Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens the doorway to the multiverse, including alternate versions of himself, whose threat to humanity is too great for the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda Maximoff.
When it was first announced that Sam Raimi would be taking on directing duties for the new Doctor Strange movie, I was ecstatic. Not only did he direct the three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films, but he also made the iconic Evil Dead series. Because I grew up on them throughout the ’70s and ’80s, I was curious to see if he would inject “Multiverse of Madness” with a darker and more menacing ambiance. The answer? Yes, and yes.
He has made the darkest Marvel movie to date, and that’s a good thing. For far too long, Marvel has been criticized for always keeping their films on the lighter side of the spectrum, while DC has always gone in the opposite direction, but here, he successfully balances the horror and fantasy elements so one moment you’re screaming with terror and the next you’re laughing out loud. He first displayed this delicate symmetry in his 1987 sequel, “Evil Dead II,” which blended horror and dark humor, the only film in the trilogy that utilized both components effectively. And now he can add “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” to that list of achievements.
The film begins a few months after the events of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and has Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) awakening from a nightmare where he is trying to rescue a young woman from Gargantos, a cyclopean, tentacled monster in an unfamiliar dimension. He shrugs off the nightmare as nothing more than an after-effect from the spell he cast at the end of “No Way Home.” While attending the wedding of his ex, Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), Gargantos appears and begins attacking New York. Strange jumps into action and quickly realizes that the monster is chasing after the same young woman he witnessed the night before in his nightmare.
After defeating Gargantos with some help from Wong (Benedict Wong), now the Sorcerer Supreme, the young woman thanks them for their help. She gives them her name, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), and informs them that she possesses superhuman strength and durability and has the power to travel through the multiverse into other realities. When Strange remembers her from his dream, she tells him it wasn’t a dream but that he was inside a variant of himself from another universe, utilizing a power called Dreamwalking, where he can enter someone else’s dreams and control them or travel to other realms. America discloses that a mysterious creature is after her with the intent of siphoning her powers for its own nefarious needs.
When Strange comprehends that a witch and not a sorcerer controls the creature, as he initially thought, he turns to Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), his old friend and former Avenger but things quickly deteriorate when it becomes apparent that the Scarlet Witch has completely taken over Wanda. The former desires America’s powers to help her rescue her two boys from an alternate universe. Utilizing her powers, America opens a portal, and along with Strange, they jump into it, taking them to a far-off dimension where they must try and mobilize their efforts to beat the Scarlet Witch. They will meet new allies and enemies along the way, but in the Multiverse, not everyone is who they appear to be.
For a story as intricate and sinister as this, Sam Raimi is the perfect choice as director. He imbues the film with his customary kinetic, wild camera movements and whip pans, dark humor, and occasional moments of slapstick playfulness. And who could forget one Mister Bruce Campbell? He appears as a pizza vendor cursed by Doctor Strange who punches and slaps himself and rams his head into his pizza cart, reminiscent of his wonderfully zany performance in “Evil Dead II.” Towards the end of the movie, when Strange is fighting the Scarlet Witch, he calls on a small army of the dead who take up residence in dizzying amounts of ghostly skeletons, paying homage to Raimi’s entire Evil Dead series. While the film is rated PG-13, smaller children might find some of the movie’s supernatural villains frightening.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen continue their winning streaks as Doctor Strange and Wanda Maximoff, respectively, and during their shared scenes, they play wonderfully off each other. There isn’t one emotion Olsen doesn’t occupy throughout the entire 126-minute runtime. As the story’s central antagonist, she doesn’t play her scenes with over-the-top villainy; she simply wants to be with her two boys and will stop at nothing to achieve her desired goal. Her performance is convincing, emotional, and utterly compelling. While she is most certainly the bad guy, her intentions are what make you empathize with her, even when she’s eliminating those who get in her way.
There have been a lot of fan theories as to who could turn up in the film now that the MCU is crossing over into the Multiverse; from the X-Men to the Fantastic Four to the Illuminati, and while I could divulge that information here, I won’t, as I want each of you to enjoy the film as you view it for the very first time, as I did. There are a lot of surprises, and there is a mid-credits, and post-credits scene, so don’t forget to remain seated until the very end. “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” eliminates the sour taste left by last year’s “Eternals” and gives us hope as we look forward to Marvel’s next big-screen spectacle: “Thor: Love and Thunder,” arriving in theaters on July 8th.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available on Digital HD
and will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™ and DVD July 26th
