Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Rare is the movie that comes out of a director change mid-filming and is the better for it. Rogue One might be the exception to the rule. More often than not, you get Solo. MCU fans were dismayed when Scott Derrickson left DSitMoM, but their hopes were rejuvenated when Sam Raimi replaced him. Sadly, this is more of a Solo than a Rogue One, and it lays squarely at the hands of Sam Raimi. This movie is stunningly mediocre, and it is none of the performers' fault. Everybody in front of the camera here lifts their weight in trying to get this thing over the finish line. Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Xochitl Gomez, and the flurry of cameos, are all doing their best to make this entertaining. But they can't make up for this movie's hollow, emotionless core, crippling dependency on the now-over-big MCU (but only to a weird extent), squandered potential, and butt-ugly CGI. Let's start with the dependency issue. Since the end of Phase 3, Disney's approach has been "MORE MORE MORE". MCU shows are coming out constantly, making the MCU harder and harder to follow. It's difficult to keep up with all the shows, and if you don't keep up with all the shows, you might lose out on crucial detail. DSitMoM absolutely depends on you having seen WandaVision. It makes NO attempt to explain what happened in Westview. It only makes passing references to it, so if you didn't see it, you have no idea. Not to mention it also makes references to What If?! in a key scene. Too bad those shows were well over a year ago, and we've had quite a few MCU movies and shows since then that have no connective tissue and no attempt at keeping those fires hot. Everything about Wanda's arc here comes from story threads that are ice cold, and the movie doesn't attempt to heat them up, or fill you in if you didn't know them. It is poor storytelling. The squandered potential is everywhere in this movie. For a "multiverse of madness", they go to all of three other universes, and explore none of them (and one of them is a direct reference to What If?!, so that problem comes back again). Oh, in this universe you go on red and stop on green! How compelling! For being a movie about endless worlds and possibilities, this movie feels restricted in the worst possible way. I don't get a sense of the multiverse from this movie at all. Never mind the fact that this movie also uses cameos from other Marvel properties that make the multiverse concept confusing. There are three characters in that make cameos that only lead to more questions; are these three characters from the same universe? Different universes? What's going on? The movie doesn't explain, doesn't want to explain. It just wants you to be wowed by what's happening and not stop to think about the why and what it all means. The CGI in this is, often, distracting to the point of laughable. Where once the CGI looked borderline seamless, you can see the PlayStation 3-ness of it in some scenes. There is a fantastic article on Defector about the CGI/SFX problem Marvel and other movies are facing, and it is a great read. This is the first time, on the big screen, where the MCU's normally crack SFX team has pushed me out of the movie. But all that could be overlooked if the movie wasn't so Sam Raimi-ish at its core, and that is hollow and emotionless. I'm in the minority on his Spider-Man trilogy; I think they suck. I think they're pretty to look at, and are great representations of what a live action comic book would look like, but they don't have characters or depth or arcs or anything at their core. They're action scenes, and bridges to get to the next action scene. And that's what this is. Strange has no character arc whatsoever, and the little scene we see of him and Christine when they were young is so forced into the movie, you can see crowbar marks. There's two Christines in the movie, and the one we spend the most time with is from an alternate reality, so that's pointless. America Chavez is literally a human MacGuffin. And that leaves Wanda Maximoff to carry the story, and her story is simplistic, confusing, and insulting. If you saw WandaVision, you'll be confused at how she went from seemingly coming to terms with her grief at the end to "I will murder anybody to get my imaginary children". If you didn't see it, you'll wonder what the hell is going on entirely, as she becomes the antagonist two minutes after the movie introduces her, with little in the way of explanation. And her redemption at the end has all the weight of a rice cake. Suddenly, she just realizes what she's doing isn't good. It's given no time to develop, so it has no time to land in your heart. I was no fan of WandaVision's unfair episode layout and the way it kept viewers at arm's length with contempt, but at least it has emotional payoff earned over the course of time. Nobody here earns anything. It's just action and CGI and expository dialogue to get you to the next scene. This was the hallmark of Raimi's Spider-Man movies, and he did it here too. It is the literal definition of a comic book adaptation. He made all the panels move, and that's all he did. I'm not gonna say Scott Derrickson is some wunderkind director. I've seen two of his movies. But I know his Doctor Strange movie, as rote of a superhero origin movie as it was, had more heart. Stephen Strange's arrogance and defiance was slowly chipped away. He grew as a person, and at the end, was better for it. I could enjoy the ride because I enjoyed the journey. This movie has no journey; it's like the travelling-by-map you see in Indiana Jones movies. Just point to point to point. Hit the beats and do nothing more. it's far from the worst MCU movie, but it is the most perfunctory and soulless movie the MCU has had in a long time.