#pizza poppa
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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”.
