There’s always a risk when auteur directors strike Faustian bargains with big studios such as Marvel to direct one of their precious jewels of intellectual property. It can turn out great (“Thor: Ragnarok” and “Guardians of the Galaxy”), good (“Black Panther”), bad (“Iron Man 3”) or in the case of “Antman,” ugly, wherein the original director Edgar Wright left during production due to “creative differences” presumably with MCU authoritarian and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.
The latest MCU entry, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” had all the makings of ugly again. Originally set to be directed by horror auteur Scott Derrickson (“Sinister”) who successfully held the reins on the first Doctor Strange movie, the studio apparently did not like the direction the movie was going. He left the film during production due to – you guessed it – “creative differences.” Derrickson had made a name for himself making really scary movies.
Derrickson was replaced by, of all people, Sam Raimi. This was no small risk considering the man’s IMDB profile. Raimi is the mad scientist behind such classics as “The Evil Dead,” “Army of Darkness” and “Darkman.” Raimi is not exactly the type of director to hew close to the MCU brand. However, his output directing the original Spider-Man movies – which commenced 20 years ago this week, by the way – likely provided a hedge against the possibility of a massive blow up.
The move has paid off for the studio. “Multiverse of Madness” is a mostly successful MCU movie. Raimi steps fully into his wild, weird, goofy, bloody, trippy brand. The body count is the highest of all MCU films (not counting “Infinity War,” which led to the death of 50% of all lifeforms in the universe). There is dark humor and stark violence along with a few scenes located right on the boundary between typical Marvel standards and disturbing.
The movie is a continuation of several MCU properties, most notably the one from the Disney+ series, "Wandavision." The Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), who previously was known as the enhanced individual Wanda Maximoff, is at the heart of the story. In her desire to reconnect with her lost twin boys (who may or may not exist), she loses her mind and turns into a crazy villain wreaking havoc all over the place.
Maybe purposefully, the title “Multiverse of Madness” can be acronymed to M.O.M. The maternal instinct metastasizing into horror and violence is at the crux of the plot and has solid roots in cinema (think “Carrie” or “Psycho”). Olsen is game to ably carry the disturbed-mom-as-psycho cinematic torch.
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In her pursuit of her motherly quest, she razes a trail of disintegration, immolation, dismemberment and in one scene, something involving someone’s mouth that I have no words for. Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his allies go through various hoops to stop her.
The story is mostly typical superhero stuff, but Raimi’s weirdness adds artistic and visual flairs that stand apart, and at this point nearly 30 movies in, different is very much welcome in the MCU. The multiverse, too, plays a part, although not as deftly, deeply or creatively as another recent non-superhero movie, “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” that came out a couple months ago.
Everything you love (or hate) about the MCU is here – the CGI-filled action, the clever quips and the MacGuffin that saves everything. And depending on your level of relationship with comics and/or comic book movies, the scenes of fan service will be an endorphin-releasing joy or a grating annoyance.
Most of these spoilers (typically the appearance of a beloved character or a reference to an important adjacent text) have already leaked on the internet where there is a massive cottage industry of content creators writing, streaming, Tiktok-ing, Discord-ing, etc. all manner of leaks from movies like this. There is not much the studio can do about it.
However, even all the preview trailers promoting the movie the past months have revealed way too much along the way. This led to Feige expressing his disappointment about the overexposure. The marketing people probably should be wary of future, uhm, “creative differences” when planning the strategy for the next MCU movie.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
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Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
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