Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, besides having the most “monstrous” title in all of Marvel, the one that heralds Steve Ditko and Stan Lee-esque clueless fantasy is a doubly desirable film. We’re not talking about smashing theaters in need of box office after all, but that public admirer of the Marvel factory, to which is added yet another new element this time around, concocted by clever producer Kevin Feige to alleviate the uniformity that has been felt throughout several years in home products.
Landing Sam Raimi in the MCU mega-franchise, apart from piqued the curiosity of other fans, fanatics of fanterrors of the eighties and nineties, this does not seem like a whim, however, neither for the Marvel universe, nor for himself: remember that the director from hellish possession he’s already taken his first steps in the bastard superhero genre dark maninvented from scratch precisely for the lack of rights of some comic character, and of course the fundamental spidermanlaid the first stone on the long journey that excites us today in the already distant 2002.
The result is settled with happy success. Not because a sequel dedicated to doctor strange to be free from the sharpness that is in it, and with some excess, the product of precisely the internal struggle, which is difficult to express in words. But Raimi’s film has everything that the director’s followers consider his personal trademark: the devilish visual style, the unexpected outbursts of violence in a Marvel movie (almost always deposited by the director as a mockery of the nascent expectations surrounding the saga’s future intellectual property), and goofy humor and self-respect. which Raimi, always brilliant but always modest, was able to insert without much difficulty into the most piloted franchise in the history of cinema.
The film has a grotesque visual sense that fits perfectly with the idea of the Multiverse. Raimi, who understands these issues thanks to his trilogy Evil Dead, uses these narrative levels to “wield like hell” Marvel mythology, articulating a diabolical metaphor: Scarlet Witch telecasts her targets from parallel universes like the Evil Dead did with their victims in the hut, something that serves in a tray to the director to others an opportunity for him “farcical” horror games and even some healthy unnecessary scares. A figure of how the film works throughout the Marvel saga, which, by the way, serves to Raimi to show a dose of above-average cast director experience: Elizabeth Olsen has never been better than Wanda/Scarlet Witch.finally, using the tragic and even Shakespearean potential of the character.
She literally eats Benedict Cumberbatch, whose Doctor Strange seems somewhat more disorganized amidst the film’s narrative chaos, which does have its highs and lows, sometimes being swallowed up by the rhythm, drowning out some of the conflict that the wrong script smears here and there. This is a case of that argument between the two women, the aforementioned Wanda and America Chavez, about seizing power, or the arc itself as a Strange character emotionally less effective than the heroine-turned-villainess Wanda Maximoff.
It could even be said that these are the tricks of Raimi himself, more interested in using the “pulp” and naive play of Golden and Silver Age comics than in false psychology, in which the almost obligatory concessions to the “awakened” representation are blurred here. on crazy visual ideas, on the contagious expressiveness of a playful camera that can play with the viewer. Sharp in its approach and presentation, surprisingly aloof in its fantastic understanding, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness knows, thanks to his director, that he’s already playing in the “anything goes” league in superhero movies. Thus, the moviegoer gets a lot of children’s pleasure.