Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

For all Sam Raimi's standing in the industry and the adulation in which he's held, by my reckoning, his last good film was 1995's The Quick and the Dead. I haven't forgotten his Spider-Man films (really disliked those) and there are a couple I've missed, sure, but Marvel took a risk signing him on for this. The good news for Feige and co is that it works. It's more inventive than recent MCU films, what with the multiverse angle that was road-tested by the Loki (and WandaVision to a lesser extent) TV series, and its smattering of Raimi touches. It's arguably the best of the phase 4 films so far.

Brief rundown - a demon is hunting a girl, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez, and you're on your own pronouncing that first name) to steal her power of traversing the multiverse (multi-traversing?). Our Strange (Universe 616) is co-opted into helping her avoid said nasty. Cumberbatch is supreme (though not Sorcerer Supreme) as Strange, and he's well supported by Gomez, Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch and Benedict Wong as the actual top wiz, Wong. There are also a number of alternate universe characters that open the door to the introduction of various Marvel properties - I'll leave that here, hopefully your eyebrows will raise in the same way mine did.

At its core, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a film about loss - Strange losing Christine (Rachel McAdams) to another dude; America losing her parents; but most centrally to the plot, ScarWitch losing her 'kids'. I suppose you could say that as she invented the kids in WandaVision, she's actually losing (lost?) her mind as well. Wacko three-eye Darkhold Strange has clearly misplaced his ego (probably id and super-ego too), not to mention a universe that was wiped out thanks to an incursion (where two universes get too close to one another). Another Christine lost her Strange as well, but you get the drift by now, it's loss all the way down.

As sombre as all this thematic misery sounds, the film as a whole jazzes along, no little thanks to writer, Rick and Morty and Loki alumnus, Michael Waldron. He and Raimi combine to give this Marvel film glimpses of indi-cred and bizarro shit that feels fresh to the MCU. Strange and America's careen through various universes - hellish, paint, cartoon, Cubism, etc. - is pretty mint, reminiscent of the first Doctor Strange film where the Ancient One sends him proper trippin'. This bit also sits as a companion piece to Everything Everywhere All at Once, equally impressive, just more buckage spent on the technicals. There's a great fight with musical notes (sure, why not?) and some very Raimi hits, with undead souls co-opted as a hang-glider for a zombie Strange, and Bruce Campbell in a not unexpected cameo. Top bins.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is showing on many screens in many universes right now.

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The old London bus thing has just happened with multiverse films (like meteor films or bug animations  - there's even a name for this phenomenon, Twin Films). Hence, you should go and see Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. And steering away from multiverse films, why not dig a bit deeper into the origins of the Campbell cameo with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II (1987). This was one of the films Matt brought to art camp in high school. Don't recall it going over too well:) Mind you, my Marx Brothers films didn't either.