‘Doctor Strange’ needs to be stranger
2022, the multiverse is seemingly everywhere (all at once) on movie screens, including, of course, in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” the sequel to 2016’s “Doctor Strange.” The film sees snarky superhero surgeon Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) back in action, though he never really went away, as we saw him just last Christmas in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” This time, the good doctor tangles with the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), so here’s to hoping you’re all caught up on “Wandavision” on Disney+. Strange finds himself crashing through the multiverse while trying to save a scrappy new kid, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), from the Scarlet Witch’s grasp.
Lauded genre director Sam Raimi, who helmed the original Spidey movies, two whole Peter Parkers ago, is behind the camera for “Multiverse of Madness,” and he brings his exuberant, gory style to bear on this Strange world. He applies his signature horror aesthetic, which he pioneered with the “Evil Dead” trilogy, to this witchy MCU installment, turning it into a proper horror film, with zombies, monsters and terrifying killers that stalk down darkened hallways.
It’s nice to see Raimi playing in the genre movie space again, bringing horror flourishes to the MCU, but make no mistake, this is the Marvel House Style, to be sure. Which is fine, it’s always a serviceable, if rather uninspiring, backdrop to the superstars as superheroes, quippy dialogue and cameos galore. But even with the Raimi touch, the whole endeavor just feels so basic. Aside from one quick, hallucinatory ’verse-trip, the locations are a street corner in New York, and a street corner in New York with flowers. There’s a mountain top with a temple and a mountaintop with a shrine. This isn’t a multiverse of madIn ness but of mundanity.
This sequel, written by Michael Waldron, is likely a second installment before a third, or at least some connective tissue to other films and TV shows, and it just feels like a mostly inconsequential stopover to introduce new characters and tie up loose ends, further knitting together the MCU across the big and small screens.