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 Blackie wrote:

Voss wrote:


...And after an hour and forty five minutes of special effects, everyone learned the obvious, glaring lessons that didn't need teaching. Huzzah. Still 20 minutes of runtime (including credits), so I guess we'll beat it all to death.

What you described pretty much sums up 99.9% of the superheroes movies. We take them for what they are.

Not the good ones. Unfortunately both Strange movies prize effects over characters and motivations.

I'm not even sure what 'take them for what they are' means. If it means 'don't think about it and shut up,' then... no.

It means they're superheroes movies, aka beer and pretzels (or popcorn) movies. They all are pretty bad compared to something like Cameron's, Tarantino's, Ritchie's, Chazelle's average works, but it doesn't mean they can't be fun. That's what I meant.

I liked MoM more than the average Marvel installment (which I typically don't mind, don't get me wrong), because for once I watched a superheroes movie that was directed by an actual director, one that I love, and I definitely recognized his hand .

Plot and writing wasn't dumber that anything that was released before. How stupid was Spiderman for example? But seeing all the old villains/spiderman once again was great, regardless of the plot. The final spell could simply have been: "Make everyone forget that Peter Parker is Spiderman", rather than "Make everyone forget about Peter Parker". Problem solved, but no tragic finale then.

The movie was fine. I would definitely say that 616 Strange is, while not dumb, definitely not on the tactical genius level.

We see that he has moments of brilliance, but he's also got alot of points where he's clearly overconfident and takes alot of risks he doesnt need too.

Barring the obvious plot holes (that your going to find in any superhero movie), I think they did a fine job at setting up future installments, which is what all the MCU movies are really after to begin with.

A fun romp through the marvel-verse with more stories to come.

It was really good to see how very Sam Raimi the film was.

I think I was expecting it to be more Spider-Man than Evil Dead, but it was good to see such an Evil Dead super hero film.


Wanda's about face character arc after leaving Wandavision is justified, but not getting to see the steps in between made it deeply unfulfilling. And she basically repeated her arc in Wandavision, but this time having caused much more irreparable damage.


But once you accept the Scarlet Witch that the movie presents, I think it starts working.

America's journey was to become the punchy super-powered hero from the comics (rather than start out there). I'm okay with that. Even the fully powered America in the comics gets herself outmatched when she's up against something like Scarlet Witch.

The end of the movie with the eye felt very Raimi- the post credit scene damaged its impact pretty hard.


I rather liked the appearance of the Illuminati, even if they were ultimately a mix of obstacle and canon fodder.

Plot was definitely not the strongest of the MCU. It has some very high points but is let down by a villain that's trying to be sympathetic when her actions really can't be.

That said, the movie is fun and full of great cinematography and clever uses of its playground world. I left kind of thrilled with the whole thing, even if I was kind of let down by the actual plot, which just doesn't hold up to any level of scrutiny.

I do appreciate them making the plot easy to follow, without making it childish. I enjoyed it.

 odinsgrandson wrote:

But once you accept the Scarlet Witch that the movie presents, I think it starts working.

The problem is, there isn't any reason to accept that Scarlet Witch. She's made herself a new hex (and says so when she peels back the apple trees to the dead trees), so she could have made herself new kids.
Or, you know, actual real people she lost. Or gone all PePe Le Pew on NewVision. You know, something more serious.
Even then, the idea that she needs a demonstration to understand why murdering people to steal children that she didn't have is bad is... fairly preposterous.

I still think WandaVision had a terrible ending, but this version of Wanda apparently learned nothing from that entire thing. And decided that more was better.

America's journey was to become the punchy super-powered hero from the comics (rather than start out there).

?? How ?? She's luggage/macguffin for 90+% of the film, is told the power was inside her all along (that works ), and then is shuffled off to play with a Slingie like all the other sorcery students, and her own story was simply abandoned (if she can use her powers now, wouldn't she go looking for her moms?)

Bonus- the way Strange interacted with her was bizarrely alienating. She was always 'kid,' never America or Miss Chavez (which I wouldn't really expect, but still think of as normal when interacting with an older teen). And despite being not-quite-corrected on it multiple times, 'your mothers/moms' always came out of Strange's mouth as 'your parents.' No matter how many times she said 'moms.'

The end of the movie with the eye felt very Raimi- the post credit scene damaged its impact pretty hard.

The eye felt like a gag with no lasting consequences.

I rather liked the appearance of the Illuminati, even if they were ultimately a mix of obstacle and canon fodder.

They also felt like a gag. Less obstacle and more filler to let Wanda catch up and show off, but also a pointer to
a) a much better story with Mordo that we don't get to see and
b) the next leg of the hero's journey.

c) maybe also a parable about the fascism of superpowers, but the film didn't breathe enough for that (and Falcon/Winter Soldier had enough of that with Baron Zemo and did it better). Also arrogance, but we got that with Bad Stephen, and demonstrated again by this Stephen, (and will hopefully get paid back in the next film).

What Wanda did or didn't do isn't based in logic. A corrupt and evil spell book got it's talons into somebody who is both exceedingly powerful and a total amateur.

Everything it drove her to do was about maximizing destruction and corruption of her.

It isn't about how easy it would have been to magic up some new kids. Easy and the kids wasn't the goal. Destruction and corruption was.

 Lance845 wrote:
What Wanda did or didn't do isn't based in logic. A corrupt and evil spell book got it's talons into somebody who is both exceedingly powerful and a total amateur.

Everything it drove her to do was about maximizing destruction and corruption of her.

It isn't about how easy it would have been to magic up some new kids. Easy and the kids wasn't the goal. Destruction and corruption was.

The issue I have is the movie spends a bunch of time trying to make her seem logical. The scenes where she tries to present rational arguments don't work. The crazy/corrupt stuff totally works.

I'm definitely of the camp that revels in the fun that have with it, but I also totally get that people get hung up on all the scenes where she presents very flimsy logic as something that would generate sympathy.

The eye might have lasting consequence. It could be a sign that Strange is corrupted and might have to fight that in the next installments or become evil himself.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
What Wanda did or didn't do isn't based in logic. A corrupt and evil spell book got it's talons into somebody who is both exceedingly powerful and a total amateur.

Everything it drove her to do was about maximizing destruction and corruption of her.

It isn't about how easy it would have been to magic up some new kids. Easy and the kids wasn't the goal. Destruction and corruption was.

The issue I have is the movie spends a bunch of time trying to make her seem logical. The scenes where she tries to present rational arguments don't work. The crazy/corrupt stuff totally works.

Exactly this.
I don't care about the magic book that... she found in the WandaVision epilogue (or offscreen, I'm honestly not sure, and honestly don't care). She was more convincingly evil during WandaVision without the stupid book.
The film also spends too much time not caring about the book and trying to rationalize motives out of basically nothing.

The film burns _an hour_ with the concept of 'this is Wanda being nice.' And then tries to build some vague symmetry around the idea that Strange is equally obsessed with a co-worker relationship that just didn't work out before the first movie even starts. It tries to draw some moral equivalence between the two, but mostly just underlines the fact that neither of these relationships should matter this much to the characters.

The one who got away when you were 30 or so, is something to be vaguely sad about at their wedding, sure. Or feel maudlin about if you're having drinks in a restaurant you used to go to a lot. But... that's about it.
The kids you made up while you mind controlled a town, had a creepy accelerated growth and existed for like three days tops while you were grieving and torturing people is not something you should want to recreate with mass murder. Its just not something we needed to learn today.

So I have a lot of problems with the film. It's Sam Raminess that people seem to love I think is it's weakness.

But the film spells out what is happening with her in explicit terms over and over and over again.

From the very first shot of the Darkhold Strange says that book corrupts everything and everyone it touches. In Karar taj he says it's not her it's the book and she could still turn back.

Wong spells out that the book is the issue.

They say spirit walking is corrosive to the soul.

Over and over and over again the movie says "This is the book ruining her". Her logic doesn't hold up, and they never pretended that it did. You have to be ignoring the rest of that stuff to try and focus in on her broken logic. Her logic is broken on purpose. It's how a person who is blinded by evil justifies their crazy to themselves. Of course it's flimsy.

That was a pretty bad movie, I think I went in with the idea it was going to be 10/10. I never watched wanda vision so it probably made the movie unwatchable from my understanding of it.

I guess I had too high standards for a Dr Strange film. They'll probably make another film though

I'll stick with the original Dr Strange. Acting was fantastic on his part in this

Missing WandaVision is like watching a New Hope and then Return of the Jedi, skipping The Empire Strikes Back. It can be done, but the watcher is going to lose a lot of contents then.

I thought the first Dr.Strange was terrible, one of the worst MCU installments, and I typically rate the best MCU ones are decent/good movies at best (7/10 and a couple of 8/10, definitely nothing near 10/10) so I really enjoyed watching a Sam Raimi's movie rather than just another MCU episode.

Of course it's still a superheroes movie, so it's not perfect by any means. But compared to the most recent Marvel and DC releases? I mean compared to Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, Spiderman, Eternals, The Batman, Morbius and Venom off top of my head? I thought this Dr. Strange was a huge step forward compared to any of those movies, only Shang Chi was close in terms of enjoyment.

 Blackie wrote:
Missing WandaVision is like watching a New Hope and then Return of the Jedi, skipping The Empire Strikes Back. It can be done, but the watcher is going to lose a lot of contents then.

Perhaps less so if you're not too concerned with Wanda. I didn't watch WandaVision, but I liked Multiverse of Madness just fine and never felt like I was missing anything. Of course I was going into it expecting a Dr. Strange movie, and ended up getting just that. I was only marginally aware that Wanda was in it before I saw it.

As a selfcontained movie it works just fine, going by my own experience. Wanda wants kids, Wanda reads the Necronomicon, things go sideways. I don't think you actually need further context to understand and enjoy the movie.

I made a comparison with SW because as a kid I watched The Empire Strikes Back first and loved it. I only needed to know that a group of rebels were fighting an evil empire, and figured that out in 5 minutes. Now, chances that people are familiar with the MCU are almost 100% so I shifted the analogy to Return of the Jedi instead, and in that case there's a bit more info from the previous installment that is necessary to get the full experience, although it definitely works as a standalone movie.

I watched Dr. Strange in The Multiverse of Madness a second time yesterday, this time at home, and I loved the movie just like the first time, maybe even more. Definitely going to watch it again in the future.

Not sure the Star Wars comparison works for me. The first one I watched was Return of the Jedi and as with Multiverse of Madness I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

I have a better example of what I mean with Black Panther. I took a break from Marvel movies for a good bit and when I came back I happened to see Black Panther before Age of Ultron, Winter Soldier and Civil War, so right from the start I had no clue who arms dealer guy and CIA guy were, when the CIA became relevant, or what the deal was with this whole royal succession thing. And the thing is, Black Panther doesn't really go back to explain any of that, so I had a pretty bad first impression of the movie because story and character introductions and development had happened in other movies and this one built on it without looking back. Without catching up on a number of previous movies, the necessary context wasn't there.

For Multiverse of Madness I'd say the same is true for Strange and Wong. Maybe Mordo, but since he's the alternate reality version of the character it's less relevant if you know him from Doctor Strange, I reckon. You should at least watch that movie for proper context first. You can probably catch on to the stuff from Infinity War, End Game and the explanation in No Way Home why Wong is sorcerer supreme. I'm not really getting the impression that this is a concern with Wanda. But like I said, I haven't watched WandaVision, so I wouldn't even know if I'm missing relevant information.

The point is that with Black Panther my experience was that I was definitely missing something, and the same didn't happen upon watching Multiverse of Madness.

I think WandaVision is quite crucial for MoM, but also Infinity War/Endgame are. But mostly if you belong to the crowd that can't accept a major character, from an universe in which the protagonists are portrayed as heroes, turning villain, especially without detailed explanation. I mean like real villain, with people dying for her actions, not just a useless clash in an empty area where only things are destroyed and everyone ends up without a scratch.

That was one of the reasons why I liked MoM much more than something like Civil War.

Mordo I had completely removed him from my memory instead, still don't remember anything about him from the original Dr. Strange except he was the villain, but had no problem watching the movie.

Mordo wasn’t the villain in the first Doctor Strange. Rather he was Strange’s mentor and friend. It wasn’t until the very end when he sees the Sorcerer Supreme isn’t a pure white paragon that he leaves in a huff, and a post credit where he decides there’s too many sorcerers and declares his heel turn. Then in MoM we find out they’ve since had multiple off screen fights with Mordo trying to kill Strange.

 AduroT wrote:
Mordo wasn’t the villain in the first Doctor Strange. Rather he was Strange’s mentor and friend. It wasn’t until the very end when he sees the Sorcerer Supreme isn’t a pure white paragon that he leaves in a huff, and a post credit where he decides there’s too many sorcerers and declares his heel turn. Then in MoM we find out they’ve since had multiple off screen fights with Mordo trying to kill Strange.

There is a confirmed deleted scene/alternate opening to the movie where Mordo is hunting Wanda at her orchard/cabin and apparently Wanda decapitates Mordo. So I think that line is a hold over from the supposed end to Mordo's characters.

It was changed because apparently it gives away that Wanda is the villain too early? Which.... they do basically immediately anyway. So i dunno man.

I’m not sure if that’s less or more of a waste of the character. Also makes me wonder on the nature of Sorcerers vs Witches, since his heel turn he declared anti-sorcerer, and she isn’t one, and Wong and Strange imply witchcraft is distinctly different from sorcery.

As I understand it that may be a meaningless distinction to Mordo. His trigger for going off the deep end is the Ancient One's violation of what he sees as the natural order, or something to that effect. It wouldn't really matter to him who breaks down reality, or for what reason.

 Geifer wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Missing WandaVision is like watching a New Hope and then Return of the Jedi, skipping The Empire Strikes Back. It can be done, but the watcher is going to lose a lot of contents then.

Perhaps less so if you're not too concerned with Wanda. I didn't watch WandaVision, but I liked Multiverse of Madness just fine and never felt like I was missing anything. Of course I was going into it expecting a Dr. Strange movie, and ended up getting just that. I was only marginally aware that Wanda was in it before I saw it.

As a selfcontained movie it works just fine, going by my own experience. Wanda wants kids, Wanda reads the Necronomicon, things go sideways. I don't think you actually need further context to understand and enjoy the movie.

Watching WandaVision first should confuse people more. You'll be wondering why she suddenly doesn't give two dead rats about her lover and does care about kids she barely knows (and involved a fair amount of body horror and questions about their unnatural growth rate and abilities).

If she were an alternate universe Wanda whose kids were killed by Sinister Strange, the movie would've made a lot more sense. It would still fall a little flat because alternate realities and infinity, but you could spin a story about two high-powered people, not coping with loss and inflicting loss over and over again in a cycle of abuse.

Voss wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Missing WandaVision is like watching a New Hope and then Return of the Jedi, skipping The Empire Strikes Back. It can be done, but the watcher is going to lose a lot of contents then.

Perhaps less so if you're not too concerned with Wanda. I didn't watch WandaVision, but I liked Multiverse of Madness just fine and never felt like I was missing anything. Of course I was going into it expecting a Dr. Strange movie, and ended up getting just that. I was only marginally aware that Wanda was in it before I saw it.

As a selfcontained movie it works just fine, going by my own experience. Wanda wants kids, Wanda reads the Necronomicon, things go sideways. I don't think you actually need further context to understand and enjoy the movie.

Watching WandaVision first should confuse people more. You'll be wondering why she suddenly doesn't give two dead rats about her lover and does care about kids she barely knows (and involved a fair amount of body horror and questions about their unnatural growth rate and abilities).

If she were an alternate universe Wanda whose kids were killed by Sinister Strange, the movie would've made a lot more sense. It would still fall a little flat because alternate realities and infinity, but you could spin a story about two high-powered people, not coping with loss and inflicting loss over and over again in a cycle of abuse.

This again ignores all the dialog throughout the entire movie that explicitly states that it's not her it's the book.

It's like thinking Ash's girl is going out of character when she becomes a deadite in Army of Darkness.

 Lance845 wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

 Blackie wrote:
Missing WandaVision is like watching a New Hope and then Return of the Jedi, skipping The Empire Strikes Back. It can be done, but the watcher is going to lose a lot of contents then.

Perhaps less so if you're not too concerned with Wanda. I didn't watch WandaVision, but I liked Multiverse of Madness just fine and never felt like I was missing anything. Of course I was going into it expecting a Dr. Strange movie, and ended up getting just that. I was only marginally aware that Wanda was in it before I saw it.

As a selfcontained movie it works just fine, going by my own experience. Wanda wants kids, Wanda reads the Necronomicon, things go sideways. I don't think you actually need further context to understand and enjoy the movie.

Watching WandaVision first should confuse people more. You'll be wondering why she suddenly doesn't give two dead rats about her lover and does care about kids she barely knows (and involved a fair amount of body horror and questions about their unnatural growth rate and abilities).

If she were an alternate universe Wanda whose kids were killed by Sinister Strange, the movie would've made a lot more sense. It would still fall a little flat because alternate realities and infinity, but you could spin a story about two high-powered people, not coping with loss and inflicting loss over and over again in a cycle of abuse.

This again ignores all the dialog throughout the entire movie that explicitly states that it's not her it's the book.

It's like thinking Ash's girl is going out of character when she becomes a deadite in Army of Darkness.

No, its not. Army of Darkness doesn't spend time (let alone an hour plus) trying to justify that 'Ash's girl' has rational reasons for doing what she's doing, let alone that she might have a point.

You can yadda yadda about the stupid book of cliche plot convenience as much as you like, but the actual issue is the film burns a lot of time trying to make Wanda seem reasonable and rational, and then tries to pretend that the fact that she's just a monster is a surprise to her at the end.

It's definitely the big weakness of the film, but I don't need to excuse every weakness to revel in the fun of its strengths.

 LunarSol wrote:
It's definitely the big weakness of the film, but I don't need to excuse every weakness to revel in the fun of its strengths.

/shrug

There's enough cute scenes for a 10 minute highlight video, but character-wise, America is luggage, Wanda is abomination (and probably the worst bad motivation MCU villain, which says a LOT), Wong is interesting but underused, and Strange is apparently incapable of dealing with relationships like an adult. Pacing eventually settles down for the last 20 minutes of the film, but spends too much time skipping over everything that matters, even the scenery.

Strengths are pretty much missing from this film (not unlike the first one). Dr. Strange seems better as a concept than a realized vision.

Voss wrote:

You can yadda yadda about the stupid book of cliche plot convenience as much as you like, but the actual issue is the film burns a lot of time trying to make Wanda seem reasonable and rational, and then tries to pretend that the fact that she's just a monster is a surprise to her at the end.

I don't think the movie spends even a single second trying to make Wanda look reasonable. I think it spends time trying to show how Wanda, in her corruption, justifies her monstorus behavior to herself. None of that dialog is meant to convince you of anything except her insanity.

Which walks us back around to 'worst bad motivation MCU villain' and leaves me at a loss for what the first half of the film is even for.

Well the things that happen in the first half of the film are...

-Defender strange and america running from bandage monster. Introduce book of vishanti. Intoduce America and her powers. Get to 616.

-The Wedding. Introduce Strange and how some people view his choices post End Game. Introduce the idea he is unhappy.

-Gigantos fight. Show America is being pursued by what appears to be an endless string of demons.

-Pizza Place. Catch Wong and Strange up to the current situation. Try to establish a small measure of trust with America.

-Strange goes to Wanda to get some extra help from the only Avenger with any abilities involved with this. Find out Wandas the villain, run back to Karamtaj.

-Karmar Taj fight to establish how powerful wanda has become and how unprepared everyone is for her.

-Multiverse montage ending in Illuminati world. Brief memory booth (I think this is a cheap way to do this but it keeps things moving) to establish Americas backstory and Stranges regrets and unhappiness to resurface.

So on and so forth.

I don't see where the issues with the first half of the film are. And just to reiterate. This is one of my least favorite MCU films. But this isn't one of the problems with it imo.