonexistent here which was shocking to me given how amazing it was in the previous Doctor Strange movie with the limited screentime that the two of them shared. Coming to the main issue I had with the film, there was absolutely no exploring the multiverse at all here and just Elizabeth Olsen roaming around very angry, depressed, and moody which took up about fifty percent of the film's screen time which was so disappointing for me especially given how much Marvel has been hyping up the multiverse in the past. There was literally one scene that explored the multiverse and it felt like I saw a much more refined version of the same when Strange meets with the ancient one in the origin movie. Frankly, that multiverse scene reminded me of a very scene from Inside out which lead to Riley losing Bing Bong.
Marvel's "What If?" did a fantastic job with the few episodes that had aired and it felt like there was so much more depth to the show, especially in the 3rd episode involving Doctor Strange. The 40-minute "What If?" episode is leaps and bounds better than this 2 and a half hour movie which was just downright boring and all over the place. What surprises me here is the kind of reception that the movie is still getting and the box office collection it's going to end up making despite how the final movie has come out.
Overall, Multiverse of madness was just a huge disappointment for me and I'd rate it as my 2nd least favorite MCU movie after Captain Marvel. As a fan of Dr. Strange's character development in the MCU so far, it really did break my heart to see this character's depiction in the movie and how even Benedict's charm wasn't enough to carry this film at least for me. It could just be my personal opinion to not liking this movie's style or maybe I am just too old and in denial for being disappointed that the movie didn't live up to the standards in Endgame or No way home but in my defense, Marvel always lived up to the hype. Personally, I'd have been extremely happy for the universe if they had just ended with Avengers Endgame but I guess the show must go on and Disney is not going to stop until they buy everything.
Verdict
Fan in me: 4/10
Critic in me: 6/10
I've been meaning to take a break from the MCU for a very long time, especially after Endgame and how traumatic and satisfying the ending was. The only thing which kept me going to these films was the hype of Toby and Andrew's return, the hype for the multiverse, and Thor's storyline. Love and Thunder already has me super hyped and seeing how Taika Watiti completely transformed Thor in Ragnarok and with Christian Bale joining the MCU, I'm looking forward to a banger from Marvel, and following that, I do intend to go on a short break from the MCU. No Way Home and Batman have just set the bar way too high for all these upcoming superhero films to live up to which is going to be a huge challenge.
