2022, d. Sam Raimi - in theatre
My daughter pointed out that this movie, which debuted this past weekend - Mother's Day weekend - can effectively be called Doctor Strange: MOM. And being a mother, though you might not expect it, is a large part of this movie. Of course, I heard it as "Dr. Strangemom" which I then subtitled "or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Multiverse". I mean, it's probably coincidence. Marvel always likes to release a film on the first weekend of May, coinciding with Free Comic Book Day, just so happens Mother's day (the second Sunday of May) falls a little earlier than usual.
Dr. Strangemom is not a great character story, but it's kind of an impressively epic superhero spectacle. It just won't make much sense unless you're somewhat invested in MCU lore (or at least an old school comic book fan), in which case... this is freaking amazing! But even then it's "freaking amazing" with an asterisk. It's just so chock full of fun nuggets and big BIG crazy visuals that it's hard not to be continually impressed and entertained, even if you're not fully connected emotionally with, really any of the characters or their journeys.
I've been going through Sam Raimi's filmography over the past two months (alongside the Blank Check podcast), and finding his work frequently ambitious but often hindered either by his sensibilities (he likes slapstick and melodrama almost to a fault) or by budget, or studio constraints. We've seen very little from Raimi in this almost decade since his flawed venture into Oz the Great and Powerful but Dr. Strangemom seems like he's been given carte blanche to make a big, zippy, gross superhero action adventure movie that allows him to employ all his bag of tricks, the only caveat is it has to weave all around the MCU. A lot of critics have been dismissing that this is somehow a big put-upon thing, that the demands of the MCU does Raimi a disservice, when it seems to me he kind of really enjoyed playing with these toys and having the budget to let his imagination run wild.
With each scene change, I was more and more engrossed in the movie... the story, yeah, fine, but moreso how crazily ramped-up Raimi made things. By the third act, Dr. Strangemom basically becomes an MCU-ified continuation of Army of Darkness. Even if you're not familiar with Raimi's "Deadite" series, you're still going to notice that this Marvel ain't like other Marvels. It's not even like any of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, it's far more ambitious. The kind of pulpy, gross out gags in this are utterly delightful, and seriously gross (but they happen to non-humans so it's okay). I "ooooh"ed so many times. Raimi's sense of the macabre is always one that has tongue planted firmly in cheek... if there was a cheek remaining. I'm giving all the credit to Raimi, but Loki and Rick and Morty writer Michael Waldron should be credited with creating a script that played to Raimi's strengths and ...yeah, there's a real Rick and Morty vibe to all this lunacy.
I had a damn good time. This is probably the second closest a superhero movie has gotten to feeling like a lived-in comic book universe (next to Avengers: Infinity War). It just assumes you get it. It doesn't cede much time (for better or worse) to setting up any of its characters, and the various surprise character appearances, well, it just assumes you've been paying attention to all the other Marvel stuff. This movie does nothing that fans of comics haven't seen for decades now, but it does it with a massive big screen budget and it actually succeeds at replicating the delightful feel of a shared universe story.
I'm not a Doctor Strange fan. I've read scant few comics featuring the character, and he's low down on the list of MCU characters I get excited about. I like Cumberbatch. I think he's great in the role. For me, as a non-fan, the character is served best in guest starring roles like Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War and No Way Home where he's kind of a douchey third wheel. This, his second feature, still puts him as part of an ensemble, and a story where he's the central figure, but he's definitely not in control. It works for the character because there's ample opportunity to cut away from him and spend time with someone else throughout.
I get that not everyone is as invested in comic books or comic book movies as I am. I just finished listening to a podcast about a Kevin Costner baseball movie and I vehemently don't give a shit about either of those things, but there are people that passionately do, so I understand how annoying it can be for non-fans to see this nerd shit taking up so much of the cultural real estate. But nerd shit has been my life for decades, and this, well, it makes me happy, because it's some real nerd shit. It's not going to last forever. Eventually there will be a revolt and nerd shit will be pushed to the background...or the industry will collapse due to unsustainable practices and there won't bee 200 million or even 100 million dollar spectacles anymore, so I'm going to enjoy this ride for as long as it lasts.
I'm going into spoiler territory now...
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----SPOILER TERRITORY----
This isn't a perfect film, and I'm not above critiquing it. As I said, the characterization in this film is thin. There's a running thread of Stephen Strange thinking about whether he's happy or not, but it's only a running thread in that it's brought up, briefly, four times throughout the film, stopping it dead in its tracks for maybe sixty seconds before the next crazy thing takes place. By the end, I think we're supposed to feel that, perhaps, Stephen has found happiness by letting go of his fixations and his ego, but it's a bit of a stretch.
Strange is paired up in this film with a young dimension-hopping woman, America Chavez, whom I love from the Young Avengers comics. The appropriate word to describe comics' America is brassy. She's not at all brassy here. Here's she's pretty much the maguffin, the thing everyone's chasing after that Strange needs to protect. A lot of this comes down to whether Stephen can be trusted to protect her, or if he's that guy who will destroy something so no one can have it. America, for her part, gets one, maybe two moments of character revelation otherwise she's just a walking talking plot device. Cool powers though.
If you were thinking "but hey, isn't this a Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch" team-up movie... oof, yeah, some bad news for you there, bub. The antagonist of the film is, surprisingly, the Scarlet Witch. Coming out of Wandavision she has been dabbling in dark magics, desperately trying to find her mystically conjured children from the TV series, and needing America's powers to travel dimensions to get them. But she's corrupted, and the film had me hanging on a wire wondering how she was going to redeem herself, because almost from the get go she goes pretty dark, pretty deeply. Wanda's story has been a tragedy at every turn, from Age of Ultron onwards, and and Elizabeth Olson's been quite exceptional at balancing the emotional toll all of that has had on her. But here, the scales have tipped and it'd be very heart wrenching if Strange and Wanda had any real emotional history at all. As it is, the film relies upon us having the deep affection for Wanda, which perhaps we all don't, especially if you've not seen Wandavision.
Wong gets a beefed up role, appropriately, as he is now the Sorcerer Supreme. It's unfortunate though, that the two Benedicts are separated as they have had really fun chemistry (and are apparently good friends off screen). Rachael McAdams is also back as Strange's former love Christine Palmer, here getting married and moving on, triggering Stephen's regret and remorse (and if you've seen the Disney+ What If? series you know that Strange kind of has a bit of an unhealthy obsession about Christine, and the journey here is him coming to terms with that and moving on. McAdams gets to play a more proactive alternate universe version of the character, and there's a couple great moments that justify her presence.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is back as Karl Mordo, who we last saw being set up as the next big bad for Doctor Strange, and effectively carrying out an anti-magic crusade. This film brushes past that set-up and maybe even implies that it was resolved off-screen. Instead we meet a Mordo from an alternate universe who, you know, still kinda hates Stephen.
I could fan gush about the Illuminati, teased ever so slightly in the trailers and deconstructed by a 1000 youtubers to the point of basically getting the roster completely accurate. Even with that level of scrutiny, the quick reveal of each member just bristles with potential and excitement. Just like Marvel managed to reclaim Andrew Garfield's Spider-Man in No Way Home, they do the same with another MCU figure or two here and it's delightful.
A final note, the film uses the term "Incursions" to describe when two multiversal worlds collide. There was a huge, epic Avengers story where, effectively, the multiverse was collapsing upon itself and worlds would collide unless one was destroyed. Like prior uses of big Marvel events (Age of Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War), it's unlikely that Secret Wars will happen the same way as in the comics, but it seems like seeds are gently being planted.
----LEAVING SPOILER TERRITORY---
Ranking the MCU:
(including D+)
the top tier - my favourites, all just good stuff
- Avengers: Infinity War
- Captain America: Civil War
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Captain America: First Avenger
- Hawkeye
- Captain America: Winter Soldier
- Avengers: Endgame
- Black Panther
- Spider-Man: No Way Home
- Loki
- Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
- Ant-Man
- Avengers
- Wandavision
the second line - stories I like but perhaps don't fully resonate - Iron Man 3
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Black Widow
- Doctor Strange
- Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
- Ant-Man and the Wasp
- Captain Marvel
third wave -- flawed but still fun, stuff I'll still go back to - What If...?
- Spider-Man: Far From Home
- Eternals
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier
- Moon Knight
- Avengers: Age of Ultron
- Iron Man 2
the bottom - the ones I don't know that I even want to watch again - Thor: The Dark World
- Iron Man
- Thor
- The Incredible Hulk
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