Despite a number of superficial connections to semi-obscure corners of the canon, the new Sam
Raimi-helmed Marvel movie, Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, is the biggest breath
of fresh air the franchise has received in a while and provides a compelling blueprint for the sort
of pictures Marvel Studio is going to need to turn to in order to keep this cinematic universe vital
and lively as it approaches its 15th anniversary. That s the general thesis of this video. I
just got back from Mr Strange 2 and the Movie of Madness, and as you can tell,
I really liked it. Oh, vague spoilers ahead, by the way. In this video, then, I want to quickly
run through a few of the reasons I felt this film worked so well, as well as why I think
future Marvel projects need to take a leaf out of this one s book. And then, since this is 2022,
we re gonna have to spend a bit of time sifting through the online discourse around this picture,
since, as usual, there s some really awful takes doing the rounds. But before we get to the tedious
stuff, I just want to emphasise that this film was a blast. Multiverse of Madness is a thrilling
and delightful watch a feast for the eyes, ears, and the big wrinkly pink bit in between.
The plot s not overly complex, but it doesn t need to be it s very much a character-driven affair,
and a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing these characters, new and old, reacting to a set of very
unfamiliar situations, opponents, and allies. The stars of the show are, obviously, Dr Strange
himself along with Wanda Maximoff, but a whole host of supporting characters like America Chavez,
Wong, and Christine Palmer are also integrated well into the proceedings.
The beauty of this multiverse gambit why it works isn t the new settings or characters
it introduces, or the seeds it sews for future projects. Aside from some chatter
about incursions, there really isn t too much of this. Instead, it s in how these mirrored worlds,
and semi-familiar situations allows our characters, particularly Strange and Wanda,
to reflect upon and better understand themselves and their places in the world
their world, that is. The most obvious time we see this dynamic is in the film s climax,
but I think we see it in subtler ways throughout. Interesting as this dynamic is, though, it isn t
what makes this film great it merely facilitates that greatness. It s the writing, direction, and
performances which make this film the breath of fresh air it is. Of these three aspects, though,
I want to talk more about the second because good lord is this film gorgeous. The CG looks great,
the colours are vibrant, yeah, but it goes so much further than this. I recently made a video
praising one particular abstract transition shot in Moon Knight, since moments like that are fairly
rare in these films, but Multiverse of Madness is overflowing with them interesting transitions,
screwy camera angles, richly imaginative shot composition, and a handful of fun zooms here and
there to underline certain moments. I d love to be specific, but I ve only seen the film once so far,
and there s honestly too many moments like these to remember them all. The whole movie is simply
fun to watch on a purely visual level in a way these films don t tend to be. The first Dr Strange
film certainly wasn t boring in this regard, but outside of a few key sequences it was fairly
conventional. This one isn t it s not a picture in the MCU house style, it s so clearly a Raimi
joint, and it s so clearly better for it. The director s fingerprints go beyond the
visual the filmmaker is clearly drawing on inspirations from throughout his career here.
There s a sequence near the start which seems taken right from Spider-Man 2,
and elsewhere there s an almost campy embrace of superhero aesthetics other MCU films have feared
to make. But this is just as clearly a movie made by the guy who did Evil Dead there s a very
strong horror subcurrent running throughout this film, and it really elevates the story. Moments
are disgusting or terrifying in ways the franchise hasn t really been before, and this heightening of
EMOTIONAL stakes synchronises nicely with the idea that universes themselves are in danger here.
(hey, editing pillar of garbage here. I m sorry I blanked, I completely forgot to mention one of my
absolute favourite parts of this film the magic. To me it never quite sat right that magic in dr
strange 1 was just essentially energy shields and energy whips. This sequel course corrects
there s real magic here now, and it s a joy to see how this film integrates it into the
story. Even seeing steven do something as basic as turning water into wine is great to watch,
and moments like these speak to the larger joie de vivre visible in the movie)
But I don t want this video to just be a review, that s never been my style on this channel. So
here s my take every Marvel movie needs to become this type of movie in the next couple of years, if
this franchise wants to stay relevant and perhaps more importantly, to stay good. To be clear,
I don t mean that the multiverse is the future. It s a cool narrative conceit, but it s not the
reason this film is good. Rather, my point is that even people who have liked this film less than I
did have spoken about how this film feels like a Raimi film, as much as it does an MCU film. A film
stamped so sharply with a director s unique style is rare in this universe. Even something like Thor
Ragnarok, while noticeably a Taika Waititi film, has long stretches of runtime in which it s almost
indistinct from the house style . I don t think you can say the same for Multiverse of Madness. It
goes beyond direction, too this film was written by Michael Waldron, and having seen the episodes
of Rick and Morty and Loki which Waldron s written on, I think this is clearly a Waldron film too.
At this point, there are a lot of these things. Following the formula was fine to begin with,
when we didn t really have that many competent superhero movies. But as we near 30 films in the
franchise the danger of creative stagnation rises. Marvel allowed strong creative voices to come to
the forefront on Multiverse of Madness, and the result is a somewhat divisive film but even if you
didn t like this film too much, you have to agree that the future of the MCU would look brighter if
it followed this mould rather than the template set by, say Black Widow which was a fine film,
but really wasn t anything new. Clearly, I had a great time with Doctor Strange,
but even if I didn t, I d still have appreciated what Raimi and co. tried to do to push this genre
further. If we imagine the state of this franchise in, say, a decade s time I think it ll be in a
much more exciting spot if the preceding years were filled by films like Multiverse of Madness:
films which embrace innovation and try out new ways of telling and representing these stories.
And now we ve got to spend a few minutes wading through the toxic swamp of MCU discourse.
Every time one of these films comes out, or a trailer comes out, or anything happens, at all,
the internet spews forth bad take after bad take. Given that Multiverse of Madness has been received
poorly by a subsection of fans, there s a lot of acrimony around some aspects some of which I think
is unfair, so I m going to do my best to rush through a few of the big discussions I ve seen
being had. And bigger spoilers ahead from now. To begin with, there s so much nonsense out there
about people disappointed with the film s cameos either that there aren t enough,
or that the other multiversal characters who show up aren t given enough to do. To start with,
if you re upset that there aren t more random character appearances if you think this film is
bad because it didn t meet the expectations your built up yourself for it I don t know what to say
other than you re a very silly man! Or woman. Or anything else. Look, regardless of gender identity
you re being a fool. I could write a whole spiel about why judging a film based on your own totally
subjective expectations and desires for the film, instead of on, you know, the film itself,
is a clown move but honestly that d just wind me up even more, so I ll just say this: why are you
more excited for teases of future stories than you are for the story actually being told?
Next, there s a lot of disagreement over how important the illuminati ended up being.
Some people are annoyed that they weren t in the film for longer, and all got rekt by Wanda.
Some people are pressed that their appearance in this film at all shows that this individual
story is getting hijacked in service of future MCU setup. At the risk of sounding like a centrist,
the fact that both of these opposing opinions are being shouted from the rooftop suggests to me that
the truth is probably somewhere in between. And I know that s like a fallacy, but here s
the thing again, both of these complaints are kinda silly. First we re not seeing these guys
again in a film, until *maybe* secret wars. The illuminati aren t setting up anything,
really we re clearly not getting Reed Krasinski in the mainline MCU,
we re not getting this Black Bolt back we re not getting Patrick Stewart s Professor X,
and so forth. It barely even sets up alternate versions of these characters
no mention is given to mutants, and there s no dialogue establishing the fantastic four,
or even what the baxter foundation is. This isn t setup it s just an alternate universe showing
up because this is a film about our characters going to alternate universes it s bringing in
established comic-book characters because that s what these films do, and sure, there s an element
of fanservice here casting these with familiar faces and fancasts but there s always fanservice
in these films. This doesn t even really go beyond what Spider-Man: No Way Home was doing.
And the reason they re not given more to do, that they re all dispatched in the second act is
because they re minor characters in a Dr Strange movie. This isn t an illuminati film, or an
exiles film the important part here is how these multiversal figures interact with Strange and
Wanda and further their journeys. That s what they re here for, and that s what they do.
Another bad take is the whole Wanda s villainy is anti-feminist thing. The idea is that this
film sees a previously heroic character pivot to villainy due to, just, crazy mommy energy and
that this pushes a previously complex character into the trope of the insanely protective mother,
which is A: kinda sexist and B: reductive and simplistic for a character like Wanda. Now,
if you ve seen this new film with only a passing familiarity with Wanda s past in the MCU, I can
kind of see how you d reach a conclusion like this. But please go back and watch these films,
because this is a highly misguided take. I m going to quickly summarise some of Wanda s character
beats from each appearance to demonstrate why. We first meet wanda in Age of Ultron,
opposing the Avengers. This antagonism is born because she believes Tony Stark is responsible
for killing her parents, for shattering her family. That event, that shattering of her world,
is the first formative moment for this version of Wanda Maximoff. It rocked her world,
and thereafter she clung closer to her brother Pietro the only remnant of those halcyon days when
she had a family. In this film, she loses Pietro and the only reason this doesn t utterly break her
is that Pietro died fighting with the Avengers a group they decided to join for the good of
the world. So while Wanda lost the last member of her original family, the silver lining is that she
may have found a new family in the Avengers, a new family she and Pietro chose together.
Fast forward to Civil War. In this film, Wanda realises that this group isn t a true family,
or at least her true family. Fake Dad Tony has her locked up, and the rest of the group tear
themselves apart. Wanda s small mercy here is that she escapes with the secret avengers still perhaps
a surrogate family of sorts while also kindling the spark of a truer bond with Vision, which only
grows thereafter. Skip to Infinity War and Vision now revealed as the true family member Wanda s
been searching for since Pietro and her parents died asks her to abandon the Avengers to just stay
with him. To choose to this new family above the world and above heroism. But Wanda s altruism
doesn t let her make this choice, not yet and to oversimplify Infinity War and Endgame,
this choice kinda leads to her having to kill her own husband for the sake of the universe
essentially the same basic choice she made in Edinburgh but scaled up a thousandfold.
Here s the kicker while almost everyone else gets their dead people back, she doesn t. She s paid
the ultimate price, and lost her only true new family as a result. Wandavision essentially plays
that choice out again, but in an even crueller way she s gifted the perfect life with her family
the desire that s been driving her all along, now fully realised - and again, she has to sacrifice
it all for the benefit of others other families, who get to stay together. People have tried to
reinterpret WandaVision as a villain origin story, but it isn t Wanda ultimately makes the
right choice to throw away her heart s desire when it becomes clear to her that she s hurting people.
The constant through all of this, though, through every situation Wanda s been in and behind every
choice she s made, is her desire for a family to rebuild that which was blown away from her
as a sokovian child. After Wanda finally seemed to achieve this goal in Wandavision only to have it
snatched away once more her goal in this film is not out of character. Her desire to find her lost
family which does, sort of exist, is the natural extension of everything we ve seen up until now.
Her methods for this, her willingness to kill and destroy in service of this aim that is new, that s
not the Wanda we know. But her motivation isn t it's the extension of the character these films
have built for her. Personally, I think it s more anti-feminist to ignore these characterisation
and stories we ve seen in Wanda s past, which demonstrate the centrality of family to her life,
than it is to base her motivations in this film around motherhood.
The other thing relating to this I ve seen mentioned a bunch is that Wanda s heel turn
is jarring and abrupt, and that it s sort of a slap in the face to her character.
This complaint has a lot more merit than the ones we ve been talking about, but I don t think it s
entirely justified. The reason for this is the Darkhold, which is established to corrupt its
users. Everyone who goes to the darkhold for power is swayed by its evil that s like, a general rule.
Maybe it s a valid criticism of this film that this point isn t set up early enough or hammered
home clearly enough. Wanda s villainy in this film is due to the darkhold more than it is due
to her past and her story and you could call this narratively cheap, but I think if the narrative
had been clearer about this, it would be a more satisfying beat. A way to do this would have been
to open the film with Strange dreaming through the perspective of multiverse-darkhold Strange,
establishing the corrupting power of the darkhold before we even learn about Wanda s turn.
This, of course, didn t happen. We learn the truth later on, but in a film as busy as this one,
it s understandable that not everyone got this, got that Wandavision isn t a villain origin story,
but a story showing a hero breaking after a final heroic move, tempted to turn to risky measures to
regain her greatest desire. It s hubris the wanda of wandavision would never have opened
the darkhold if she knew it would make her into the beast we see in multiverse of madness. This
character progression, then, is perhaps contrived, and could perhaps have been better signposted,
but in some ways it s worth it because we get a vision of the Scarlet Witch living up to the
character s potential, albeit in an evil way. We finally get an opportunity for Elizabeth
Olsen to act her heart out on the big screen, no longer relegated to the supporting roles she
d held previously. If villainy is the price we had to pay for this, I m willing to pay it and I
say this as someone who s considered Wanda one of my favorite MCU heroes since she first appeared.
In a way, this comes back to what I was talking about earlier the fact that this film takes risks,
makes big swings, goes to new places. Maybe not every big swing is going to please everyone but
we need these films to keep upsetting the status quo, to keep evolving in unexpected ways.
Multiverse of Madness does this. The good thing is I don t think this is an isolated
incident. I think we saw a lot of these patterns in Eternals, another film which let its director
inject their own style and take the reins to a degree. It just wasn t as obvious there, since
Chloe Zhao s visual style is less in-your-face than Raimi s. If you re interested in how that
film innovated beyond the visual I ve got a few videos on that, which should be linked onscreen
now but going back to Dr Strange I loved it, and I really hope Marvel takes the approach of this
film as the blueprint for the next decade. Even if the reception s been a little more
mixed than they re used to it ll certainly pay off in the long run, and I think this franchise
needs to take this chance, needs to have faith in the face of uncertainty. Needs to go on red.
Please do let me know what you guys think about all this below,
and thanks as always to my patrons onscreen now, especially Kevin Douglas and Ian Fyfield