I saw Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. I’m going to try not to post anything spoilery, or reblog any gifs until Monday at the earliest. I know most people can’t take off work to see a 4pm showing on Thursday.
I will say, visually it is quite interesting but I found myself reminded of the first movie in the sense that I don’t really care that much about Doctor Strange and/or his relationship with Christine.
I wish it had been a Scarlet Witch movie. But I am sure that surprises no one who has ever been to my blog.
The highlight for me was when a certain person who was teased in the Super Bowl spot comes in, they play a specific theme. 12-year-old me was thrilled. And I will reblog that shit every chance I get.
But it is a Doctor Strange film and if you want it to be a mutant film or a Wanda film or an Avengers film, you will be disappointed.
The mid-credits scene is a teaser for the next Doctor Strange film and the end credits is a gag, for people wondering about if they have to stay to the end.
Also, I fucking told you it wasn’t Tom Cruise. (Thank god! I was worried I was giving Scientology my money. Rest assured. He’s not in it.)
Night Nurse #1 (Thomas/Mortimer, Nov 1972). Marvel tries to acknowledge second-wave feminism with books like this. No superheroics, just women balancing their professional and personal lives. I actually think it’s pretty neat, but it also feels more separate from the rest of the Marvel universe than Adam Warlock on Counter-Earth.
Saw it a couple weeks ago! Had been really looking forward to it, for a lot of reasons. I liked it, but tbh I wanted to like it more than I actually did.
- The main issue for me was that I didn’t buy into the central premise of Wanda as the villain, post Wandavision. It’s not that I don’t believe she has the potential because she 100% does, after all, this is the same character who in the comics went “no more mutants” and in the MCU mind controlled an entire town. It’s that they didn’t convince me that the Wanda who understood the wrongs she committed in Wandavision and genuinely regretted her actions would then immediately turn around and go full ‘I don’t give a shit who I have to murder to steal this other woman’s life and her kids’. I gather the Darkhold was negatively influencing her but IMO they didn’t sell it all the way as ‘this is why, it’s not really Wanda’, and even if they had, honestly I find that a cop-out. So anyway it was hard to appreciate the movie for what it was when the whole time I was just thinking ‘this is not Wanda wtf’. Which is a shame, because I think a villain Wanda I believed in would have been great, and she certainly was pretty scary.
- But I did like a lot of parts of the movie! Especially just Stephen himself. I LOVE HIM.
- I loved America, and I loved her relationship with Stephen. So good. (And at least they kept her moms, though I’m honestly not surprised they managed to avoid yet again showing a character as LGBTQ+.)
- Wong is so great. I was about to be so fucking mad that they killed him off, in my head I was just like ‘no they didn’t no they didn’t he’s FINE’ until finally they showed him okay. Him trying to get Stephen to bow to him was the best.
- Loved the Illuminati! And what a fun way to include some AU things we don’t have in the main timeline, like Maria!Captain Marvel, and Captain Carter (CAPTAIN CARTER OH MY GOD SHE WAS SOOOOO COOL). Xavier in his hover chair! With the cartoon music! I was so surprised to see what’s his name as Reed. (I always think of him first as Emily Blunt’s husband, lol.)
- There were some really cool visuals, notably the montage where America and Stephen are moving from universe to universe. I also liked the fighting with musical notes, and Wanda fighting through reflections.
- Zombie Strange was fucking weird but I liked it.
- I think they used Christine well, and I believed that Stephen genuinely loved her but couldn’t figure out how to be with her, and I believed in her importance to him. I really liked the last scene of him and the other universe’s Christine together, where he finds a sort of closure and peace.
- Also loved Stephen being faced with all the other Stephens’ bad choices, and then being able to make better ones himself, even to the point of saving America when she herself was at peace with that not happening. I got a little teary when he helped her find her own control.
- And for all that this way of doing villain Wanda didn’t work for me, I still cried when Billy and Tommy were scared of her and she realized she had become their monster. That really got me.
- I want Young Avengers Billy (and Billy/Teddy!!) SO MUCH but I was still pleased to see the Wandavision versions of him and Tommy again because the child actors are so charming.
- I loved the goat dude. Glad he’s okay!!
- CLEA! CHARLIZE THERON! CHARLIZE THERON AS CLEA!!!! Oh my fucking God. I almost jumped out of my seat and cheered. Marvel, thank you for this gift, holy shit.
Some thoughts on “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” (late on this, but only because I was busy with finals):
1) I know that people were mad that Reed Richards, the so-called “smartest man in the universe” acted like an idiot in the movie. In the movie’s defense, 838!Reed wasn’t aware of how dangerous MCU!Wanda was. If he only knew about his universe’s Wanda, then he just assumed she was this soccer mom with basic magic abilities. Plus, even though Strange warned him about MCU!Wanda, Reed didn’t have a reason to trust Strange, especially since his own Strange almost wiped out Earth-838.
As a side note, Reed acting like an idiot while being called the “smartest man in the universe” feels on-brand for his character. See: Reed Richards is Useless trope.
/
2) I’ve already written about this, but I love how this movie was basically Evil Dead 4 / Army of Darkness 2. Sam Raimi really just used the MCU in order to create another Evil Dead movie.
/
3) If I had to make a criticism, it’d be the shift from Wanda being a hero to a villain. First off, I’m absolutely in favor of this heel turn. In fact, one of my main criticisms of “WandaVision” is that it tried to justify what Wanda was doing, when the show was really doing a great job at setting up Wanda as the next potential threat (she imprisoned a whole town to live out her fantasies, for fucks sake). If you take away Monica Rambeau trying to repair Wanda’s image, “WandaVision” comes off more as a villain origin story.
But I do feel there should’ve been a clearer descent into madness. It didn’t even have to be a full rewrite, there could’ve easily been one extra montage showing Wanda using the Darkhold and then slowly being corrupted by the book. And right after the montage, you cut to Strange meeting Wanda in the garden. Sure, the “surprise” reveal is lost, but the villain arc has better foundation in the story.
/
4) My favorite scene has to be the Sinister Strange universe. One of my favorite tropes is when characters visit an alternate universe that’s been completely fucked for reasons unknown. I just love how creepy that whole universe was, like it’s this forbidden space that no one should visit.
/
5) I do like how the movie approached Doctor Strange’s character. Going off of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, one of the things that he had Peter Parker wonder was if he was truly happy with his life. It seems like Raimi brought that same mindset when it came to Doctor Strange, especially with how Strange kept being shown how he could’ve messed up when it came to his actions.
Defender Strange represented how he was willing to sacrifice people for the greater good (America Chavez even came across as another Peter Parker). 838 Strange represented how his ego could lead to devastating consequences. Sinister Strange showed that he could be corrupted in his pursuit of happiness aka Christine Palmer (which we’ve already seen with Supreme Strange).
Not to make the obvious comparison, but it did remind me of “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once”, where Michelle Yeoh was being shown how amazing her life could’ve been if she had made different decisions. The difference here is that MCU Strange is being shown how terrible his life could’ve been/how awful he could’ve become had he strayed off the righteous path. Which makes sense with Doctor Strange as a character since his character is all about learning through his mistakes and suffering.
/
6) This is just a dumb observation. Was Bruce Campbell’s character being a pizza vendor a reference to “Drag Me to Hell”? I know the uncontrollable hand gag was an Evil Dead reference, but Pizza Poppa made me think of “CHEESE PIZZA, CHEESE PIZZA” from “Drag Me to Hell”.
