DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS (2022)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

Given my low opinion of the 2016 DOCTOR STRANGE, I wasn't in any hurry to see the sequel, MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. Some advance reviews claimed that it was confusing in its buildup of the multiverse-concept last seen in 2021's SPIDER MAN NO WAY HOME, and there can be little doubt that the Spider-film introduced said concepts precisely in order to pre-hype MULTIVERSE.

To my surprise, I found MULTIVERSE to be a much more linear film that the first STRANGE, which was plagued by a villain's plot that could be conveniently postponed while the hero (Benedict Cumberbatch) learned his mystic skills. This time the villain is Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch (Eliabeth Olsen), last seen in the streaming series WANDAVISION, where she went a little crazy and used her magic to conjure up a pair of sons for her and the Vision. Despite the serial's moderately upbeat conclusion, MULTIVERSE finds Wanda still obsessed with regaining the kids she lost, and she's become corrupted by reading an evil book called the Darkhold. Thanks to her researches, Wanda's learned that there are endless alternate realities where her fictional children actually exist. She's also learned that there's one unique young woman, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who can travel to other alternate realities, and Wanda wants to steal those abilities, which will have fatal consequences for the girl with the name of a country. America seeks protection from the Doctor Strange of her world, but he dies in conflict with a gigantic octopus-entity (designed to look like Shuma-Gorath, a well-known comics-foe of the magician-hero). America shunts to "Earth-616," where our Stephen Strange becomes her new guardian.

The script of writer Larry Waldron keeps up the barrage of perils efficiently, but since he previously turned in a lot of tedious scripts for the streaming series LOKI, I tend to think that director Sam Raimi is at base responsible for the frenetic pace of MULTIVERSE. Every film in Raimi's repertoire follows the same balls-to-the-wall pattern, and in addition MULTIVERSE also brings in Raimi's equally-strong love of the macabre, as when Strange has to counter one of Wanda's moves by projecting his spirit into the dead body of one of his alternate-world personas. And though I can't be certain, I'd also like to give all credit to Raimi with a more moral take on the setup narrative of WANDAVISION. The streaming series tended to exonerate Wanda's misdeeds simply because of her gender, but MULTIVERSE makes clear from start to finish that the Scarlet Witch's obsession is ethically evil. Finally, the action-scenes, which have become routine in many MCU movies, are far more compelling in the hands of a director who's interested in doing more than just putting in his time.

There are flaws, of course. The first film harped on Strange's fatal flaw of arrogance, and this movie keeps up the same trope by showing that even if the 616-Strange is more together now, some of his alternate-world congeners have a tendency to betray people. Support-characters from the first film-- ex-girlfriend Christine, snotty ally Wong, and newly minted enemy Mordo-- do their bits but are not especially compelling. (Once again, the idea that Wong is supposedly Sorcerer Supreme but that Strange gets to save the universe leads to loads of cognitive dissonance.) Olsen's Wanda is at her best when she's acting insane-o, but the moments in which she shows moments of restraint don't play as well. And the girl with the country-name-- well, she's adequate. I never really cared whether or not America died, but I didn't hate her, the way I hated the dickish Valkyrie character from THOR RAGNAROK.

One sequence may have been inserted to stoke fannish interest in the MCU's acquisition of the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. While visiting one alternate world, Strange meets some of the members of a superhero "insider group" known as the Illuminati, including such figures as Mister Fantastic and Professor Xavier (played once more by the irreplaceable Patrick Stewart). It's not really germane to the story, but it's damn fun.

I have not read the comics-sequence on which MULTIVERSE is based. Still, I have the impression that Raimi and Waldron made an attempt to remain true to the original story. I doubt that this marks a change in Kevin Feige's rat-in-a-blender attitude toward Marvel continuity, but at least an occasional on-target script proves refreshing.