Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness Review!

The return of Stephen Strange in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness has revitalized the character!  The director, Sam Raimi, had his last movie for Disney, Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and also directed the Spider-Man trilogy and finished with Spider-Man 3 (2007).  So basically he moved from one Steve Ditko creation to another one with Doctor Strange.  It has his characteristic style, the tilted camera angle, the frantic handcam pov of monsters, and a very Darkman (1990) tone with touches of the Evil Dead films.  The movie is similar to Thor: Ragnarok (2017) with a director stepping in to bring a fresh direction to the comic book character with several movies.  In this case, five films starting with Doctor Strange (2016). The last movie was Spider-Man: No Way Home (2022) which also dealt with multiverses.  The film is written by Michael Waldron who created Loki, but strangely there is no Time Variance Authority here.  The movie starts off with an action scene, we see Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) running with a new character, we find out later her name is America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez).  

Cumberbatch was of course in Spider-Man: No Way Home shattering the multiverse.  He is called Defender Strange since his dark outfit is right out of Terry Dodson's art in Defenders #1 (2012). Gomez played Dawn Schafer in The Baby-Sitters Club (2020) series.  America Chavez was introduced in Vengeance #1 (2011) and was in the Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors (2018) animated series.   Her character is pivotal, she is interesting as a character on the run, but is new to this world and her powers.  She has to win over viewers or the movie doesn’t work.  They are in some dimension moving along a pathway and chased by some demon, with blazing eyes, mouth, and tentacles.  Defender Strange and America are headed to a glowing object on another ground floating apart from them, this is the Book of Vishanti, a magical tome first appearing in Strange Tales #116 (1963).  The demon wounds Strange and he falls.  This activates America’s powers and she opens a portal shaped like a star.  

America is captured by the demon so Strange is about to draw away her power. The demon fatally strikes Dr. Strange.   He uses his red spell whip to take America and escape.  Stephen Strange is startled awake from his nightmare.  He uses his magic to put on his tuxedo.  Then, we see him talking to Nicodemus West (Michael Stuhlbarg), from the first movie, and they discuss being missing during the Snap.  West tells him that he is a superhero, but lost the girl.  We see that is a wedding with Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), she reprised the character in the What If episode, “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?” (2021).  Live action, she was in the comedy Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020).  Her character becomes important in this movie.  Strange watches as she passes by him on her way to marry Charlie (Ako Mitchell).  Later, he downs a few drinks at the bar when Christine joins him.  

She confides that she wanted him to do his job as Master of Mystic Arts, but she had no real place in his life.  This is central to Doctor Strange’s character.  In a sense, what Peter Parker was struggling with in his film, dealing with his superhero place and personal life.  He goes out to the balcony and then finds that there is a disturbance in the streets.  His Cloak of Levitation joins him and he leaps down.  Doctor Strange finds that some invisible menace terrorizing the city, throwing cars and running people out of a Kaiju movie.  He uses his spell to reveal the cyclopean, tentacled Kaiju, Gargantos.  Its name isn’t mentioned in the movie, but the beastie was identified.  He first appeared in Sub-Mariner #13 (1969), a rather obscure appearance.  One of the fleeing people is America Chavez.  She takes cover in a bus as Gargantos lifts it up.  Strange is able to sever one of its tentacles and split the bus in abstract pieces.  America gets Strange's attention and the beast tosses the bus.  Strange forms a mystic buzzsaw and tears the bus in half.  He is the Green Lantern of the spell set, forming handy objects to get out of situations.   

I still miss the Stan Lee touches of saying, “By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth!”  He may uses the spells, but I like the incantations part.  Wong (Benedict Wong) joins the battle.  The actor, Wong, was also in Spider-Man: No Way Home and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).  His character is Sorcerer Supreme now and is an important part of the lead characters.  America Chavez ends up tossed up to a building ledge.  The cloak finally frees itself from the bike and wraps itself around Gargantos' eye.  Wong and Strange continue to battle Gargantos, but Strange is wrapped around its tentacle.  Strange is able to defeat the monster in a gruesome way.  America has taken Strange’s sling ring, but they catch up to her and take America to a pizza place.  He calls her kid through most of the movie.  She introduces herself and explains her run across the multiverse.  Their travel through the multiverse gave me vibes of Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) mixed with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) with the Infinite Improbability Drive.  the Strange says there was an "incident" with multiverses involving Spider-Man.  Wong brings up that the monster had the mark of witchcraft.  

Doctor Strange says he knows someone who can help.  We have Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) waking up and seeing her world from WandaVision (2021).  This is a continuation of Wanda’s story from that series and her character is driven to restore parts of it.  She is clipping some branches from an apple blossom tree.  Strange asks for her help, but finds she is hiding something.  This leads to Kamar-Taj, where Doctor Strange trained with the Ancient One in the first movie and now a refuge for America Chavez.  There is a new Master of the Mystic Arts (Adam Hugill), no spoilers here, but he first appeared in Doctor Strange #80 (1986).  Strange and America are teamed up to find help across the multiverse while Wong and Wanda travel to Wundagore which plays into Scarlet Witch’s story and introduced in Thor #134 (1966).  Later, Strange encounters Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who ended up as his rival in the first Doctor Strange.  We also have the Illuminati, mentioned in the trailer, they are the most intelligent superhero leaders first appearing in New Avengers #7 (2005).  There are two end credit scenes.  Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, despite the unwieldy title, has touches of Raimi’s Evil Dead movies and consequences for all of the characters!  

Four Books of Vishanti out of Five!  

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