Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness | Film Review

 

As much as I love Marvel and the MCU, I haven't really kept up to date with the movies and series that make up Phase 4 - and the ones that I have seen, I haven't really loved yet. This film wasn't high on my list to see, but I was interested to see how certain characters' stories would continue.

When Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) meets America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a girl who can travel across the multiverse, they team up to take on multiple threats.

I was quite underwhelmed by this film. I didn't expect to love it, but I wish I had.

I liked the direction that the film took certain characters in, such as Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who gets a continuation of her story in Wandavision. It was interesting to revisit the character.

The story itself is interesting, but I never really felt invested in any of the characters - even the ones that I had already seen in multiple movies prior. 

Doctor Strange, as a character, is probably the least interesting character in this film. That makes it really hard to care about him and his future outside of the film. I kind of preferred the version of him that we've seen as a side character in other movies, such as 'Avengers: Infinity War' or 'Spider-Man: No Way Home'. He had an integral part in those stories and pushed the plots forward while not having to hold everything up as the main character. For me, there were other stronger, more interesting characters that took over, what should have been, his film.

If anything, the film ended up feeling like an extension of Wandavision.

There were a few interesting cameos that were fun to watch, but because of the way that the movie takes place, you never cared about them because ultimately the characters didn't matter.

For a film completely about the multiverse, multiple universes weren't really explored. It kind of felt like a wasted opportunity where the audience could have actually been able to see a wide variety of universes and worlds.

Overall, while the film is visually stunning, I found it a bit predictable and just overall not what I wanted to see from a story that had a lot of potential. This probably isn't one that I'll re-watch.

5.5/10