Posted by Hogwarts graduate and Wicked Witch of the West fight over ownership of America
This is a movie I was looking forward to. So much so, I decided to go all out for an extra couple of quid and upgrade my Cineworld seat to Superscreen – AND buy a bag of Galaxy Minstrels. That’s right, The OddFather knows how to splash the cash when he needs to.
As it turned out, my Superscreen seat was rather uncomfortable. I don’t know why, it just was. But that was two weeks ago – I’ve been holding off writing a review for this because I’m going to fully go into spoiler territory, and I don’t want to ruin the movie for anyone.
That’s your spoiler warning by the way… Stop now if you don’t want to have the movie ruined for you.
As you can imagine there’s a lot to talk about, so I’ll break it down.
Narrative
The job of summarising MCU movies is nigh on impossible 28 or so movies in. But I will attempt to do so anyway. Dr Strange finds himself protecting a young multiverse-hopping character called America Chavez. The surprise revealed early on is the big bad chasing America is Wanda – who has completely assumed her Scarlet Witch persona by using dark magic trying to locate her two sons. Where are her two sons? Well, they didn’t really exist per se. You see, they were created “magically” by Wanda in the MCU show, WandaVision, where she hijacked a village to create an illusion of a happy life with her dead robot boyfriend. When she dropped the spell she lost her children too – so now she finds herself using dark magic to find a universe in which her children live. For that she needs a multiverse-hopping being, hence, the pursuit of America – the character, not the country – across the multiverse.
Phew. Can you see why I don’t bother summarising these movies anymore? Anyway, with so much happening in this movie it was bound to feel a little messy, but I think it still works. The only issue I remember is sometimes there can be a few pacing issues – it was a note I made when I walked out the cinema, so I’ll just trust my past self.
The character of America really doesn’t have a lot to do here. She could just as easily have been any other object that Strange and Wanda were trying to protect/retrieve.
Horror
There’s talk of this being the MCU’s first horror movie. Now technically I guess this can be true. I mean Goosebumps was a horror series, but I can sit through it! For a 35-year-old this is hardly scary but show this to a 7-year-old and they may soil themselves. So yes, depending on the audience I guess it can be a horror movie.
This is Sam Raimi directing though – there’s bound to be call-backs to horror movies. There are a few jump scares, particularly around Scarlet Witch. In one scene she breaks her way out of a mirror with her body bent in all sorts of unnatural ways – seeing her correct herself is cringeworthy. And seeing Scarlett Witch disband the Illuminati in such a brutal manner was fantastic to see (no pun intended). This is certainly not a movie for younger children, and I think it’s great that Marvel are exploring ways to let directors make their marks on movies whilst still feeling like these movies belong to the MCU.
And so, this is very much a Sam Raimi movie – it felt part of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man universe with the camera angles, Bruce Campbell appearances, and the score. The score is fantastic, Danny Elfman really adding to the horror elements with sounds that complement the theme of the movie. Not only does it remind me of the early Spider-Man movies, but also the Tim Burton Batman movies too.
Wanda
We need to talk about Wanda. I really enjoyed WandaVision, and as one of the most tragic characters of the MCU, it was nice to see her get a show exploring her loss and the effect on her mental health. Though she made some questionable decisions in that show, she was still one of the good guys, and ended that show with her moral compass in check.
Yet here, Wanda does a complete U-turn and is evil from the off as the Scarlet Witch. It makes sense, she’s been using the Darkhold – which is basically dark magic – for some time and is pretty much consumed by it. However, it did undermine her character development from WandaVision. Instead, I would have liked to have seen her delve into darkness over the course of a movie/WandaVision season 2. I did not mind her becoming the villain – in fact, I enjoyed it – but it just seemed a little rushed and sudden.
As mentioned, I think being a villain really worked for Wanda. Having watched all MCU material I can totally get Wanda’s desperate mindset – the way she disposes of people in this is brutally delightful. The horror elements certainly work for the character’s portrayal – she is genuinely terrifying at times here.
Cameos
It’s becoming the norm that the latest entries in Marvel are quite big on the cameos. Especially following Spider-Man: No Way Home which saw the return of past Peter Parkers. Anything was possible here. I heard several rumours which meant the cameos weren’t such a surprise to me but here’s my views on the appearance of the Illuminati.
Let’s start with Professor Xavier, once again being played by Patrick Stewart. This was the smallest surprise as it was pretty much revealed in the trailer. I enjoyed the X-Men movies a fair bit, so it’s nice to see Patrick Stewart return, however, I felt largely indifferent to his appearance. What I did appreciate was the X-Men cartoon theme playing as well as the Professor X clothing from that show. A blast from the past for sure.
Then there was Captain Carter, which given we saw Captain Carter in Marvel’s What If recently made this hardly a surprise. I cared little for the alt version of Captain Marvel or Black Bolt.
Which brings us to Reed Richards – Mr Fantastic. Played by fan-favourite John Krasinski. This got a huge pop in the screening I was in. And those that know me, know I have been one of those fans wanting Krasinski and real-life wife Emily Blunt to play Mr Fantastic and Sue Storm in the MCU. But I felt his overall appearance in this movie was a little flat. Now I don’t think he shouldn’t be the MCU’s Mr Fantastic, I’m just not sure it was wise of Marvel to introduce the character in this way. For the following reason.
The Illuminati were killed off ruthlessly by Wanda. Black Bolt’s death with his head imploding was both shocking and amazing to see, Captain Carter being split in half (though not shown) was also awesome, Professor X having his neck snapped was cool, though Captain Marvel having a statue crush her was a bit pants. Mr Fantastic wasn’t exempt from this brutality – he was basically turned to spaghetti as his head went pop!
There are two issues with this. Firstly, I feel it undermines Mr Fantastic and shows him as quite weak. Secondly, it shows him as slightly stupid by basically telling Wanda what Black Bolt was going to do with her. This allows her to know how to avoid being killed and thus go on a killing spree. It was just a bit weak from Mr Fantastic, and I feel it was a weak intro for a character that has yet to appear in the MCU. Even more so if Krasinski ends up being the MCU Mr Fantastic.
In terms of cameos/characters that didn’t appear – I was really hoping to see Tom Cruise as Iron-Man/Tony Stark. For those that may not know, Tom Cruise was linked to play the role of Tony Stark before Robert Downey Jr made the role his own. Seeing Tom Cruise get violently ripped apart by Wanda would have been quite fun to see, and because we’re all attached to Robert Downey Jr as our Tony Stark – it would have been even more amazing because Tom Cruise would be the imposter in our minds. It goes back to my point about Krasinski as Mr Fantastic – because we want him to play the character in the MCU it wasn’t as fun to see him ripped apart. Just me?
Multiverse
Finally, my quick thoughts on the multiverse. Marvel have teased us with the ‘opening’ of the multiverse for a few movies and tv shows now. And even after this movie, the multiverse is still intact. I know they’re building up to it, but am I the only one losing patience?
And speaking of the multiverse – I expected The Multiverse of Madness to be bigger and more impactful on the MCU. As it turns out, this movie was only really set in 2 proper universes, so it wasn’t as ‘mad’ as I expected. Perhaps there were cuts made, the movie did feel rather on the short side for what I expected.
Verdict
The Multiverse of Madness is a good, if not amazing movie. It’s great seeing Sam Raimi back in the director’s seat, and I did enjoy the nods to the horror genre, it’s just that I expected more to be honest. It’s a weird one, I feel it’s better than 3.5-stars, but not quite a 4-star movie.
But really it’s probably a 3.75-star movie
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