Doctor Strange is an arrogant know-it-all who likes to conjure spells by making lots of twirly hand motions, and it’s a testament to Benedict Cumberbatch’s droll charisma that the Marvel Cinematic Universe member doesn’t come off as a grating snob. Like Robert Downey Jr.’s franchise bedrock Iron Man, he’s a second-tier comic book character whose status has been elevated by the actor chosen to play him, and having made a modest introduction in 2016’s Doctor Strange and then a big-leagues splash in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Cumberbatch’s magic-wielding superhero now receives a proper slam-bang blockbuster of his own with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. A summertime sequel that proves way too messy and geeky until it manages to double back around again into pleasurable absurdity, it’s a spectacular that rests squarely on the shoulders of its headliner—which is why, unsurprisingly, Marvel packs its latest more-is-better effort with as many Stranges as time will allow.
The first feature helmed by Spider-Man vet Sam Raimi since 2013’s Oz the Great and Powerful, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6) has its director’s fingerprints all over it, whether that’s with regard to its brazen horror-ish elements—monsters, the undead, candlelit Satanic rituals, and more!—or its gleeful gonzo form. All the Raimi trademarks are in brilliant effect: jolting zooms into close-up; topsy-turvy canted angles; whooshing pans; and helter-skelter shots from the POV of malevolent forces. The MCU has never allowed any of its behind-the-camera artists to put as distinctive a stamp on their given projects as Raimi does here, and aside from Cumberbatch’s turn as the mystical hero, his signature style is the finest aspect of this gargantuan endeavor, transforming it into a welcome return for one of Hollywood’s most electrifyingly idiosyncratic auteurs.
Unfortunately, though, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is not an unmitigated triumph. On the contrary, Raimi’s maiden MCU contribution is all over the place, a scattershot affair that leaps between so many universes, and various versions of familiar faces, that on a narrative level it’s been designed to provide the same sort of whiplash effect as its camerawork. Picking up in the aftermath of Spider-Man: No Way Home, to which it makes passing reference, it opens with a Strange from a distant universe trying to save a young girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) from an angry demon as they strive to obtain the glowing Book of the Vishanti in a swirling floating-rubble purgatory. This is as disorienting as it sounds, and it’s revealed to be merely a dream of the “real” Strange. Yet as we shortly learn, dreams are windows into alternate-reality selves, and that becomes readily apparent when America shows up in Manhattan with a giant octopus-y monster on her tail, thereby compelling Strange to ditch his ex Christine Palmer’s (Rachel McAdams) nuptials and soar into city-saving action.
[Minor spoilers follow]
Upon completing that task, Strange discovers that these creatures covet America for her ability to travel between multiverses. Because this is magical business, Strange asks for assistance from Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who’s living off on her own after having possessed an entire town in WandaVision. That Disney+ venture never properly reckoned with the fact that Wanda was its real villain, but Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness does, swiftly revealing that Wanda—in thrall to a more insidious identity known as the Scarlet Witch—is actually the baddie attempting to capture America. Her reason for this nefariousness is that she wants to locate another universe where she can be a mother to her two (imaginary) kids, and though Strange understands this desire—given that he continues to pine for a happily-ever-after with Christine that won’t come to pass in this world—he objects to her crazy plan, thus pitting the comrades against each other.
Strange and Wanda’s conflict is the impetus for what quickly devolves into a multiverse-hopping muddle, with so much portaling about that the film becomes frustratingly scattershot. There’s a difference between dizzying and erratic, and for a good portion of its middle section, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is the latter. Adding to its everything-and-the-kitchen-sink haphazardness are appearances from random canonical heroes and What If…?-based remixes, some of whom are members of a ruling council known as the Illuminati, and who fulfill the proceedings’ requisite fan-service quotient. By and large, though, they’re just bumps along this rollercoaster ride, which races from one focal point to the next with a rapidity that suggests it doesn’t want anyone thinking about any of this for too long—such as, for example, America’s construction as a chintzy plot device, or the half-heartedness of her LGBTQ+ backstory.
Nonetheless, aided by a bouncy score from frequent collaborator Danny Elfman, Raimi presses onward with a gusto that allows Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness to eventually round its long and winding second-act bend to land in truly out-there terrain. During its finale, the film takes great delight in indulging in its most Evil Dead/Darkman inclinations, with Raimi interjecting a considerable amount of his goofy gorehound personality into the stock MCU template. Better yet, whereas much of the material’s early CGI looks slapdash and phony (some of the opening green-screen effects are almost shockingly substandard), it too improves as things progress, be it the series’ hallmark kaleidoscopic imagery or two late, unexpected visions of Strange.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is loony in ways that are alternately exciting and exhausting, a hodgepodge of chaotic mayhem that culminates in insane fashion. It’s both one of the MCU’s most unique and unfocused installments, all of it tethered together by Cumberbatch as the vain yet tormented Strange. His protagonist’s yearning for an impossible life—and love—is the emotional crux of this extravaganza, and if it never achieves the bittersweet peaks it seeks, it’s not for lack of trying on the part of its leading man, who infuses his wannabe-Sorcerer Supreme with a measure of soulfulness that meshes seamlessly with his smugness and helps keep the film from fully succumbing to its own madness.
