Oh, boy. The first MCU film I have written about since I started this little project! As everyone with even a passing interest in either movies, comics, popular culture, general culture, or using their physical senses to observe the world around them at even a cursory level is aware, the MCU has been going for a long time now, and has made a lot of movies. Some of those are pretty good. Some of those are really bad. This one, unfortunately, is one of the very worst.
To begin with, of all the MCU films I have seen, this one feels the most overburdened with the weight of the series. Even Infinity War and Endgame, built entirely on tying up previous movies, didn't feel as deeply needful of having watched all of them, cared about all of them, and even being aware of secondary and tertiary materials as this film. Do you know who America Chavez is? Do you know what Wanda went through in her spinoff TV show? Do you remember Doctor Strange's story from his movie a decade ago? Are you deep enough in the lore to care about these references to these other people? All Marvel movies are like this to some extent, but they also generally work as just standalone films, too, where you meet a main guy and a main bad guy and they fight and the good guy wins. Not this one! It REQUIRES that you care about WandaVision and a bunch of other shit to make any sense. It doesn't help that everyone knows who Hulk or Captain America are already, at least in general terms, but no one who isn't a Comic Book or MCU Fan knows who the Scarlet Witch is, for instance.
Alright, that thought was already too long, so on to the next annoyance. This movie was billed as a "Multiverse" movie (it's even in the title). What does that involve? A 10 second clip of them falling through a bunch of cool-looking universes where cool things are happening, so that you can never see or mention them again, and get stuck in one (1) other universe that is basically the same as the normal one. And that one seems to exist just to provide Fan Service References, another normal MCU problem drawn out from minor to annoying in this particular film vision.
*Random Marvel Bullshit Complaints Alert*
Also, am I supposed to believe this random dude who got his powers because of a random chance accident also had that same exact random chance accident in every universe? OK, it's a nitpick, I admit. They already don't know how to handle Magic, though - they refuse to explain it or give it rules, which makes it feel random and arbitrary, and so they always start me off on a bad foot with this guy. Speaking of which, the Scarlet Witch - her powers include the ability to "warp reality" - she can do whatever she wants. There is one scene where she makes a guy's mouth disappear, a la Mr. Anderson in the Matrix. It's cool! Do you know what she follows it up with? Using only Red Energy Beams for everything for the rest of the film, like she has in every previous film. Why are you using Red Energy Beams to solve all problems? Are you really so bereft of imagination? Even I, a person of zero creative capacity, could do cooler stuff with the ability to REWRITE REALITY. Last digression point: the MCU has always has a "woman problem," as in not enough of them and not central enough. So you now have had two back to back main female character stories be "wah wah I can't have kids and that solely defines me" with Black Widow and then Scarlet Witch? To paraphrase Tumblr, "Do Better."
*Back to the actual film*
Coming on the heels of Nope, a movie built entirely on practical effects, the CGI nonsense in this one stood out even more than usual, too. I mean, maybe it always would have, because it is "magic" and so no one is actually interacting with anyone, it's all just people in front of green screens trying to look cool while doing lame hand motions at nothing. But it seemed extremely bad. CGI has it uses, of course, but I think there has to be some tethering to reality to make me care. I just don't like arbitrary beams!
The story sucks and makes no sense, the characterization sucks and makes no sense, their idea of a "joke" is Doctor Strange responding to the word Illuminati by saying "the Illumi-what-i?" as though he's never heard the term. There's really just very little going on here and none of it is worth the time or effort.
Score: 2/10
IMDb: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
PS: Random ratings addendum - my friend and I have long discussed creating a totally separate rating scale for just superhero movies. You know, so that I could pretend Thor: Ragnarok is a 10 point movie instead of a 7. Suicide Squad is still getting a 1 either way, though.
