Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness: A Grounded Exploration of Grief

Since its announcement at San Diego Comic Con in 2019, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has built up an impressive amount of hype as a massive Avengers-style team-up. Out of the gate it was known that the Disney+ show WandaVision would carry directly into it and that Wanda herself would appear in the movie. Then came the other projects that could tie in like Spider-Man: No Way Home, What If…?, and Loki that appeared to be building the titular multiverse for Strange to deal with. That said, while the show may play with the multiverse in a meaningful way that is sure to please fans, the movie is still an exploration of grief that is very much a story about Doctor Strange.

The film is beautifully directed as one should expect from Sam Raimi at this point. His fingerprints are all over it from his camerawork to his methods of building up tension in a scene. It is very much a horror movie, not the R-rated fare that one would expect, but there are still enough scary moments and characters getting killed in grotesque ways that this movie is considered within the horror genre. Bruce Campbell even has a small but memorable cameo in the movie, as is the standard for Raimi’s films.

While some of the other MCU movies do play into this one, the entries that are relevant to the story here are exposited within the narrative so there is nothing the viewer needs to take with them to understand this. The additional context always helps; however, it is not necessary to understand what is going on. There is a lot of exposition in the movie as Strange himself is learning about the multiverse alongside the audience, so milage will vary on that as well and presumably an audience member who has not sat through Loki
and What If…? will enjoy that more than an audience member who knows all that has already been explained. At the end of the day, the movie is still about processing grief and what it means to be happy, even if it is wrapped in a universe-hopping, visual effects-heavy superhero movie.

The acting is all great, carried by continued strong performances from Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, and Benedict Wong. Rachel McAdams reprises from the first Doctor Strange as Christine Palmer and does an excellent job in her role as well while newcomer Xochitl Gomez is a standout as America Chavez who is sure to have a major role in the MCU going forward as the multiverse heads towards an inevitable conflict. All the actors and actresses in the second act cameos do great in their roles, however small they may be.

The multiverse designs are all very interesting and unique, be they the universes that America Chavez and Doctor Strange fall through seemingly randomly during one sequence, or the ones that a good amount of the movie are spent in such as a solar-punk inspired universe and a universe where everything around them is falling apart. It is a great use of visual effects and makes it worth seeing the movie in 3D on the largest screen possible. A side note to the 3D viewing, the movie is preceded by a trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water
which looks gorgeous and should also be seen in 3D.

The movie is well worth a watch and one who is going to see it should try to go in as blind as possible considering a lot of the twists and turns in the story are best experienced for the first time not knowing they are coming. Much like Doctor Strange and even Ant-Man this movie should be viewed in a premium format because of how the effects play in a three-dimensional space. Hopefully Raimi comes back for the third movie and that the character introduced in the post-credit scene sticks around for the new paranormal turn the MCU has taken.

Final Rating: 8.5/10