Directed by : Sam Raimi 

This time it's gonna take more than killing me to kill me. 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Elizabeth Olsen in 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'

Spoilers ahead..


Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) wakes up from a dream where he sees himself from another universe trying to save powers of a teen girl America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) falling into wrong hands. Just attending the marriage of his once love Dr. Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), he encounters a large one-eyed octopus trying to catch that very same girl he saw in dream. Soon he realizes that it wasn't a dream but a reality and America Chavez is someone who has the power to navigate through different universes but with one issue, she can't do it on purpose, it happens only when she's too scared. Dr Strange finds that there's witchcraft involved here, and seeks help from Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), having no idea Wanda has her own motives.  

The story takes place after the events of both Spiderman : No Way Home and Wanda Vision (I haven't seen it yet). For me, Scarlet Witch plot felt over the top. I got a feeling even if I had watched Wanda Vision, there was still a case of developing more of the Wanda character that goes too one-note wanting her children in another universe at any cost. I know humans can be stubborn, but this felt more of silly stubborn. There could had been fight with herself to not do it, maybe something on note of Green Goblin in Spiderman. 

At one point I couldn't help but wonder if only Wanda had come across the Darkhold book before Thanos destroyed the world, we would have Natasha and Tony Stark alive. Even without it, Wanda was so powerful in that scene of Avengers Infinity War, where Thanos comically says 'I don't even know you'. 

The whole Dr Strange-America Chavez bonding tries really hard to give that father-daughter feel to it specially knowing America never had a father, even literally as she got lesbian moms. The attempt clearly feels like doing another Tony Stark-Peter Parker relationship but it just never works mostly because of the mess the entire narrative is that focusses way more on the action set-pieces or the CGI monsters than the actual human motives at play. 

And that very same mess is the reason why the scene 'I will love you in every universe' dialogue invoked no emotional reaction from me, something 'I love you 3000' easily did in Avengers Endgame. Dr Strange and Dr Christine relation could had been so better developed specially after showing her getting married to someone else thanks to 5 yrs of him gone missing to dust. 

Even there was an opportunity to explore more of how similar Dr Strange is in all universes, the very 'Are you Happy?' theme that's very under-utilised specially knowing how in the current universe he's lot less selfish (which initially he was with full of God complex). The cheesy dialogues was another drawback of the movie.

The entire Illuminati scene where we get introduced to many of superheroes cameos fell flat to me despite them getting brutal deaths at hand of Wanda. A part of reason is I have basically no idea who they are, some were from Marvel tv shows and another from Fantastic Four, I have seen none of it so far and also it just felt they were making the fans of these superheroes happy, like they were just for the sake of it which is why they all were killed. I have to say it, wouldn't it be great if we rather saw Thor, Antman, Hulk of another universe etc rather in this room, ofcourse the idea of killing them all in next sequence would have to be omitted then and changed to something else. 

I felt that Spiderman No Way Back Home was full of chaos (in good way) even if it was by using Nostalgia.. whereas this Doctor Strange movie just shows glimpses of madness through multiverses but never really fully goes at it as it should had done. Say for instance, we see that amazing scene where Dr Strange gets himself pulled into the portal of America Chavez travelling through numerous universes, one is all paint (later he even asks her if we really passed through a paint universe) and another is animation universe and lot more, but actually we get too see only 2 other universes in detail and that too with story focussed more on Wanda. 

What I wanted more was scenes like the fight scene between Dr Strange of 2 universe where they throw musical notes over each other that range from Bach to Beethoven, turning out to be a hilarious fight. Or when Sam Raimi who has been teasing horror atmosphere throughout the movie (few good jump-scares too) finally unleashes a corpse of Dr Strange with many heads of other dead people attached to go and fight Wanda, an ever more evil looking Dr Strange was so fun to watch. Even the gap junction and incursion are just touched over the surface at the most. Mention of America Chavez moms at the end or a reunion scene would had been good too. 

The pace of movie felt too fast to my liking, which is expected with how much they are trying to include, I feel another 30 mins would had done justice to some of it if not all ofcourse with a better writing. 

Performances wise, Benedict is good specially his humor or attempts to save the world or portaying the loneliness he feels he will carry in every universe. I specially loved that small cameo he has as the evil Dr Strange that's gotten under the influence of Darkhold much like Wanda. Its a Doctor Strange movie, yet I felt Elizabeth Olsen was a major scene-stealer with her act despite not getting a character that was well written specially the mom part where she wants her children at any cost not caring at what expense. I just wish there was a change in her character arc much before the climax, maybe around start of 3rd act. 

Overall, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is disappointing because I had enjoyed the 1st part a lot and expected lot better with the idea they had to explore multiverse. I would still rate it higher than Black Widow or Captain Marvel, as despite the mess, I didn't find this dull, it did have entertaining moments and some visually stunning scenes along with a decent horror creepiness as backdrop. 

My Rating : 5.5/10