Doctor Strange and the mutiverse of Madness is a direct sequel to 2016’s Doctor Strange and is the 28th (28 movies in a franchise is fucking unreal), installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe or MCU. Several MCU veterans return back for this installment including (obvioulsy), Benedict Cumberbact as sorcereror Stephen Strange, Benedict Wong as Wong the Socrceror Supreme, Chietwel Ejifor returns as Mordo, Rachel Mcadams returns to the MCU for the first time since the origianl Doctor Strange film in this series as Chrsitine Palmer ,and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maxmoff AKA the Scarlett Witch round out the familliar faces. Xochitl Gomez is a newcomer here as America Chavez, a girl who has the ability to trvael to different unvierses but does not know how to control it. Sam Raimi,directs for the first time since 2013 (Oz the Great and Powerful) and in doing so returns to the superhero movie genre since he last left us with the Spider man triology (you know the one with two great movies and one that had Tobey Maguire emo dancing in the streets).

Upon writing this review, I have now watched this film in the theatre twice.The first time I watched this film, it left me feeling more conflcited than I previoulsy have other any other MCU films. So after a while of letting my thoughts sit in my head as well as listening to some of the other reactions, I went back to the theatre so see it agin and see how I feel about the movie. So here is my review and some of my thoughts. This is a spoiler reiview so you have been warned.

Plot Summary:

The movie begins with the introduction of America Chaves and a different Doctor Strange, who are being chased by some type of moanter that has been set upon them. While running on an unstable path, a shining book appears in the distance known as the book of of Visanti which I could have sworn while watching this was the book of Ashanti and was a book with a bunch of her songs and quotes in it but i digress. The monster gets to them before they can get to the book and in attempt to save the universe, Strange tries to absorb Chavese’s power to stop the monster from absorbing Americas power . Strange is killed by the creature and Chaves escapes from the universe using her power. We then immediatley cut to our Dr Strange waking up in bed to what seemed to have been a dream.

Upon waking, Strange leaves to go to the wedding of Christine( Rachael Mcadams), where they have a brief conversation where Stephen asks Christine what went wrong between them and she replies teliing him that he always wants to be the Knife, and in return she asks him if he is happy which he replies saying yes. Stephen than looks outside to see chaos happening on the streets as people are running in terror and cars are being thrown in the air. Strange puts his cloak and suit on to go see what is going on and finds America Chaves being chased by a giant one eyed octopus.Strange with the assistance of his colleague and sorcerror superior Wong, kills the Octopus by launching a spear into its eye and pulling it out. Strange and Wong begin speaking with Chaves as she reveals that the monster was sent by a demon to kidnap her.

She reveals that the demon wanted to take her powers which is the ability to travel between universes which she cannot control. She tells the two that she and Strange were trying to reach the book of Vishnati which has the power to give a sorcerror anything they need to defeat their enemies (shocker). Strange asks for proof that she is a unvierse traveler and she proves it by showing Stephen on a roof nearby the corpse of the Stephen who died trying to take her power before the monster could.Strange and Wong come to the conclusion that only someone with withcraft abilities could conjure these monsters.

Wong and Stephen take Chavez to Kamar-Taj, where she can be protected. Stephen seeks out Wanda Maxmoff for assistance on protecting Chavez from whoever may be coming after her but after a slip of the tongue, Wanda tells Stephen that she is the demon who is trying to get Chavez and take her power. Wanda tells Sephen she has read the darkhold, a collection of dark spells and powers which Wanda wants to use to find Chaves, take her pwoer and kill her, and leave her current reality and find her children who live in another universe. Wanda asks Strange to give over Chaves to her, but he refuses which prompts Wanda to go to Kamar Taj where she battles, Strange, Wong and the warriors there. Chaves is able to escape from the temple fortress and Stranges follows her, where they tumble through a series of different unviveres before they land in Earth 838.

Chaves and Strange head toward a building where it appears the version of doctor Strange in this unvierse is but a statue lies in front of the building that has an inscription saying Strange in this unvierse died while fighting Thanos. Mordo greets Strange and Chaves outside and he tells them that an indiviaul with the darkhold can dreamwalk into simillar personalites in other unviveres, Strange and Chaves pass out from a cup of tea Mordo gives them to drink.

Meanwhile at Kamr-Taj, a surving defender of Wands’s attack destroys the darkhold book (and gets turned into a pack) that Wanda is using. Wong tells Wanda that the darkhold book is only a copy of all the listed spells which exhist at Wundagore, a mountain top, where Wanda has Wong guide her to. Strange and Chaves wake up in two chambers in a fortress, where they see this unviverses version of Christine, where she tells them, that she was at Stranges funeral and he is a threat. Mordo takes Strange to to speak with the Illuminati to discuss the problem of his prescence in that unvierse. We go back to Wundagore where Wanda begins re-using the darhold spells to dreamwalk into a version of her self in Earth 838. Strange meets the Illuminati who consist of Captan Carter, Blackagar Boltagon (Blackbolt), Maria Rambeau (Captain Marvel), Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4, and Charles Xavier. The illumnati tell Strange, that he himself is in fact the biggest dangerto the multverse and not Wanda (I am sure they wont regret having this thought later).

Xavier tells Strange that duirng the war against Thanos, he triggered an incursion which can cause a unvierse to be destoryed via two unviveres colliding. The Illuminati had to have Strange killed due to the danger he was seen to be. Wanda Finds the fortress where Strange and Chavez are being held, and murders the sentry guards and the Illumniati. Chaves is able to break free before Wanda can get to her, and they find Strange. Christine tells Strange that they have a book of Visanti in the fortress.

They begin moving toward it while Wanda Chases them though an underground tunnel. Once Strange, Chaves, and Chrsitina, reach the book, Wanda cates up with them, and destroys the book. She takes Chaves back with her to Wundagore and sends Strange and Christine to a universe where an incursion has happened. Strange and Christina find a version of Doctor Strange, who has used the darkhold in this universe and has used it to kill other versions of doctor Strange. Strange asks the bad Strange to give him the darkhold so he can use it to stop Wanda but bad Strange refuses and the two duel in a magic music note fight where evil Strange is thrown out the window and is impaled on a fence.

Good Strange uses the darkhold to possess the dead body of the Strange who died with Chaves and with the help of eveil spirts, go to Wundagore to stop Wanda. Chaves Sends Wanda to the Universe of the other Wanda that she possessed, where her children see her and are immediatley frightened by her. The Wanda that she had possessed , tells her that the children whill still be loved. Wanda Destroys the darkhold and kills hersef (for now), while Wong and Chaves return back to their unvierse and Strange tells Christine that he loves her in every unvierse before retunring back to his universe. Strange comes back, but now he has residual affects from the darkhold that he used to stop Wanda.

Whats Good:

This is one of the more unique entries in the MCU mostly due to the direction of Sam Raimi. Raimi brings something to this franchise that none of the other theatrical releases have brought so far, and that is horror and shock. Raimi brings his horror background, much like he infused horror elements in his Spider man triology. There are several sequences that are legit SCARY and shocking. Wanda crawling out of a gong and looking like the girl crawling out of the tv in the Ring, Wanda in 838 seeing a picture of herself looking back at her, and two jump out scences where Wanda is chasing the trio of Strange, Christine, & Chaves, and Wanda jmping out of a red cloud of smoke to kill Xavier. Raimi brings some of his Evil Dead and Drag me to hell background with a lot of the imagery in this movie, particulary with the conjuring of spirits, and books being used to conjure supernatural energies. And then their is the violence. Blackbolts death in this movie is one of the most shocking things I have seen in a marvel movie since the end of Infinity War. THE MANS HEAD IS DEFLATED LIKE A FUCKING BALLON AFTER WANDA TAKES HIS MOUTH AWAY WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY HE CAN USE HIS POWER. That is immediatley followed by Mr Fantastic being turned into Spaghetti, Peggy Carter getting cut in half with her own shield, Captin marvel being crushed by a statue, and Xavier getting his neck snapped. On top of the violecnce and horror images, this movie is visually stellar.

A couple of scenes stick out in my mind, when Wanda Wipes out the warriors at Kamar-Taj, Strange creates an illusion inside the fortress where the room around Wanda is revolving and moving to confuse her and creates illusions until she find a water reflection in the room to escape. Another moment once Chaves and Strange escape from Wanda, and go though several universes, one of which includes a unvierse where everything and everyone is made of paint, a universe with dinasours (dont get any ideas Disney & Universal), a water universe, and a cartoon universe. All the actors in this movie are good but Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda is the standout as Raimi really lets her slay, slay, & slay, but we really get the feeling from her that she thinks she is right in what she is doing.

Whats Ass:

As i mentioned above, Wanda was one of my favirote parts of this movie and I thought Elizabeth Olsen was great. But my biggest issue with this movie is the development of how we got to Wanda becoming a murder machine. It just does not compute how Wanda goes so quickly to justifying the murder of other heroes, so she can be happy. We know Wanda has has had a rorugh life before this movie begins. Wanda has had to go through the death of her brother Quicksilver in Age of Ultron.

She was forced to kill her love interest Vision, and on top of that her grief lead her to creating her own neighborhood community,and making a family with Vision and holding an entire group of people against their will so she could sustain a happy life.

We know at the end of Wandavision that Wanda does not feel good about what she has done, and in this movie she is ready right away to turn everyone into packs. They needed to dedicate more time in Wandavision or in this movie to show that Wanda could come to the conclusion that she might go on a murder spree to get what she wants. If we got some time in this movie showing her coming to the realization that she could get whatever she wants with her powers and the darkhold than it would make more sense where she is in this movie. You can say she was corrupted by the Darkhold, but we dont see her reading it in this movie and we dont get a hint about it in one of the earlier MCU entries. We are just told right away that Wanda wants to kill Chaves and have the life she has dreamed of. Elizabeth Olsen has been good in all her MCU appearances so I think she can pull off portratying a descent into madness. Taking a note from another Disney property in the prequel triology for Star Wars, Anakin Skywalker had three movies that showed how and why he turned to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader.

We see the progression of Anakin becoming more angry at the Jedi and more fearful for his future, so when he finally is in the suit, it makes sense how he got there. Obvioulsy I dont think we needed more movies to show her switch into the Scarlett Witch as we already got multiple movies and shows to explain her internal struggle but they could have given us a little bit more time to show this change from avenger to an actual killer. I think they could have gone a different route with another villain, or they needed to really take their time with getting Wanda to the point where she is a straight up enemy. Wandas went out fucking sad in the end of this movie, considering shes one of the charaters thats been in this franchise for the longest, to just have her go out killing herself (and we dont even see it on screen), 1 minute after relaizing she might not be a good person was just dissapointing. Its going to be diffuclt for them to bring her back at this point and have her be a hero.

I dont know how the writers are gonna swing that after everything she did in this movie if they indeed bring her back. My other issues with this movie are more script/plot related after rewatcing. . Doctor Strange doesnt have the ability to travel to different unvierses but in Spider No Way Home, Ned can literally open portals to the multiverse with Stranges Sling, how Sway? When we see Zombie Strange telling Chaves that she can control her power if she just “trusts herself” like she always has just felt like a copout to me wrting wise. Oh yeah, the book of Vishanti, completley fukcing usueless. Is Mordo still stuck in the Illuminati fortress drop?

My overall thoughts/Grade:

Doctor Strange into the multiverse of madness is a flawed but still a pretty good edition in the MCU. If your a fan of the MCU and if your Sam Raimi fan, I think you will enjoy this one. I think a lot of people are going to have problems with Wanda,but a majority of the most badass scenes in this movie have her in it. Hell at one point she was straight up looking like the terminator, running around chasing people. This movie is not gonn rank super high in the overall MCU for me but in terms of phase 4, I think it is behind Spider man NWH, & Shang Chi. Ill be really curious see how this is gonna afect the rest of this current Marvel Phase we are in. Also just one last thought , I thought it was really cool Kevin Feige, Sam Raimi, & Danny Elfman the composer where reunited for the first time together since the Raimi Spider man triology. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness gets a B- from me.