Not the Sequel We Expected; Fun and Creepy: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Review

Yay, guess who’s back with another movie review again? Thought after I became the president of this organization, I would stop writing eh? Lmao, you wish. Anyway, finally, we got the sequel of the magician in the MCU after years of delay, and many teases of what it would be like from all the Disney+ TV series. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is indeed the sequel to 2016 Doctor Strange, but it is not the sequel that we expected, rather, it fitted more to be the Scarlet Witch standalone movie.

Spoiler warning!

Source: Wallpaper Abyys

After the delay where we should’ve seen MoM first rather than No Way Home, on May 5, Indonesians finally can see  Stephen Strange and Wanda Maximoff. The movie is set after WandaVision (2021, Disney+) and is meant to be the sequel to Doctor Strange (2016), while also serving as a continuation to Loki (2021, Disney+). The movie begins with the arrival of Xochitl Gomez who played America Chavez (if you guys heard about MoM being banned in some countries in the Middle East, it’s because Chavez has two mothers) being chased by a monster. The rest of the movie will revolve around Chavez’s mysterious power that allows her to travel between universes and Wanda (now the Scarlet Witch) who tries to use Chavez to see her sons again, while Strange tries to protect the universe’s order by going against Wanda.

Sadly, Doctor Strange failed to capture the attention to him in his sequel, while the audience’s attention is being robbed by Wanda and her villainous act. Wanda experiences a huge character development from her beginning in Age of Ultron (2015) as nobody to the critically acclaimed WandaVision that explored her character even deeper; changing the way we, MCU fans see Wanda not just as a superhero in the Avenger, but a victim who tackles her own problems alone. It doesn’t mean that Sam Raimi didn’t explore Strange further, the fact is we have some scenes where we can understand Strange’s problem further, especially his former relationship with Rachel McAdams’ character, Christine Palmer, and how Strange was stuck in that trauma.

In the hand of Sam Raimi, MoM feels different than the rest of the movies in the MCU, but not so different when it comes to tone and atmosphere as Moon Knight (2022, Disney+). Sam Raimi, the man behind the famous The Evil Dead (1981), and the cult classic Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man turned the sequel to Doctor Strange into a horror movie with the creepy red tone of either blood or Wanda’s magic. I genuinely hope Disney is brave enough to give an R18+ rating for MoM. It feels like Raimi was holding onto the brake, which the result is, the half-cooked scene when Wanda fights the Illuminati. This is how I feel about Pattinson’s The Batman (2022) with a PG-13 rating.  

Although the edits, shoots, and direction of MoM are fun and engaging for a running time of two hours, some parts of the movie feel a bit of a letdown, especially the pacing. Chavez’s introduction is too fast, it feels like Eternals (2021) all over again. There is no room or perhaps enough room for Chavez’s character to grow throughout the movie. Some parts of the movie feel too slow, and could be cut into a better exposition or character development for some characters. 

The emotional weight of MoM is powerful but not as good as WandaVision. We finally see Strange moving on from Christine, and Wanda realizing what she did is wrong (we will get back to this part later). The superhero trope when Strange told Chavez to believe in herself to use her power somehow works good enough. But again, some characters feel dull, like Wong and the variant of Mordo. In 2016’s post-credit scene, we saw Mordo slowly being turned into the next villain in the upcoming MCU movies, but where is the villain Mordo that we know? All that build-up in 2016 was for nothing.

The choreography for this movie is something else. Seeing Wanda fly with both hands, especially when she performs magic, is really excellent work. Fight between Strange and Sinister Strange using musical notes is really creative and something out of a comic book. 

Multiverse of Madness ends with a not-so-good but not-so-bad conclusion. Wanda’s death feels less impactful compared to the genocide in Infinity War (2018) because we all know that the multiverse allows an endless chance for us to see her again, with many deceased superheroes in the MCU. Wanda’s redemption at the end also feels rushed, her determination is strong enough for her to start a multiverse fight with Strange and many others, to the point of her killing the Illuminati. Despite its flaws, MoM is still a fun horror-superhero movie.

7/10