“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” Review: A chaotic multiversal mess

Sam Raimi, director of “The Evil Dead,” and “The Spider-Man” Trilogy returns to the Marvel universe to direct the latest edition in Marvel’s 4th phase of programming to bring the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) its multiversal shop of horrors.

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Disney

Elizabeth Olsen returns as the Scarlet Witch to co-star with Benedict Cumberbatch in the MCU’s latest film

by David Esguerra, Reporter

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the sequel to 2016’s “Doctor Strange” is a contrived yet entertaining adventure that continues to lay the groundwork for future MCU titles at the cost of its characters.

The story of this movie is most definitely average or even subpar, it’s saddled with the MCU franchise’s most incoherent and messy writing to date, despite that, it’s one of the more inventive projects to come out of the studio.

Most fans tuned in to the movie to witness the return of Sam Raimi in superhero films, he was previously noted to have directed the highly-acclaimed “Spider-Man” trilogy, and loyal fans couldn’t wait to see him “return to formula,” with his style to bring new life into the MCU’s arguably bland directing.

The movie is at its best when Raimi’s signature style comes around, such as his iconic dolly zoom. Most of the horror elements in this film seem to take inspiration from his previous works in The Evil Dead franchise, and it became a solid melding of the horror and superhero genre.

There are some delightfully gruesome moments throughout the film that became a nice change for the MCU’s rather PG style while still retaining a PG-13 rating, and the cinematography and editing are right out of Sam Raimi’s playbook, which many fans of his work would be quick to notice.

Despite much of his involvement, Raimi’s style feels held back as a good portion of this movie feels like the flavorless MCU standard, unlike movies like “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “Thor Ragnarok” where you could tell the directors truly had creative control over their works.

In this multiverse of chaos, it’s quite obvious how the movie chooses to progress the story forward without developing its title characters.

The latest superhero addition, America Chavez feels like a bland plot device that rarely has time to become a character, only getting a few moments that go by quickly to progress the plot forward.
Doctor Strange himself seems to take towards the sideline of this movie when in his previous film he was the central driving focus. With all MCU projects, he seems to only serve as a plot device with a minor character arc shoved in the middle which is what is seen in his movie.

The prestige of Sam Raimi’s directing elevates this movie into a decent enough film, but it’s frustrating to see that his film feels like the camera wasn’t all his to wield.

Ultimately, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” feels like a STRANGE mismatch of Raimi’s signature style and the MCU’s standard style.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:” 6/10