Movie Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Movie #11 of 2022:

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

This is generally another fun Marvel movie, but it’s one that feels frustratingly both overstuffed and understaffed. True to its title, there is a lot of universe-hopping, yet only to realities we’ve never seen before (after Spider-Man: No Way Home, for all its own faults, showed the power of tapping into audience nostalgia by applying the multiverse framework to film franchises not originally in the MCU). So although we get a version of — spoiler alert — Professor Charles Xavier here, it’s not one that actually corresponds to any of the prior X-Men movies, nor is he joined by any other mutants from that corner of the Marvel Comics IP empire. Reed Richards, too, is the sole representative of his traditional team for some unexplained reason, and while there’s a certain thrill in seeing these characters in this continuity for the first time since Disney bought Fox Studios and thus reunited their adaptation rights, the effect feels somewhat threadbare when examined too closely.

And then there’s the Wanda of it all, an antagonist whose arc doesn’t read coherently even if we ignore the massive leap from where she ended her Disney+ series as a conflicted but relatively decent heroine. She wants to return to the children that she dreamed up on WandaVision, seeking a timeline where they’re real, but she can’t find one where they’re already orphaned and she wouldn’t have to kill and replace their mom to get custody? She can’t use her new witchy powers to just, I don’t know, create new fake kids for herself? I hate indulging in this sort of what-about nitpicking, but the fact is, the script to this movie doesn’t ever give us enough information about the limits of its magical elements, which makes it hard to remotely accept her bad guy logic of ‘the single possible way I can be a happy mother is by murdering my way to stealing someone else’s babies.’

The visual effects are good, if a tad overindulgent of director Sam Raimi’s quirks at times, and Hispanic daughter of two moms America Chavez is a wonderful bit of added diversity to a franchise that remains pretty white, male, and straight overall. The returning Doctor Strange himself is a fine leading presence, as usual at his best when facing some sort of comeuppance for his customary arrogance. I wouldn’t call this a must-watch for casual fans — despite the surprisingly high body count of recognizable named heroes, it’s all in alternate dimensions we’re unlikely to visit again — but its humor and inventiveness places it above something like Eternals, at least.

[Content warning for strobe effects, body horror, and gore.]

★★★☆☆

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