Ben Grantonic is a senior and a reporter for the Fishers Tiger Times. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper.

SPOILER WARNING FOR BOTH THIS FILM AND THE DISNEY + SERIES “WANDAVISION”

    Before I begin this review I must admit some failing on my part, I did not watch the first “Doctor Strange” film. This is not for lack of trying, I did attempt to watch this film multiple times in the past. I just found the first film quite boring and struggled to slog through it. So, I went into this sequel without the previous context of the first film. Though, this movie serves less as a sequel to “Doctor Strange” and more of a sequel to the Disney Plus series “Wandavision.” 

   For context, “Wandavision” follows Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) as she lives an ideal sitcom suburban life with her robot android partner Vision (Paul Bettany). Though not everything is as it seems, as Vision was previously thought dead after the movie “Avengers: Infinity War.” As warned before, spoilers for “Wandavision” ahead; it turns out Wanda using her magical witch powers kidnapped an entire town to create an ideal life with her dead love. During this, she also created two fake kids for herself. SWORD, a government organization that specializes in this kind of activity shows up and so does a Witch named Agatha. Plot occurs, but what is important for this review is that Wanda leaves her paradise to study an evil magic book called the Darkhold. 

   “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” picks up sometime after this, with Dr. Stephan Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) meeting a strange teenage girl, with the ability to dimension hop, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). America is being pursued across dimensions by strange creatures that are attempting to steal her powers. They then learn that these creatures are being controlled by Wanda, now the Scarlet Witch, as she wishes to use America’s powers to travel to an alternate dimension in which her children are real. This leads to Strange and America running from Wanda across dimensions. 

    The film’s strengths primarily fall on its visuals, with the visuals containing fantastic surrealism that wonderfully reflects the fantastical nature of traveling through the multiverse. Whether it is the literal traveling through worlds or the exploration of the alternate marvel worlds, both have strong visual style that is a joy to watch. The film’s director, Sam Raimi, brought his strong horror-comedy roots to this film as well. This film is much gorier than any other Marvel film I have seen, with bloody scenes straight out of Raimi’s “Army of Darkness”. These horror elements add a lot to the strange and scary nature of the multiverse. The film also features Raimi’s signature dark humor as well as some of Marvel’s signature quippy humor. I think both work very well for this film. 

    Though the film struggles in other aspects, with some of the dialogue being a tad awkward. Also, the film introduces multiple characters from the comics. Both Mr. Fantastic (John Krasinski) of the Fantastic Four and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) are introduced in this film. While I love Patrick Stewart as Professor X, I am less sure about Krasinski as Mr. Fantastic. He did not have the obvious super intelligence that I personally would want to see in the character, though he was on screen for all of five minutes and I am willing to give him more of a chance in future films before forming a final opinion. 

   Ultimately,  “Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” is a Marvel movie at heart and it does its’ job well. I was entertained the whole time and found it very enjoyable for most of the run time. I give it a 3.75 out of 5 stars, an entertaining film that I recommend you go see if you have the time.