Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Phazael said:

Above average movie, hindered by several things.
Personal annoyances-
1) Shitty villian. Wanda was just completely batshit and illogical, basically a giant rubber monster. This is similar to what happened between IW and Endgame with Thanos. Olsen acted well with what she was given, but its been a long running issue with most Marvel movies that the villians have been sub par.
2) SJW Checklist- The eye rolling I did at every virtue point checkbox they ticked was extensive. Fortunately, they were mostly done with that after Universe with Fedora wearing NPCs and plants on the windows. Just the usual male heroes getting wtfpwnt in 3 seconds while the vagina wearing ones somehow could last minutes in the ring with Wanda.
3) Missed opportunities- Probably the result of schedule shuffling and delays, but the evil strange could have been the one from What If while he was trapped in his own universe, just prior to the finale. Also a bit more info on both Cthon and the Illuminati would have saved them from feeling tacked on/shoe horned in.
4) Heroes are the source of all the problems. This gets overdone in Marvel movies a ton, with Civil War being the worst offender.
5) No real ground rules for magic. This is always going to be hard in any medium, but in a movie its worse since you have less time to lay the ground rules out.

General Criticisms-
1) Wong was inconsistent. Been stated here, but agree with the bitching about Wong being retarded.
2) If the Illuminati were as hardcore as they claimed or were portrayed in the comics, they would have hit the automated "gas the mexican girl" button on her cell the moment their facility was breeched and certainly had deadman switches set up to that effect. And what sort of super organization decides to engage the SW and leave their sorcerer supreme behind? Carter should have been on guard the Wizard duty, not Mordo.
3) Prof X, literal mind reader, read Stranges mind and knew he was not bullshiting about the threat. Prof X proceeds to not share this with the rest of the group. Fucking stupid.
4) Stange dealing with his personal demons was well done and there should have been more of this and far less virtue signalling.
5) Girl playing chavez was flat as an actress, but thats probably because of the quality of the people she shared screentime with.

Things I liked or at least did not mind-
1) Black Cpt Marvel was fine, as the original character was black in the comics and that version was infinitely more likable than Cpt Resting Bitchface.
2) Diarrhea Christmas Lights CGI fest did not bother me because anything Dr Strange related is going to have to be like that.
3) Final fight was decently done and the pep talk from Strange actually made good sense (standard Hero's Journey stuff) in context.
4) Chavez did not completely take over the movie, and make Cumbersnatch a guest star in his own flick.
5) Nice Raimi horror touches. Could have used more, but the murder hobo fest and Carrie nod were great.

Overall, 6.5 out of ten, maybe a little more. I liked it about as much as I did the first, but its not something I am going to go out of my way to re-watch. I think it was Angry Joe who said it felt like they were restraining Raimi from doing his thing, and I agree. I would love to see the first cut of this movie that he did and feel like he deserves a shot at making a movie with complete artistic freedom. If he does the next one, I am in for seeing it. If this is the last completely solo Strange movie, I also won't shed a tear. Much like Iron Man, Strange works better as a guest in other movies, imo, unless you are specifically going to explore his personal issues. This movie did that more so than the first, but the pacing and MacGuffinisms were way worse. Its not one of Marvel's best, but its far above the shit tier movies like Cpt Marvel, Inumans, or the like.

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