Multiverse Of Madness Or An Excuse For Oddness? Doctor Strange 2 Becomes Victim Of Fan-Service!

Benedict Cumberbatch¡¯s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a new achievement for Marvel in terms of tonal shift but it does come with its own flaws.

Director Sam Raimi may have injected all his passion for horror movies in a cinematic universe that is known for fun superhero films and mixing two fairly opposite genres comes with a lot of consequences.

It can either be as great as Zombieland or just as plain and overstretched as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, there¡¯s no in-between.

The film looked like a piece of fan service more than a character advancement movie of Doctor Strange.

IMDB

The story revolves around Doctor Strange travelling various visually spectacular universes with an inter-dimensional being that can travel across multiverses just like walking down to different neighbors door-to-door. Meanwhile, Wanda is still looking for ways to reunite with her children. Doctor Strange gets stuck in the middle when two extremely powerful beings aren¡¯t able to control themselves for their own reasons and he has to travel multiverses just to convince them to call off a fight.

What really makes this feel disconnected is how the characters aren¡¯t depicted to convey the feeling of being emotionally resonant.

The mix of horror and humor lose the human connection, which mostly makes this superhero film worth anticipating but this one just derails into getting a hold of its tonal shifts rather than working on creating investing characters.

Another thing that makes this film problematic is how easily it portrays the themes of misogyny and sexism for major characters. Wanda is one of the most powerful superheroes who just conveniently aspires to be a mother. In the Age of Ultron too, Black Widow was revealed to be sterilized. Instead of creating powerful representations of the major female characters, Marvel still lacks the kind of valor that needs to be induced in female character representations.

IMDB

All the characters in the film follow a thin line of code and none of them is able to surprise us. Wanda becomes a heartless superhero and others around her are just there to control her.

Complications in the plot aren¡¯t naturally built, they are forcibly inserted, to fill the screenplay.

Doctor Strange 2 in a way acts as a bridge to upcoming franchises of Marvel as it featured cameos from other universes (although each one of them was a waste) but it isn¡¯t able to stand out on its own.

Coming to the rest of the characters like America, Wong, and Christine, they all appear equally detached from bringing out the human touch in a multi-dimensional superhero battle. There are irregularities that are forcibly pinned on the factor of the film being set in the multiverse.

Talking about the performances, Elisabeth Olsen carries the whole film on her shoulders beautifully whereas Benedict Cumberbatch appears to be more self-contained and confused, very similar to the first part of the film. Other actors such as Benedict Wong and Xochitl Gomez had the constant expression of being anxious and scared throughout the screenplay. Rachel McAdams has a more significant role to play in this movie as compared to the first part and she aces it quite brilliantly.

IMDB

Apart from the missing human connection, the film does triumph in the area of being a visual treat.

There is a sequence in which Doctor Strange travels to multiverse realms again and each one of them is brilliantly crafted. The second half fight and different Earth sequences were hauntingly staged in a fantastic manner.

The dialogues do have that flair of MCU style but it is overshadowed by the lack of focus on a specific genre.

Coming to the background score, Sam does play with music to set a tone for the horror part of the film but after a while, it feels as if Sam heavily relies on this tool rather than playing with the background score smartly.

Overall, Marvel has many ideas for its Multiverse segment but it seems it doesn¡¯t know how to execute it and after the fall of Avengers it is sliding fan services on and on just to keep the fanbase stagnant rather than produce something that grows the fanbase exponentially. Doctor Strange 2 was one of the most anticipated Marvel movies after Avengers: Endgame and it seems the anticipation was met with disappointment.

IMDB

Kevin Feige may know how to grab your attention with continuously interesting upcoming Marvel titles but he doesn¡¯t know how to handle the range of high expectations after the fall of Avengers. Shows like Falcon & Winter Soldier, and WandaVision does grab the spotlight but only a show like Loki can survive the multidimensional expectations of the audience now from the multiverse of ¡®Marvelness¡¯

(To read more such stories related to movies and shows releasing on OTTs, keep reading Indiatimes BINGE)