Two Spider-Man films in recent years have revealed to us that in parallel universes different Spider-Mans exist. Two weeks ago, “everything is everywhere at once” told us that in parallel universes the same people actually live, but their lives there are completely different (in one universe you are a laundry manager, in another you are a movie star). And now “Doctor Strange in the Dimensions of Madness” offers a third version of Multiverse, and it is the least interesting, and also the least logical. Although the Doctor belongs to the same cinematic universe as Spider-Man – he himself accidentally caused the rift between the universes in “Spider-Man: There’s No Way Home” – the new film turns out that all the universes are inhabited by exactly the same people, and their lives are very similar, except for slight variations. For example, in one scene Stephen Strange living in Manhattan who is similar to the one we know (Benedict Cumberbatch) tells Stephen Strange who lives in another universe (Cumberbatch too, and with the same beard) that he had a little sister who drowned, and it turns out the other Doctor’s sister also died in drowning When she was little. So what are the differences between the universes after all? In Manhattan one of them passes in red and stops in green, and there are more flowers there. In short, forget everything you know about the butterfly effect.
Still, there is only one character who has no duplicates, and her superpower is the ability to move between universes and meet different (but, as mentioned, almost identical) versions of Doctor Strange. The teenage American Shabaz (Sochi Gomez from “The Babysitting Club”) who lost her two mothers (the reason the film will not be screened in Saudi Arabia) managed to search them in 72 universes before being thrown into the universe where the doctor we know from previous films lives. In the film’s promising beginning, Strange and his colleague Wong (Benedict Wong) rescue the girl from the arms of a giant octopus trying to kidnap her. It turns out that the octopus was only a messenger of Scarlett Witch (or the other witch), who is not Wanda Maximoff, and to understand why she wants to gain America’s superpower, one has to watch the “Wanda-Vision” series. The film does provide a brief explanation of what happened there, but the character’s drama is based entirely on the life she invented for herself, and then lost, in that series, so getting to know her is quite essential. However, even though I really liked “Wanda-Vision”, and even though Elizabeth Olsen is excellent here as well, the film didn’t touch me emotionally, so maybe it doesn’t really matter.
The formidable witch, who was a member of The Avengers before retiring to independent living, is a superheroine who has become a superhero (superhero sounds wrong) following the loss of her children, and is the driving force of the film. There are extreme seconds in her character – all she wants is to be an ordinary mother from the suburbs, and to that end she uses unparalleled destructive forces, and she further says that she is holding back. This makes her a more complex and interesting character than most of Marvel’s villains, who have been characterized as an endless villain who wants to destroy the world in the name of some inverted ideology. Wanda’s passion for motherhood also yields the most successful sentence in the film, in an argument she conducts with Strange.
Strange is not convinced, and tries to prevent her from moving to other universes. To do so he himself eludes them with America, and meets in them his characters, and other superheroes from the Marvel universe – a tribute to the fans. The mechanics of the story work, and the various universes are beautifully designed, but the drama does not heat up, mainly because there is no real connection between the doctor and the girl he is protecting. Through Gomez’s fault, America does not become a memorable character, and the film and Strange seem to be interested in its superpower, not in it. Strange is also much less strang than it was in his first film of 2016, before he fought alongside the Avengers and made a universal mess when he tried to help Peter Parker last year. At this point in his career in the Marvel universe he is already an ordinary superhero, and the unique bizarreness of his character has dissipated. His broken love for Christine (Rachel McAdams), who at the beginning of the film marries someone else, also does not yield sparks.
All this does not mean that the film is not entertaining, quite. Sam Raimi, who replaced previous film director Scott Drixon in the middle of work (“We parted in friendship”), brought with him some ideas that remind us that he came here from the world of horror. Bruce Campbell from Remy’s “Evil Dead” movies is hosted in a small role as the owner of a street stall that gets the best joke in the film (wait for it), and there is also a successful import from zombie movies – perhaps the wildest invention in the film. The battles between the mighty Wanda and all those who try to stop her are also well staged and have an impressive variety. My best memory has only one scene where two men go beating, like before. But two weeks after “Everything Everywhere at Once” the film is experienced as far less insane than its name promises.
★★★✯ 3.5 stars
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Directed by: Sam Raimi. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Sochi Gomez. USA 2022, 126 min