‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Midness’
Last weekend I took a trip down to the movie theater to watch the new Dr. Strange film, ‘The Multiverse of Madness’. As my controversial opinion on ‘Spider-man: No Way Home’ would attest to, I was not looking forward to watching this film and had pretty low expectations, and the way this movie starts confirms my suspicions.
Things That Didn’t Work
The movie opens with a weird scene. Spoiler Warning, Benedict Cumberbatch and Xochitl Gomez are running from some fire monster, and they tell us right away what this monster wants — which is lackluster, build suspense marvel. Cumberbatch has a man bun, which is the most frightening thing in this movie, which is saying a lot seeing as this is boarder-lining a horror movie. I don’t like this scene for many reasons. Mainly, it feels rushed, usually I applaud Marvel for always starting one movie where another one ended so it feels continuous and it’s a refresher in case you don’t remember what happened, but instead of this movies opening taking place after the events of ‘Spider-man: No Way Home’ it has this weird scene where the viewer is confused. It feels like we’re missing something.
Then we cut to Doctor Strange waking up because that opening scene was his dream — as well as another reality because SURPRISE, if you didn’t already know, dreams are actually just different realities of the multiverse. He then gets ready for his exes wedding, yawn, and then there’s this awkward and unnecessary moment between him and this other wedding guest which Marvel only uses as comedy. This moment is definitely not needed and it’s way too long and drawn out for a joke. I found myself not even really paying attention to the joke because of how long it took to get to it, I was really just thinking “Who are you? Why does this matter?” But it doesn’t matter because even though the viewers learn this random man’s life story, he never makes an appearance after this scene.
The movie is extremely fast paced, though I’m not too upset about that due to the fact that this movie is almost thirty minutes shorter than the average Marvel film. However, it does leave some minor inconsistencies in the beginning of the film where too much information and conflict is being displayed so quickly, with the reveal of the “Big Bad” of the movie.
Things That Did work
This problem fixes itself during the middle of the film, and a more natural pace takes form. Personally, this makes a movie more enjoyable. I genuinely found myself sitting on the edge of my seat through many of the action scenes with Scarlett Witch played by Elizabeth Olsen, because of her disturbing mourning innocence of her losing herself throughout the movie. Olsen plays this narrative super well as you feel bad for the character but you also recognize that she is in the wrong.
The cinematography of this movie stands out incomparable to any other Marvel film. The imagery being displayed through colors, reflections, and music score make many scenes incredibly beautiful and make an overall pleasing movie visually.
Final Thoughts
Even though the plot gets a bit lost and predictable, and the beginning almost made me walk out of the theater due to the fast paced nature and the confusion of the practicality of some of the earlier scenes, I am glad I stayed to finish the film. Overall, this is one of my favorite Marvel movies of recent years despite it being about my least favorite Marvel Superhero. ‘The Multiverse of Midness’, isn’t as mid as my clickbait title might lead astray.