Movies Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness to introduce [OPEN SPOILERS] into MCU

[EternallDarkness]

question for those who have seen it 

 

Spoiler

now that we know John is indeed going to be Mr Fantastic (unless they pull some crazy multiverse bullshit and John's appearance as him was just fan service) what actors do you see making up the rest of the FF team?

 

[silentbob]

I want my receiver to cram in a viewing of Spider-Man before jumping into seeing Dr. Strange. I just hope that when I do watch, I get to see this movie in 3D

[CastlevaniaNut18]

That was weird. 
 

But I did enjoy the appearances of multiverse characters. 

[johnny]

that was really good 

 

love the sam raimi feel to it 

 

Spoiler

wanda chasing strange and co. like the fucking terminator after destroying the illuminati yes fucking lord 

 

[EternallDarkness]

Spoiler

 

[Kal-El814]

Credits rolling now. This was great and is canonically Evil Dead 4. 

[EternallDarkness]

14 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Credits rolling now. This was great and is canonically Evil Dead 4. 

 

Spoiler

apparently one of the forks the mini Ashes used to stab big Ash in Army of Darkness is actually on the pizza poppa cart in the movie!

 

[Kal-El814]

More thoughts. Non spoilery stuff first.

 

It's wild to me that they let Sam Raimi go full Sam Raimi here, more so than I feel like he was able to with the previous Spider-Man movies. Some of the weirdest, strangest, scariest, and messy stuff in the MCU happens in this movie and yet I think it really fits into the MCU at large. Other than Loki I feel like the D+ shows and even Eternals / Shang-Chi played it safe. If they let more of whatever phase we're in right now breathe like this, the MCU is going to be fine for a while longer.

 

I'm not going to say that this will be the cure for people who have superhero fatigue, which I'll talk more about in my spoiler tag, but this felt really good to me.

 

Not that it's a surprise, but Elizabeth Olsen steals this movie. She's great in it. Xochitl Gomez does really well also.

 

Spoilery thoughts below:

 

Spoiler

I wasn't REALLY joking about this being Evil Dead 4. They really let Raimi go hard into Evil Dead / Drag Me to Hell vibes and it works so well for Doctor Strange.

 

Wanda is really frightening in this. Thanos came off threatening because he did seem "inevitable." He was methodical, patient, and disciplined. Wanda's moment in Endgame where she's holding Thanos at bay pays off big time here, when she absolutely shreds the Illuminati; they didn't stand a chance. As a long time believer that Black Bolt absolutely sucks ass, I loved to see him get dunked on hard, but that was just one of a number of really horrifying deaths in this movie. I know it's not the "prime" MCU universe or anything, but I was shocked to see just how willing they were to let Raimi kill comics heavyweights like they were nothing. And then at the end when she sees her kids and they're scared of her... it's totally believable that even though she fucked up a ton of people in this movie, that grounds her. Again, Elizabeth Olsen did WORK in this.

 

The fighting with the actual soundtrack was so cool and creative. All of the other wizards using the normal sparkly powers while Strange was summoning demon arms and weird shit to help him fight is a nice way of showing that he's outclassing everyone without beating you over the head with it. Same thing with his ego... every new universe he shows up in, he knows he needs power so he just starts looking for himself.  And at the end he's leveled up and leaning into it. It's good stuff.

 

The scene with Professor X walking around, trying to help Wanda... really tense.

 

For as popular as these movies are, it's still funny to me how many people show up to them without knowing the source material all that well. The audience LAUGHED when they started talking about The Illuminati; I think it's a name that works okay on paper and comes off wildly silly when it's said aloud, seriously, by adults.

 

And I think that but was the only real "weak" part of the movie. It's not bad at all, but like... we've had so many heroes show up in other things as cameos since 2008 now. It felt like the reveal of Mr Fantastic and Chuck and Captain Carter were supposed to really land and they just kind of... didn't? I think back to Infinity War and the pop the theater made when Wakanda showed up on screen, or when Steve did... you can't do that with just cameos anymore. Maybe you could have with Professor X but that was in trailers already. Which is fine, I don't care about spoilers, but when the movie is directed in such a way as to let the reveals land, but they just kinda limp along... it's weird. Maybe it was just my theater, who knows.

 

Anyway... so, so, so much fun.

 

EDIT - More Wanda stuff 

 

Spoiler

I do think a fair criticism of this movie is that Wanda has been put through the meat grinder for her entire MCU tenure, has generally tried to better herself, and her pivot in WandaVision was largely beyond her control. She ultimately did the right thing. 
 

Assuming she does die here, it’s a pretty cruel fate and a sad tale for her overall. I don’t know how I feel about that for the moment. Tony was an arms dealer and was responsible for god knows how many deaths and gets to go out like a hero, Strange allows half of all life in the universe die for half a decade because he thinks it’s the only way, and he gets to level up and be beloved. Wanda loses her family to a war, her brother to Ultron, her partner to Thanos… and the best she gets is her emotions overwhelm her so she roofies a town and almost rips the multiverse to shreds? It’s weird that Wanda is the person to whom the MCU has been the most cruel.

 

[SuperSpreader]

Raimi shouldn't direct another marvel movie. 🤷‍♂️

 

The pacing was all over the place, especially at the start setting up the main plot. I'm not sure what it did for the MCU as a whole at the end. 

[Kal-El814]

I would agree that the pacing could have been better especially since the movie was not super long. 

[SuperSpreader]

5 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

I would agree that the pacing could have been better especially since the movie was not super long. 

 

I feel like there's a better movie in there somewhere. Dr Strange didn't know he was walking into an illusion when he went to see Wanda? C'mon. That eye monster was cringe. I feel like just showing Wanda watching all the other hers and discovering America/chasing her to this timeline would have been scarier and more effective. That "turn" did nothing for me. The whole "holding the knife" on his own or whatever was a dumb arc. 

 

[Kal-El814]

8 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

 

I feel like there's a better movie in there somewhere. Dr Strange didn't know he was walking into an illusion when he went to see Wanda? C'mon. That eye monster was cringe. I feel like just showing Wanda watching all the other hers and discovering America/chasing her to this timeline would have been scarier and more effective. That "turn" did nothing for me. The whole "holding the knife" on his own or whatever was a dumb arc. 

 

 

Strange DID know it was an illusion, he told Wanda it "smelled real." But yeah.

[johnny]

21 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

Raimi shouldn't direct another marvel movie. 🤷‍♂️

 

The pacing was all over the place, especially at the start setting up the main plot. I'm not sure what it did for the MCU as a whole at the end. 

this post is how i know for a fact that the movie is good 

[SuperSpreader]

Just now, johnny said:

this post is how i know for a fact that the movie is good 

It's not BAD, it we just poorly paced and kinda clumsy. 

[SuperSpreader]

PS zombies are dumb

[Kal-El814]

4 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

PS zombies are dumb

no u

[SuperSpreader]

ALSO America Chavez is obviously part of the future of Marvel and while she was in the whole movie I don't feel like we got to know her other than kid running and screaming and a tiny backstory snippet 

[EternallDarkness]

1 hour ago, SuperSpreader said:

Raimi shouldn't direct another marvel movie. 🤷‍♂️

 

The pacing was all over the place, especially at the start setting up the main plot. I'm not sure what it did for the MCU as a whole at the end. 

 

What it does along with the events of Loki is

Spoiler

set the MCU for the next multiverse war. A previous multiverse was mentioned multiple times in Loki. We saw what happens when incursions occur: earths/universe slamming into each other. The post scene with Clea coming to get Strange indicates that another incursions is happening and she has a way of possibly fixing it. I think we'll see more Kang cameos coming up, as they set him up to be a big bad ala thanos all of it working toward Secret Wars.  Now we know form the movie that Strange destroyed all the darkholds meaning traveling in the multiverse just got harder. America can do it...with the arrival of Clea ou have to wonder if she can do it as well. Either was I think it sets up America having a bigger role in the future of the MCU. 

 

that's my 2 cents anyway 

[SuperSpreader]

1 hour ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

What it does along with the events of Loki is

  Hide contents

set the MCU for the next multiverse war. A previous multiverse was mentioned multiple times in Loki. We saw what happens when incursions occur: earths/universe slamming into each other. The post scene with Clea coming to get Strange indicates that another incursions is happening and she has a way of possibly fixing it. I think we'll see more Kang cameos coming up, as they set him up to be a big bad ala thanos all of it working toward Secret Wars.  Now we know form the movie that Strange destroyed all the darkholds meaning traveling in the multiverse just got harder. America can do it...with the arrival of Clea ou have to wonder if she can do it as well. Either was I think it sets up America having a bigger role in the future of the MCU. 

 

that's my 2 cents anyway 

 

Right, it definitely laid more seeds than it answered previous ones, so sometimes you need those transitional pieces and this might be that. 

 

Edit: stupid phone changing my word I meant to use 

[cusideabelincoln]

 

This was enough of a fresh take for a Marvel movie that I was  thoroughly delighted by everything even if the movie wasn't completely cohesive and fleshed out. I enjoyed the creativity of this movie, and the fact we got to see Dr. Strange do more crazy Dr. Strange magic than he has in any of the other movies combined.

 

22 hours ago, Kal-El814 said:

More thoughts. Non spoilery stuff first.

 

It's wild to me that they let Sam Raimi go full Sam Raimi here, more so than I feel like he was able to with the previous Spider-Man movies. Some of the weirdest, strangest, scariest, and messy stuff in the MCU happens in this movie and yet I think it really fits into the MCU at large. Other than Loki I feel like the D+ shows and even Eternals / Shang-Chi played it safe. If they let more of whatever phase we're in right now breathe like this, the MCU is going to be fine for a while longer.

 

I'm not going to say that this will be the cure for people who have superhero fatigue, which I'll talk more about in my spoiler tag, but this felt really good to me.

 

Not that it's a surprise, but Elizabeth Olsen steals this movie. She's great in it. Xochitl Gomez does really well also.

 

Spoilery thoughts below:

 

  Hide contents

I wasn't REALLY joking about this being Evil Dead 4. They really let Raimi go hard into Evil Dead / Drag Me to Hell vibes and it works so well for Doctor Strange.

 

Wanda is really frightening in this. Thanos came off threatening because he did seem "inevitable." He was methodical, patient, and disciplined. Wanda's moment in Endgame where she's holding Thanos at bay pays off big time here, when she absolutely shreds the Illuminati; they didn't stand a chance. As a long time believer that Black Bolt absolutely sucks ass, I loved to see him get dunked on hard, but that was just one of a number of really horrifying deaths in this movie. I know it's not the "prime" MCU universe or anything, but I was shocked to see just how willing they were to let Raimi kill comics heavyweights like they were nothing. And then at the end when she sees her kids and they're scared of her... it's totally believable that even though she fucked up a ton of people in this movie, that grounds her. Again, Elizabeth Olsen did WORK in this.

 

The fighting with the actual soundtrack was so cool and creative. All of the other wizards using the normal sparkly powers while Strange was summoning demon arms and weird shit to help him fight is a nice way of showing that he's outclassing everyone without beating you over the head with it. Same thing with his ego... every new universe he shows up in, he knows he needs power so he just starts looking for himself.  And at the end he's leveled up and leaning into it. It's good stuff.

 

The scene with Professor X walking around, trying to help Wanda... really tense.

 

For as popular as these movies are, it's still funny to me how many people show up to them without knowing the source material all that well. The audience LAUGHED when they started talking about The Illuminati; I think it's a name that works okay on paper and comes off wildly silly when it's said aloud, seriously, by adults.

 

And I think that but was the only real "weak" part of the movie. It's not bad at all, but like... we've had so many heroes show up in other things as cameos since 2008 now. It felt like the reveal of Mr Fantastic and Chuck and Captain Carter were supposed to really land and they just kind of... didn't? I think back to Infinity War and the pop the theater made when Wakanda showed up on screen, or when Steve did... you can't do that with just cameos anymore. Maybe you could have with Professor X but that was in trailers already. Which is fine, I don't care about spoilers, but when the movie is directed in such a way as to let the reveals land, but they just kinda limp along... it's weird. Maybe it was just my theater, who knows.

 

Anyway... so, so, so much fun.

 

EDIT - More Wanda stuff 

 

  Hide contents

I do think a fair criticism of this movie is that Wanda has been put through the meat grinder for her entire MCU tenure, has generally tried to better herself, and her pivot in WandaVision was largely beyond her control. She ultimately did the right thing. 
 

Assuming she does die here, it’s a pretty cruel fate and a sad tale for her overall. I don’t know how I feel about that for the moment. Tony was an arms dealer and was responsible for god knows how many deaths and gets to go out like a hero, Strange allows half of all life in the universe die for half a decade because he thinks it’s the only way, and he gets to level up and be beloved. Wanda loses her family to a war, her brother to Ultron, her partner to Thanos… and the best she gets is her emotions overwhelm her so she roofies a town and almost rips the multiverse to shreds? It’s weird that Wanda is the person to whom the MCU has been the most cruel.

 

 

Is it coincidence that they wanted Raimi for this because....

 

Spoiler

Wanda < = > Doc Ock in Spider-Man 2. Both start out with ideals, get corrupted by some outside entity, do some really bad shit, and get redemption by destroying the corrupting entity along with crushing themselves to death.

 

[EternallDarkness]

1 hour ago, SuperSpreader said:

 

Right, it definitely laid more seeds than it answered previous ones, so sometimes you need those traditional pieces and this might be that. 

 

no doubt. They has so much going on in this film that it really should have been longer just so they could have had time to better explain some concepts. And whereas I think the vast majority of MCU films could exist in a vacuum of sorts and viewers would be completely fine understand and appreciating them as stand alone, I think to really get the most out of this one and not be somewhat lost you really needed to have seen some of the other linked works. At the very least knowing what happened in Wandavision seems like a must since while they mention the incident in Westview it's never really explained all that well. 

[SuperSpreader]

9 minutes ago, EternallDarkness said:

 

no doubt. They has so much going on in this film that it really should have been longer just so they could have had time to better explain some concepts. And whereas I think the vast majority of MCU films could exist in a vacuum of sorts and viewers would be completely fine understand and appreciating them as stand alone, I think to really get the most out of this one and not be somewhat lost you really needed to have seen some of the other linked works. At the very least knowing what happened in Wandavision seems like a must since while they mention the incident in Westview it's never really explained all that well. 

 

Plus the entire plot point is about the kids. 

[johnny]

i feel like it definitely didn’t need to be longer than it was. everything was explained adequately. the mcu is basically sequel after sequel. if you’re only watching certain things it’s on you if you are missing context on a thing here and there. 🤷‍♂️

[SuperSpreader]

11 hours ago, johnny said:

i feel like ithe mcu is basically sequel after sequel. if you’re only watching certain things it’s on you if you are missing context on a thing here and there. 🤷‍♂️

 

They're written like a comic book, that's what's genius about it. Marvel mastered the comic book crossover events like no one else and brought it to film. DC is still writing one off stories in an old school way. (I love The Batman.)

 

I thought the length was fine, I would have cut all the Dr Strange ex girlfriend shit that hasn't mattered in any other appearance and focused on teaching us about America & focusing on Wanda. Maybe the women are just more interesting to me. I felt like Shazam (DC) focused more on showing someone young figuring out their powers, with America is like "no u can really do it" "oh ok i super now"

[johnny]

3 hours ago, SuperSpreader said:

 

 

 

I thought the length was fine, I would have cut all the Dr Strange ex girlfriend shit that hasn't mattered in any other appearance and focused on teaching us about America & focusing on Wanda. Maybe the women are just more interesting to me. I felt like Shazam (DC) focused more on showing someone young figuring out their powers, with America is like "no u can really do it" "oh ok i super now"

Yeah I get that. I'm kind of over the learn how to use your powers and trust yourself thing though so I was fine with them just going straight to her being able to control it lol. 

[GoldenTongue]

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the movie.

 

The almost tangible Sam Raimi-ness of it worked wonderfully at times; the film's story needed a darker tone and composition, and Raimi executed that in a way that sticked the landing more often than not.

 

But I also have this feeling that my enjoyment of where it worked, in execution, is really masking quite a few things that are bothering me, although I'm struggling to articulate what they are. 

 

I do think that that same Raimi-ness that I enjoyed (as a fan of many of his earlier works) might be a bit of a detraction, insofar as the movie felt pretty strongly that it was more of a MCU film cooked and pressed through an Evil Dead strainer, than as an MCU film which has a more pronounced directorial voice.  Which feels like a strange criticism to level at an MCU film, given the (rightful) complaints of overly homogenized paint-by-numbers structures for so many of the other movies, but here, it feels fair, when the Raimi-ness bleeds so heavily into the celluloid.

 

I think I'd read somewhere that for one or more reasons, Raimi had to start shooting before a final script was available.  I feel as though it shows; the movie doesn't do a very good job of exploring characters' motivations beyond a fairly shallow level.

 

I think associations with other MCU projects is very much a double-edged sword here. 

 

Spoiler

It's difficult for me to imagine anyone really buying in to Wanda's motivations absent seeing her arc from WandaVision, but even for those who have (at least, for me), her "turn" feels awfully abrupt: she ended WandaVision exhibiting genuine remorse for what she'd done, only to start our next experience with her as someone who had spent time doing some of the darkest and most forbidding magic we've seen to date in Dreamwalking, while also (somehow) sending awful monsters out in an attempt to get America into a position where she could murder her - it feels awfully abrupt, and, to me, doesn't work, whether you've gotten all the backstory filled in, or not.

 

And those were Wanda's actions when acting from her "reasonable" side.  

 

It also feels as though a number of elements were mentioned, but not really explored...

 

Spoiler

is Steven happy?  Is he really capable of letting go of his need to be the one holding the scalpel?

 

And I think this movie is flashing some warning lights of the dangers of the multiverse -

Spoiler

When we have some extraordinary cameos, including two fairly high profile newcomers, get eliminated so quickly and viscerally, then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter?  I get that Marvel is expanding the scope of the MCU in this new phase, but I feel as though it is inescapably lowering the stakes for any given character, when anyone could be killed off at any moment without any real concerns of permanence, because Marvel can now just deus ex multiverse their way out of any eventuality with an appearance from a doppelganger from elsewhere in the multiverse.  It's something that (I'm guessing) most comics fans make peace with as the price of being a fan, but I wonder how well it will work with mainstream movie audiences.

 

I don't know.  There were aspects of the movie I thoroughly enjoyed.  The action set pieces were phenomenal, and while I'm typically not a fan of Danny Elfman, I thought the score complimented the movie beautifully here.  And any number of scenes in which that Raimi saturation was particularly strong brought a huge grin to my face, regardless of whether the scene was going for humor or not.

 

But (as I mentioned in another thread), the best multiverse-based movie of the year does NOT star Benedict Cumberbatch.

[Kal-El814]

5 minutes ago, GoldenTongue said:

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the movie.

 

The almost tangible Sam Raimi-ness of it worked wonderfully at times; the film's story needed a darker tone and composition, and Raimi executed that in a way that sticked the landing more often than not.

 

But I also have this feeling that my enjoyment of where it worked, in execution, is really masking quite a few things that are bothering me, although I'm struggling to articulate what they are. 

 

I do think that that same Raimi-ness that I enjoyed (as a fan of many of his earlier works) might be a bit of a detraction, insofar as the movie felt pretty strongly that it was more of a MCU film cooked and pressed through an Evil Dead strainer, than as an MCU film which has a more pronounced directorial voice.  Which feels like a strange criticism to level at an MCU film, given the (rightful) complaints of overly homogenized paint-by-numbers structures for so many of the other movies, but here, it feels fair, when the Raimi-ness bleeds so heavily into the celluloid.

 

I think I'd read somewhere that for one or more reasons, Raimi had to start shooting before a final script was available.  I feel as though it shows; the movie doesn't do a very good job of exploring characters' motivations beyond a fairly shallow level.

 

I think associations with other MCU projects is very much a double-edged sword here. 

 

  Hide contents

It's difficult for me to imagine anyone really buying in to Wanda's motivations absent seeing her arc from WandaVision, but even for those who have (at least, for me), her "turn" feels awfully abrupt: she ended WandaVision exhibiting genuine remorse for what she'd done, only to start our next experience with her as someone who had spent time doing some of the darkest and most forbidding magic we've seen to date in Dreamwalking, while also (somehow) sending awful monsters out in an attempt to get America into a position where she could murder her - it feels awfully abrupt, and, to me, doesn't work, whether you've gotten all the backstory filled in, or not.

 

And those were Wanda's actions when acting from her "reasonable" side.  

 

It also feels as though a number of elements were mentioned, but not really explored...

 

  Hide contents

is Steven happy?  Is he really capable of letting go of his need to be the one holding the scalpel?

 

And I think this movie is flashing some warning lights of the dangers of the multiverse -

  Hide contents

When we have some extraordinary cameos, including two fairly high profile newcomers, get eliminated so quickly and viscerally, then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter?  I get that Marvel is expanding the scope of the MCU in this new phase, but I feel as though it is inescapably lowering the stakes for any given character, when anyone could be killed off at any moment without any real concerns of permanence, because Marvel can now just deus ex multiverse their way out of any eventuality with an appearance from a doppelganger from elsewhere in the multiverse.  It's something that (I'm guessing) most comics fans make peace with as the price of being a fan, but I wonder how well it will work with mainstream movie audiences.

 

I don't know.  There were aspects of the movie I thoroughly enjoyed.  The action set pieces were phenomenal, and while I'm typically not a fan of Danny Elfman, I thought the score complimented the movie beautifully here.  And any number of scenes in which that Raimi saturation was particularly strong brought a huge grin to my face, regardless of whether the scene was going for humor or not.

 

But (as I mentioned in another thread), the best multiverse-based movie of the year does NOT star Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

Yeah these are all great points. And for as much as I liked this, warts and all, there's really no comparison at all between it and Everything Everywhere All At Once.

 

I feel the same way about the multiverse "stakes" stuff as I do about something like the setup in Days of Future Past.

 

Spoiler

I think there's an extent to which that movie might have done some parts of their character deaths better because they didn't waste time letting all the characters mug for the camera like they did in Strange 2. Staggering the reveal of Chuck specifically feels especially manufactured for theaters and I think it's one of the few things that straight up doesn't really work on-screen. You can't give us Endgame, bring back Tobey and Andrew, and then expect people to gasp at seeing Captain Carter onscreen. The game has changed too much and those kinds of things are expected now.

 

Aside from that, the death stuff to me is "fine." I wish it didn't happen, but it's just comic books. Loki's died a bunch, everyone who's read a comic knew that Bucky was coming back. Wanda "dying" offscreen is likely going to be a ruse as well, it seems unlikely she brought the house down on herself and died in a red fart offscreen after showing other characters die in pretty brutal fashion for the MCU.

 

I agree with your take on Wanda.

 

Spoiler

In thinking about it more and in line with my previous post, it feels a bit gross that other, male heroes get to fuck around and never find out, whereas Wanda's arc involves a lady lose control over her emotions to the point that she enslaves a whole town and then can't control herself after reading one dark magic porno mag. Strange does that in the first movie before he really even knows what he's doing and ends up totally fine, Wanda almost destroys the multiverse. Thor decided to mug over Thanos instead of killing him clean, half the life in the universe gets flushed for 5 years, and he'll probably end up just fine.

 

Not that they can't make Wanda a baddie of course, but I seems unlikely to be a coincidence that WandaVision approaches this with some amount of nuance and was written by a woman, and for Strange 2, it's written by a man and Wanda just can't get her shit together.

 

Also not for nothing but the whole Steven and the scalpel thing kind of makes... no sense to me? My guy was dead for 5 years letting other people hold the scalpel, he gives Wong shit about not bowing to him but very obviously respects him as the Sorcerer Supreme, etc. What are we even talking about?

[SuperSpreader]

Yup. That scalpel thing / relationship shit was such a forced arc and a waste of time. At the end of the day his opening up to have others help was telling his ex gf "watch this shit while I do crazy stuff" and telling America "chin up kid" whoa!!! Life changing advice! 

[johnny]

“then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter? “

 

this is true for almost all of the marvel projects 

[SuperSpreader]

23 minutes ago, johnny said:

“then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter? “

 

this is true for almost all of the marvel projects 

I mean after this being the 8th Batman reboot you can ask the same about DC?

[johnny]

4 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

I mean after this being the 8th Batman reboot you can ask the same about DC?

DC has a long way to go to match up with the MCU lol

[GoldenTongue]

26 minutes ago, johnny said:

“then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter? “

 

this is true for almost all of the marvel projects 

It feels like a certain level of narrative fluidity is allowing that to become true now, or in moving forward.  That was not always the case.  

 

Look at who got offed in DS2:MoM, and give me an example of how cavalierly that was done in the past, with the exception of IW1 and IW2, where characters' deaths and returns were integral to the story itself.

[johnny]

Spoiler

I didn't think her turn was really that abrupt. What she did to the town was EVIL as shit. I dont remember her being THAT remorseful? Regardless, at the end of Wandavision she is deep into that magic book looking for her kids for who knows how long. Why would she care about some random girl that has the power that she needs to "finally be happy"

 

I do see what Kal is saying about her getting shit on when other characters get applauded. That sucks, I would like hell to rain down upon the other people who did shitty things too. 

Wanda spoilers 

 

6 minutes ago, GoldenTongue said:

It feels like a certain level of narrative fluidity is allowing that to become true now, or in moving forward.  That was not always the case.  

 

Look at who got offed in DS2:MoM, and give me an example of how cavalierly that was done in the past, with the exception of IW1 and IW2, where characters' deaths and returns were integral to the story itself.

I guess if they end up doing it a lot then it would be. But they've done it once with multiverse heroes. 

[Reputator]

Just got back from seeing it. I'm not a fan of Raimi's, but this was definitely a good melding of director to material. He was in his element here, and this is one of the few contexts where his lunacy seems fitting.

 

That being said, I do think I was left feeling like this movie sort of ruptures of fabric of the MCU in some pretty profound ways. I know the multi-verse was always a risk to bring in, and unfortunately I think this proves the naysayers right....

  

7 hours ago, GoldenTongue said:

I have a lot of mixed feelings about the movie.

 

The almost tangible Sam Raimi-ness of it worked wonderfully at times; the film's story needed a darker tone and composition, and Raimi executed that in a way that sticked the landing more often than not.

 

But I also have this feeling that my enjoyment of where it worked, in execution, is really masking quite a few things that are bothering me, although I'm struggling to articulate what they are. 

 

I do think that that same Raimi-ness that I enjoyed (as a fan of many of his earlier works) might be a bit of a detraction, insofar as the movie felt pretty strongly that it was more of a MCU film cooked and pressed through an Evil Dead strainer, than as an MCU film which has a more pronounced directorial voice.  Which feels like a strange criticism to level at an MCU film, given the (rightful) complaints of overly homogenized paint-by-numbers structures for so many of the other movies, but here, it feels fair, when the Raimi-ness bleeds so heavily into the celluloid.

 

I think I'd read somewhere that for one or more reasons, Raimi had to start shooting before a final script was available.  I feel as though it shows; the movie doesn't do a very good job of exploring characters' motivations beyond a fairly shallow level.

 

I think associations with other MCU projects is very much a double-edged sword here. 

 

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It's difficult for me to imagine anyone really buying in to Wanda's motivations absent seeing her arc from WandaVision, but even for those who have (at least, for me), her "turn" feels awfully abrupt: she ended WandaVision exhibiting genuine remorse for what she'd done, only to start our next experience with her as someone who had spent time doing some of the darkest and most forbidding magic we've seen to date in Dreamwalking, while also (somehow) sending awful monsters out in an attempt to get America into a position where she could murder her - it feels awfully abrupt, and, to me, doesn't work, whether you've gotten all the backstory filled in, or not.

 

And those were Wanda's actions when acting from her "reasonable" side.  

 

It also feels as though a number of elements were mentioned, but not really explored...

 

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is Steven happy?  Is he really capable of letting go of his need to be the one holding the scalpel?

 

And I think this movie is flashing some warning lights of the dangers of the multiverse -

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When we have some extraordinary cameos, including two fairly high profile newcomers, get eliminated so quickly and viscerally, then you can't help but wonder: does anything matter?  I get that Marvel is expanding the scope of the MCU in this new phase, but I feel as though it is inescapably lowering the stakes for any given character, when anyone could be killed off at any moment without any real concerns of permanence, because Marvel can now just deus ex multiverse their way out of any eventuality with an appearance from a doppelganger from elsewhere in the multiverse.  It's something that (I'm guessing) most comics fans make peace with as the price of being a fan, but I wonder how well it will work with mainstream movie audiences.

 

I don't know.  There were aspects of the movie I thoroughly enjoyed.  The action set pieces were phenomenal, and while I'm typically not a fan of Danny Elfman, I thought the score complimented the movie beautifully here.  And any number of scenes in which that Raimi saturation was particularly strong brought a huge grin to my face, regardless of whether the scene was going for humor or not.

 

But (as I mentioned in another thread), the best multiverse-based movie of the year does NOT star Benedict Cumberbatch.

 

As you said, nothing really matters in the MCU at this point. The cameos don't matter, deaths don't matter, and maybe most problematic of all, the characterizations don't seem to matter.

 

Wanda's turn was abrupt. They spent a lot of time explaining it and it STILL didn't land for me. There is NO watching this movie without having seen the entirety of WandaVision, but that still doesn't sell it. Anyone that thought that Wanda got away with too much in Westview aren't going to get their satisfaction here. She just leans MORE into it. Her "sorrow" over what she did at the end of the series doesn't seem genuine now. She's depicted as a woman with no self-control, guided by her emotions.

 

Strange's character is in a weird place by the end of the movie. I'm not sure where they're going to take him but there's a good chance he won't stay very grounded either. When the characters themselves are chaotic, it's really hard to hold a story together, and that's without a multi-verse concept thrown in the mix.

 

Kind of leaves you feeling unsettled.

 

Edit: I meant to quote @GoldenTongue

[EternallDarkness]

11 minutes ago, Reputator said:

 

 

Strange's character is in a weird place by the end of the movie. I'm not sure where they're going to take him but there's a good chance he won't stay very grounded either. When the characters themselves are chaotic, it's really hard to hold a story together, and that's without a multi-verse concept thrown in the mix.

 

Kind of leaves you feeling unsettled.

 

It will be interesting to see where they go with him

Spoiler

with the initial end where he's fine and dandy and then bang third eye! Classic Raimi twist. You get the sense he's been corrupted b this use of the darkhold, but then he seems completely in control at the mid credit scene, as if in control of that third eye, which I know he's had before as kind of representation of an internalized eye of agamotto so who knows.