“I'm sorry, Stephen. Your desecration of reality will not go unpunished.” Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor)
Well, thank you, Baron, but the punishment is exacted now with my trying to make sense of the messy multiverse of the new Marvel showcase, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s as if Marvel called its prominent heroes for a conference, planned by the Marx Brothers, without a drop of humor.
Make no mistake, there is much for geeks here (my audience was packed with Marvel madness): gorgeous CGI, gorgeous Elizabeth Olsen (The Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff, et al., just an uber sorceress), gorgeous Rachel McAdams (Dr. Christine Palmer and former Strange lover), and the chameleon actor, Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr. Strange). Should be enough to make a classic if there wasn’t so much territory to cover in just over 2 hours. That’s several universes, which also contain sinister duplicates of many characters. Too much goodness, too little time.
After Strange dabbles in a forbidden spell, he ushers in the multiverse with versions of himself too powerfully bad even for Strange, Maximoff, and Wong (Benedict Wong). This Marvel mess is aided by the usual Marvel tropes of power coming from hands and boulders shattering, together with warped cities, paint people, and so much more. Even the staple of most hero films, Wanda’s search for family safety, is present with too little fanfare because it is the most affecting human endeavor of the film.
Director San Raimi has brought his chops from previous Spider Man episodes that successfully joined three Spider Men actors to more or less successfully join different characters; it is too unclear here the differences except for a third eye or two.
Although hope is here in the form of a new super-powered teen, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who can jump the universes with ease, she doesn’t know how to use this power, and we don’t have time to grow with her. Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is itself overgrown but still a mélange of images and ideas to spark the interest of comic book fans and critics up for the challenge.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
