Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

The Mother of All Evil

or

Night of the Walking Stranges

 

Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is not having a good night. In another of those loopy dimensions he goes into every so often that tumble and disorient you, he is trying to get to a mysterious glowing pedestal that will solve all of their problems. 

 

They? Yeah, he has with him a 'tween (Xochitl Gomez) in a star-patched jeans jacket, who supposedly has powers but currently is just having issues keeping her feet. They are being pursued by some "thing" or other (standard Marvel description: "it sure is BIG!") and Strange is hanging on by his pony-tail (he has a pony-tail?) in the fight and makes the decision to sacrifice the kid's powers in order to tray and get them out of it. Woops, bad move. It doesn't work and Strange is killed and the kid gets thrown into another Universe and it looks like the movie, Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, is over before it even gets started.

 

Damn "in media res," anyway! 

No, sorry. It was all just a terrible dream. Yeah. He's a wizard. They don't just have "dreams." Something's going on, and it's not until the good doctor attends the wedding of former flame Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), which is a real nightmare for him, that he begins to think there might be something more to this. Christine cuts him down a peg or two by telling him "You always have to be the one with the knife" (which will have some significance later on), and then the reception is crashed by a one-eyed octopus causing a ruckus out in the streets of NYC.

Strange and the Earth's Sorcerer Supreme Wong (Benedict Wong) do battle with the thing and dang if the focus of cycloptopus is the 'tween in a star-patched jeans jacket whose name is America Chavez—this creates a synaptic issue whenever someone says "We've got to save America" and I think we're about to see some canvassing of neighborhoods. A post-octopicide talk with America reveals that she's from another part of the multi-verse, another dimensional version of our space-time, and her super-power is that she can travel between those dimensions, with, she confesses, little control about where she ends up—GPS being on the fritz or something. Strange deja vu's that this was the kid from his dream and they find the body of the other-dimensional Strange and the strange doctor concludes that "dreams are merely windows into our multi-versal selves." Before they can question whether that has been peer-reviewed, they discover markings on the calamari shards of the creature, which are recognized as rune markings and Strange decides to visit another Marvel mage, Wanda Maximus (Elizabeth Olsen), former Avenger, who has been going through her own crises on "Wandavision."

At this point, the exposition should stop or it'll turn as spoilery as Strange's spell in Spider-man: No Way Home. Leave it that things get complicated and that the opening to other Earths and other existences provide motivations, certainly to issues that remain unresolved, and complications. To its credit, the movie does a good enough job of expositioning that you don't feel you HAVE to have seen "Wandavision" or subscribe to Disney+. We get to meet a couple of other distinctive Strange's, another Wanda, a planet that has their own sort of Avengers called The Illuminati (which contains some giddiness-inducing fan-service of what comprises that group and who they are portrayed by—just don't get attached), and there's a marvelously done scene—reminiscent of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse—that has Strange and America portaling through meta-verse after meta-verse that is marvelously creative for the 45 seconds or so that it lasts.

The best thing about the movie, though, is that director Sam Raimi is back. No, he didn't do the first one— did that—but Raimi did the first three live-action Spider-man movies and basically wrote the template for the Marvel movies, which they would do well to study if they want to make films of innovation and energy. 

It's apparent very early in the film that his style is missed—his movies, be they action or horror, always had a delirious edge to them that would invoke responses of either horror or humor, a cinematic glee embedded in their mise en scène and montage. It's an added zhuzh to the proceedings, just a propulsive nudge with a wink, a comedic snap, that other Marvel movies just don't have. It's at once an acknowledgment of the goofiness behind the super-hero concept (and that we should take it SO seriously), while also trying to push the peril and make it visceral (so that we DO take it seriously).

It's a hold-over from Raimi's origins in horror (as is a cameo from Bruce Campbell!) where the purpose is to make the "horrible" entertaining, but not so entertaining that you dismiss the darkness and the threat that the film-maker means to describe. You can have the "giggle", but it's better that you have it after a jolt, the directorial "gotcha" rewarded by the communal admission that the audience is vulnerable ("yeah I'm only human—you got me") and can be won over. 

Every movie—every theater-piece—is like that. It's a battle to win over the audience. And one can do that either by playing it safe with fan-service (and this movie is guilty of that, certainly) or by challenging—not placating—the audience in order to win its respect. Raimi is still very much of that old school (oh, he'd hate that term!) and after his box-office disappointments with Spider-Man 3 and Oz The Great and Powerful, he hasn't had a feature film made and released for 9 years. And as much as I trashed those movies, I have to say, it's good to have him back.

For all the plot contrivances, and the attempts to gin up emotional drama, DrS&MOM (oh, that's funny...) is a good ride where you don't think about those things while you're being manipulated so well. It helps that Elizabeth Olsen is a scary-good actor and that there's a good cast of great thesp's lending support all along the way.

 

It's a big improvement over the first one.

"Eyes will pop out of your brain...when you're Strange"