Movie Thoughts: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

I don’t know if these movies are fun anymore or if I’m just seeing them out of habit.

I wish we would’ve gotten more universes involved in the plot — most of it takes place in either the “main” universe or the Illuminati universe. Pure camp is supposedly the point. Some of the dialogue is the worst of the MCU. I hated the first third. Another economic conjunction of an MCU film that will make its money and disappear into oblivion. The script hits all its contracted beats and there’s some cool visuals and yet you feel absolutely nothing during the emotional climaxes.

Cumberbatch, McAdams, Ejiofor do their thing. Olsen’s taking this all incredibly seriously —she’s not bad once you get past her out of nowhere Transatlantic accent. I didn’t watch the TV show so I assume there’s more to all this, but I just don’t care anymore. Benedict Wong is the consumate supporting character. A lot of the rumored cameos don’t happen and the ones that do are almost played off as a joke. Patrick Stewart is the only truly notable cameo — 2000’s X-men was the first superhero movie of the modern age. But he feels barely here. He looks like a great-grandpa whose too good natured to tell everyone he doesn’t need to be in the Christmas photo this year and just wants to go lie down. Michael Stuhlbarg is the only compelling supporting performance and he’s in one scene. Xochitl Gomez (I keep thinking of her as America Chavez, why) is annoying as hell, though it’s not entirely her fault as her character is written absolutely terribly.

This is more of a campy horror movie than the No Way Home cameo-fest it was rumored to be. It might’ve been better as the cameo fest. Would’ve loved to have Tom Cruise’s Iron Man kill off the Illuminati and have Wanda and Strange team up against him for the final act. But that’s not what we got. So it served its purpose and it will likely never be mentioned again. The MCU marches on.