Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness
Ten Second Review: We have reached the point where you either invest in the marvel cinematic universe or ignore it.
I was never the biggest Doctor Strange fan, but before the most recent Spiderman film I rewatched it and enjoyed it more than I remembered. It is very much a set of powers (and corner of the MCU) where you have to jump on board and surrender reason a little. When you watched Iron Man or Captain America it was mostly grounded in a real universe. Doctor Strange really casts that out, but as the surrounding media develops too, the MCU is getting harder to keep track off mirror dimension or not.
Wanda is looking for a child with a very special power, but when that child quite literally falls into Doctor Strange’s lap, the two will have to fight it out across the multiverse to decide the girl’s fate.
As I have mentioned before; we are at a point where Marvel films are inevitably well made from a production aspect, but we may be at a stage where the forward planning and relations between films may in fact be about to divide its audiences. I try to catch all the Marvel films to stay in the loop. I have watched Wandavison and a few episodes here and there of some of the other shows, but I don’t follow them religiously. I would still say that this level is in the upper level of MCU consumption. It’s enough to know what’s happening and be excited for reveals, but I’m certainly not a completionist.
The other side is people who occasionally see Marvel films if it’s one of the big ones and I can’t quite imagine what Doctor Strange must be like to watch from that viewers angle. Increasingly the references are getting (and will continue to be) very interlinked. Jumping in will leave many lost and, through no ones fault I might add, leave them disappointed. By rewarding its hardcore fan base and developing its character roster as an interconnected universe, Marvel is doing something we’ve never seen on film at this scale. It can be a real treat but it can be quite unrewarding too.
I’m intrigued to see how they balance this in the future because this felt like it was on the edge of watchability for some viewers.
Regarding the film itself, it felt a bit muddled. It felt as though they tried to cover a lot. I don’t know if the audience needed as much time with Christine as Strange did and it felt a little inauthentic considering her screen time over the last few years has been approximately zero. I think a tighter focus would have helped it in its lagging portions, but also given more time to develop America Chavez too.
This one feels as though it may play a big role going forward, but I feel we could say that about each and every Marvel film now. I don’t know that I would actually recommend it to non MCU fans but I also think going forward that might be the default. At some point they will have to actually start building towards something again before the fatigue sets in.
