Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness Rate And Review Thread(Tag Spoilers!!)

[BoredGuy]

Bit late to the party, life interfered with me getting to a theater to see this
But I agree with what seems to be the general consensus, I'd call it a 7 or 7.5/10 after my first watch

I thought the effects were great, the action scenes were quite fun and creative (except perhaps for the musical fight, if that artist's statements are to be believed) performances were all pretty top notch.

And like many have said, the thing that really stood out was the Raimi effect. The whole first half of the movie felt like I was watching the McGuire Spider-mans. New York City felt like the New York from Spidey, I swear they even used some of the same rooftop sets. The POV shots, the zombie/horror elements, the Elfman score. It was all very nostalgic, in a good way.

I will say, I agree they did Wanda a bit dirty. I get where her arc went from WandaVision to this, but for anybody who didn't watch the show they really did her dirty. To those viewers <She had a calm moment at the end of Endgame, then shows up here looking for some kids she thinks she has and murders a bunch of people she fought beside.> I would've liked to have seen just a touch more of her struggling with the darkhold's influence. Outside of a few fleeting looks she gives the camera, there wasn't much there to indicate she was still a hero struggling with her grief, until the end at least.

All in all, while not top-tier Marvel, it was fun and I'll definitely be watching again soon to pick up on the smaller stuff I missed first time 'round

 

[-Arya-]

A generous 5/10 - It’s a mess overall. America Chavez was a nothing character and the entire second act with

Spoiler

the Illuminati

was unbearable.

 

[Bren]

Not sure I feel about Klaus running like that.

Didn't enjoy the film much. Some fun scenes but overall, nah.

I'm certainly not a Raimi style fan so that didn't help either.

 

[MadVillainy]

This was fine. I don't think the MCU has an outright bad film. Just some below average ones at worst.

The CGI was really really bad. I was shocked. And no I don't have an 8k TV or anything but MoM looked worse than a lot of other relatively recent things I've streamed on my TV. Even things as simple as Strange flying. I said it yesterday, that opening scene was a hard watch. The CGI looking so bad affected some potentially cool things like the scene where Wanda shoots through the shield reflection. Stranger Things 4 just had a lot of body contortion SFX and it looked way better than that.

The pacing felt off even watching at home. Maybe it's because I knew the spoilers so maybe I can't ding it too much. But there were for sure a few times I was just checking my phone. Stuff like finding out America's origin or even main timeline's Christine's wedding could've been handled better in order to keep the movie going more quickly

The horror elements were cool, but they really pulled up on it. It's a common problem with SH movies where they're just like another genre whether it be horror movie, murder mystery, spy movie but then in the end they chicken out and don't go all the way with it. But yeah I liked the horror elements and just the Raimi-isms in general for he most part.

The action, despite the bad CGI, was pretty good. The Kamar-Taj was really cool. I was a bit disappointed by the music note scene. It wasn't as clever as some said it was. And it was really short. Sure, I guess it's the most interesting SH movie action scene in a bit. But that's not saying much because SH movie action has been lacking for a while imo.

There was a lot of bad dialogue. I usually don't notice too much exposition. But here it was bad. And then lines like "I'm not a monster I'm a mother." Yikes.

The multiverse concept wasn't explored enough. And it sucks that this came out around Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. Obviously 2 completely different types of movies. But to go from something that did the multiverse so well to MoM is like going from nice, grilled Bronzini to Filet o Fish. But even compared to Spider-Verse (which MoM did share some of the same elements) the multiverse in Multiverse of Madness felt so tame and limp. The Illuminati bit 1) killed the pacing 2) was very lackluster other than the Black Bolt and Reed deaths. Only 2 movies in, but it really seems like the MCU doesn't know what to do with it except for cheap fanservice and cameos.

Humor was too much in the first half like a lot of post 2014 MCU movies. You can be funny without being clownish, but a lot of movies don't seem to get that. In the second half, it was way more balanced while still being funny

Xochitl Gomez wasn't that good of an actress. She's only 14 so maybe she can improve, but she has no presence, charisma and some of her line reads were very awkward and poor "*Gasp* You're Killing Me" No I'm expecting Oscar worthy stuff. But there's a large gap between award winning and being bad. Gomez was way more toward the bad side. And the character herself lacked a lot of personality. The MCU still really has a problem writing women with interesting personalities. Just putting women in the movies isn't enough.

Olsen gave a good performance but I just dislike the character of Scarlet Witch. She does all this bad stuff and it's still "aw poor her". "Oh it was an accident" "Oh she's just a kid" "Oh well she lost her children" There's a problem with writing empathetic villains nowadays, men or women, where they lean too far into it. It's getting to the point of being more sympathetic. At the end of the day, these people are still villains killing hundreds of innocents on purpose. And I also didn't like how they kinda copped out with "The Darkhold corrupted her" The idea of a hero just going mad/evil from stress, loss, etc. is great but too many times they chicken out. Like Hal Jordan and Parallax.

Wish we got more of Wong and for sure more of Mordo. I would've loved if Mordo was still the ultimate big bad of the movie.

That's a lot more negative than positive, but I still think the movie is still passable. A lot of lost potential, but it overall is fine. But I can't imagine going out of my way to watch it again

 

[Prison Mike]

Saw it for the second time, last night, since opening weekend. Still a fun movie. Loved Raimi’s “horror” in a MCU movie. Elizabeth Olsen is the MVP of the movie. I had no problem with the CGI. It looked great to me. If DS2 had “bad” CGI, I don’t know what would be considered “good”.

 

[HammerDown]

I give it a 7 out of 10. Wouldn't say it's good but it's ok.
As far as second movies in an MCU franchise go, its in line with most which isn't saying much.

A few takeaways:
- Scarlet Witch was the standout, her villainous turn was pretty good, they pulled off some creepy stuff with her, she came across as very powerful and intimidating. The overall look was also great.
- Doctor Strange felt nerfed and was definitely a big step down from the stuff we saw in IW. I wasn't pleased with some of the choices they made with him in the film. I feel like Evil Strange was a waste...
- Wong did well. America Chavez was fine.
- The F4, X-Men, Inhumans, "What If" cameos where basically a throwaway thing. It served the purpose of making the film successful at the BO. They could've easily scrapped that stuff and given more time to DS and SW creating a more compelling and intriguing film.
- The directing was interesting with some fresh choices that served the creepy/horror angle well. But overall it felt dark, very fleeting and not all that enganging and cohesive.
- The visuals where fine with some really cool stuff sprinkled throughout.

 

[Doctor Jones]

Is it just me or does anyone else think Strange in his own movies is kind of like Thor pre Ragnorak? He's worked better as a supporting character in the Avengers films, but it's like they still haven't cracked him yet.

There's apart of me that thinks Cumberbatch might be miscast, but he's a talented enough actor to have the range to adjust to whoever else might come along.

I have no idea what they do, but for one thing, I want to see a Doctor Strange movie get STRANGE. He's portrayed as a wizard superhero pretty much. In the comics, he's this very mysterious guy from the other characters perspective. But here he's just paling around the MCU. It waters him down. The mystic arts in the Marvel universe should be seen as something unlike anything else. Weird, incomprehensible, and very, very dangerous. Instead it's just another thing going on. The third act of this movie got the closest to that, but they need to do better. They won't, but they should.