i love you in every universe
I am going to talk about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in this one. There will be spoilers. So, if you're not interested in the MCU, or if you haven't watched it, feel free to give this a miss.
I've watched the movie twice, but both times were quite sometime ago now, so it's not exactly fresh in my mind. I've talked to a lot of my friends about my feelings on it a lot of times, and there will probably be a lot of points that I made that I've clean forgot by now. But never mind that, on to what I do remember!
I thought of doing lists of stuff I liked and stuff I didn't, but you know what, let's just mix all of them up because I'm not in a very organised mood right now.
At the core of it, this is a movie about a powerful woman who has to be brought down because she's too DANGEROUS, because she's too EMOTIONAL.
On the one hand, this whole concept reeks of old timey comics misogyny and should die already.
On the other hand, when you think about it, this movie is exactly what I wanted out of Dark Phoenix and what every Dark Phoenix adaptation so far have failed to do because they all failed to establish Jean Grey as the complex character that she is before they let her get all dark and scary. The MCU did that pretty brilliantly with Wanda through the WandaVision series, and that, plus the fact that Elizabeth Olsen is so freaking good, gives this movie the impact that Dark Phoenix never had.
This doesn't take away the fact that this version of Wanda/Scarlet Witch is still my least favourite version of her in the comics, and I wish they would stop portraying her as this crazy woman who is powerful and yet constantly overpowered by her emotions.
I do like that this movie is weird. Maybe not quite weird enough if you're gonna compare it to the Doctor Strange comics, but it does explore the magical side of the Marvel Universe beyond the circle-shield things and sling-ring teleportation.
Speaking of which, the entire musical battle scene was amazing and shows how weird and creative magical battles can and should be.
Why is every alternate Strange we meet so terrible? I'm guessing this is meant to be a lesson for Strange Prime, but I don't really see him absorbing this. Instead, I guess he starts to embrace this towards the end. Is this the point? Him accepting the inevitability that he's a hypocrite when it comes to gatekeeping "good" and "bad" magic?
I guess I do like the fact that Strange Prime is more lose with his usage of darker magic now, which is a thing he does in the comics anyway.
The Illuminati. I was so excite to meet them, and then. And then.
Was there really a point of introducing them and then letting them die a couple of minutes later? Speaking of which:
I can forgive a lot of nonsense and inaccuracies but I absolutely can't deal with the fact that Wanda defeated (and killed!) Prof X in the psychic plane. He. Is. An. Omega. Level. Mutant. I mean so was Wanda when she was considered a mutant, but! Xavier is an omega level telepath, and she isn't. What would've been more realistic is her breaking out of his control and physically attacking him, but nooo, they had to make her unrealistically overpowered and good at every thing. As a mainly X fan, I can pretty much ignore all the other stuff in this movie, but I can't ignore this bit.
The Mr. Fantastic murder also didn't make sense. Like, Reed Richards is the 2nd smartest person in the Marvel Universe. This particular Reed Richards seem to be in a world where both mutants AND inhumans exist, and YET he doesn't have the good sense to enter a fight with the Scarlet Witch with a good gadget, like, I don't know, a power dampener?? THIS is the dude whose son is an omega level mutant whose powers can break reality! (He already had Franklin in this universe too - he mentioned his children!) This is the dude who depowered his own son to keep reality intact! This dude can't bring a power dampener to see Wanda? I don't believe it. I can believe her putting a probability hex on it and it not working, but I can't believe that he didn't even think to bring one.
Black Bolt. This dude's powers is a curse. He's gone through a lot of terrible things because of it, and had to stay silent through all of it, because of how dangerous it is. My point is - his control over himself is out of this world. There is no way he would just blow his own brains out the way he did in this movie. What would be more realistic, (and more gory) is him taking out a knife or other weapon to cut open a mouth hole to use his powers. I can kind of see Wanda putting up a good barrier against his powers, though.
I don't really have much to say about Captain Carter and Captain Marvel except - there is no way a statue falling on Captain Marvel would kill her.
I do love the fact that we get to see these characters in the MCU. We get a mutant for the first time, we get an inhuman after thinking that Marvel is going to ignore the existence of inhumans, and we get John Krasinski as Reed Richards which is seriously the best thing since Tatiana Maslany's casting as She-Hulk.
America Chavez being in this movie is cool, and useful as a narrative device, but I don't like that they take away the stuff that makes her so fun in the comics (her cocky self-confidence). I hope this changes in the future, though.
I don't know why Wong doesn't get the Abomination or Shang Chi to join in the battle at Kamar Taj? Besides actors' appearances fees, that is.
I love seeing Billy and Tommy again, but am crushed that we lose them, AGAIN. I want my queer superheroes now pls.
I liked the little we got to see of the Multiverse, but I want MORE. Oh, and I'm not sure what the emotional core of this movie is supposed to be? The dialogue seems to be pushing Strange and Christine's relationship, but didn't they break up before the first Doctor Strange movie even started? I was definitely more invested in Wanda's desire to be with her children again, and her trauma from having to kill Vision - it was definitely more impactful than "she gave me this watch that one time" - but also... didn't she already deal with this in WandaVision? I wish that America's story is more fleshed out, but I understand that there's no space for it in the movie so I hope for a Disney+ series.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie because it was kind of fun. As part of the MCU, though, it's one of the weaker entries, which is pretty disappointing, but also gives me a little hope - if even the disappointing bits of the MCU are enjoyable then I know I have better things to look forward to, after all.
Stay Safe!