Stranger danger
DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS
Cert 12A ★★ In cinemas now
You may find Doctor Strange’s new “multiverse” trip truly maddening if you think life’s too short to swot up on six years of Marvel films and TV series. His second solo movie isn’t just tied to his previous film from 2016 but also the intervening Avengers movies and the nine-part Disney+ spin-off Wandavision.
You don’t need to have seen them all to enjoy this but, if you haven’t, you’ll have to guess your way through some pretty sizeable gaps.
It doesn’t take long for Sam Raimi, director of Spider-Man (the Tobey Maguire ones), to get bogged down in Marvel’s soapy subplots.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s grumpy surgeon-turnedsuperhero wizard is in his civvies attending the wedding of his ex-girlfriend Christine (Rachel McAdams) who you probably can’t remember him splitting from in his previous solo movie. Sat next to him is another old character played by Michael Stuhlbarg who launches into a debate about the daft time-travelling twist in Avengers’ Endgame. But the reminiscing is interrupted by a rumpus outside.
A giant octopus is chasing a dimension-hopping teenager called America (Xochitl Gomez) through the streets of New York, spurring Strange to don
cape and cloak and assume that weird upright flying pose.
After saving the kid, Strange learns more creatures could be on their way and heads off to seek advice from witch Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) who seems to be carrying serious maternal hang-ups from her TV spin-off. What follows is two hours of CGI-heavy action scenes, cameos and geeky in-jokes. Since Endgame allowed dead characters to be resurrected, there’s been a shortage of jeopardy in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.
It’s hard to care and can be almost impossible to follow but at least Raimi gives plenty of screen time to Benedict Wong’s magic monk. Wong gets some big action scenes but his greatest superpower is still that withering stare.
It doesn’t take long to get bogged down in Marvel soapy subplots