OUTTA THIS WORLD
Latest Marvel movie is a fast-paced, universe-hopping, self-contained tale
With all the talk of spoilers, special characters and guest appearances in the newest Marvel movie, who'd have guessed the biggest cameo would be director Sam Raimi?
No, Raimi doesn't pull a Stan Lee and appear as a security guard or bus driver in the clumsily named Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. But the man whose superhero bona fides comprise three turn-of-thecentury Spider-man movies with Tobey Maguire reaches a lot further into his filmmaking past for his callbacks. There's Evil Dead in this film's veins, make no mistake.
Set some time after the events of Spider-man: No Way Home, which opened its own can of multiversal worms, the new film
finds Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) having dreams about a mysterious girl (Xochitl Gomez) being pursued by some terrifying monsters.
The dreams don't end well, so he's understandably weirded out when the wedding of his ex-girlfriend, Christine (Rachel Mcadams), is interrupted by an actual monster — a cross between an octopus and the lyrics to The Purple People Eater — that starts busting up New York. It's after the girl, who reveals that her name is America Chavez and that she can travel through the multiverse, though not at will.
And that dream he had? “That wasn't a dream,” she explains. “That was another universe.”
Strange decides he'd better help her out, and enlists the aid of Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. Scarlett Witch, a.k.a. Elizabeth Olsen. Wong (Benedict Wong), who technically outranks Strange and likes to remind him of that fact, also joins in. They're going to need all the help they can get when they finally figure out who's behind the parade of monsters.
You may have noticed I'm being a bit circumspect with plot details here. But I'd hate to spoil anything. And in any case, it's possible to talk about the Multiverse of Madness in purely emotional terms, leaving aside narrative details. Strange is clearly regretting that he and Christine drifted apart, a concern he'll have cause to consider anew when he meets her doppelgänger in an alternate universe.
Then there's the entity that emerges as the villain of this film, and whose motivations might be its weakest link. Characters spend so much time and energy on reasoned arguments against the villain's plans that I was surprised said baddie didn't just acquiesce and go home. Except then there wouldn't be a movie, and that serves no one's universe, least of all Disney/marvel's.
Doctor Strange opens and closes on some crashingly powerful notes, and in the intervening two hours delivers a fast-paced, universe-hopping, nicely self-contained tale that for once didn't have me wondering where the hell all the other Avengers were.
In the end, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is all about learning (to paraphrase musician Billy Preston) that if you can't be in the universe you love, love the one you're in. Or to quote Wong from late in the movie: “I remain grateful in this one, even with its tribulations.” There are two post-credit sequences, but that was my big take-away.