‘Doctor Strange 2’ Brings Sam Raimi’s Dark Magic Into The MCU

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

_{Marvel Studios/rated PG-13/126 minutes}

_{Directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron}

_{Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg and Rachel McAdams}

_{Cinematography by John Mathieson, edited by Bob Murawski and Tia Nolan, score by Danny Elfman}

_{Opens theatrically on May 6 courtesy of Walt Disney}

First, yes there are buzzy cameos and yes, they are entirely irrelevant. Kevin Fiege and friends are not idiots. They know that the secret of the MCU going back to Iron Man is that the interconnective tissue is the seasoning and/or a treat rather than the main course. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a mostly stand-alone horror-fantasy adventure. Yes, the film expects you to be familiar with the events of Doctor Strange and the last two Avengers films, but even explicit references to WandaVision are mostly there for those in the know. My ten-year-old son hasn’t watched that Disney+ show, and he wasn’t remotely confused. He was mostly thrilled by the universe-hopping adventure and the often graphically violent (especially for a PG-13 flick) action sequences that turn Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen, leaving it all on the floor) into a variation of The Terminator.

Yes, as revealed twenty minutes into the 126-minute picture, the big bad is the Scarlett Witch herself. Yes, she’s still mourning both for her beloved Vision (whom she had to kill in a futile attempt to stop Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War) and for the children she fabricated during her cosplay of The Twilight Zone’s “It’s a Good Life” on WandaVision. She has discovered that there exist copious universes where she is happy and tucks those young boys into bed every night, so she is trying to snatch young America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez, r.i.p. The Babysitters Club) and steal her universe-hopping power even at the expense of the child’s life. America has bounced around to other worlds trying to recruit versions of Doctor Strange to help to little avail. Maybe the 616 universe’s version will have better luck. Rest assured spoilerphobes, that’s just the first reel.

The rest of the film features Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Wong (Benedict Wong) and American Chavez doing their best to hold off a relentless, superpowered murder witch, an adventure that sends them to different universes and occasionally sees them interacting with alternate versions of themselves and/or other established MCU characters. The top-secret cameos, which sadly are not Winnie the Pooh or Statler and Waldorf, are mostly confined to a mid-film sequence whereby Strange and Chavez travel to a rather idealistic version of Earth that looks like Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. I’m guessing this is a version of Earth where Al Gore rightfully won the 2000 presidential election, but this universe’s Stephen Strange is A) dead and B) not exactly anyone’s favorite superhero. That seems to be a pattern throughout the multiverse, although you don’t need to have watched What If? for this one.

The first act is almost non-stop incident alternating between gee-whiz heroics and bloody confrontation. The Multiverse of Madness slowly evolves from a conventional superhero adventure into a supernatural horror romp, which means the film goes from “MCU with a few Sam Raimi flourishes” to “a Sam Raimi flick that occurs within the MCU.” Raimi has long excelled at bending his signatures to whatever property he’s playing with, from Spider-Man (which shares quite a bit with the R-rated Darkman) to Oz: The Great and Powerful (which is essentially Army of Darkness for kids). Whether by design or as a requirement for Raimi agreeing, this Strange sequel takes a torch to the very concept of fan service in ghoulishly funny ways. It seems to take direct aim at those who take these characters way too seriously. In that sense, it’s probably Marvel’s most subversive picture since Iron Man 3.

It’s a good thing the spectacle delivers, because the story is pretty one-note, and the characters are mostly there for exposition and action sequences. Strange falls victim to the same minor issue that I had with The Dark Knight, whereby a potential romantic interest in the first film becomes the “great love of his life and the only chance for happiness” in the sequel. Christine is happily married early on, and an alternate universe version does give Rachel McAdams “more to do.” America gets a great and peppy introduction only to fade into the background as a hostage or someone to assure Strange that he’s really a hero. Ditto Wong, who gets most of his moment moments in that first reel. It’s fun seeing Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mordo again, but since this version is an alternate-universe variation we’re still left wondering what happened to the 616 version.

Olsen has a grand time playing an emotionally tormented villain. On one hand, the film does explicitly reference the events of WandaVision. On the other hand, Wanda’s mega-murder spree does seem to negate any character growth from that show, making more sense as just a straight “What happened after Endgame” turn. Oh, and folks who were especially invested in Wanda’s “It’s about trauma!” narrative on the Disney+ show (or folks displeased by the notion of a female villain wreaking havoc over their inability to be a mother) will find themselves as annoyed by Multiverse of Madness as Game of Thrones fans who named their daughters Daenerys. Again, by coincidence or design, much of this film seems a response to a fandom that views the MCU as a kind of progressive moral arbiter and/or makes their fandom a defining part of their personality.

This Doctor Strange sequel feels like an intentional throwback to when the MCU was just another big-budget Hollywood franchise, one that wasn’t expected to make the world a better place or be the one-stop-shop for blockbuster thrills and/or onscreen representation. The violence is as brutal and cruel as it’s been since the bad guys in Iron Man led a terrified family into a cave and machine gun-massacred them just offscreen. The stakes are more personal than world-endangering. Michael Waldron’s screenplay isn’t afraid to let its “not a white guy” characters be flawed, wrong, problematic or ineffectual, and it’s not afraid to dip into some think-piece-friendly tropes for the sake of efficient storytelling. That’s neither compliment nor criticism, but it underlines how Multiverse of Madness is “just a movie.” Multiverse-hopping aside, it’s still a stand-alone adventure with little overall impact on the overall MCU.

Again, that’s Marvel’s secret. It’s always (mostly) stand-alone. The Internet loves to obsess over Easter eggs, cameos, end-credit cookies and clues as to the overall big picture. But the movies themselves treat that stuff as secondary (at best). The MCU films are, at worst, contingent on that hero’s earlier films or the event movies (Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Endgame, etc.) that most general moviegoers saw. You don’t need to have seen Ant-Man to understand Thor: Ragnarök, and you don’t need to have seen Black Panther understand Spider-Man: No Way Home. Nor do you need to have watched WandaVision to smile when Doctor Strange gets into a, uh, music battle, to be startled by the jump scares and be impressed by the tactile visuals on display. Doctor Strange 2 isn’t trying to save the world. It’s just an enjoyable mega-budget action fantasy.