Lord Ba'al
Well Known GateFan
So... Hmmm...
I'm not even going to bother with spoiler tags, because it's really not worth it. But consider this your warning.
After having been introduced to the first Doctor Strange movie, I've been eagerly anticipating this sequel. Now that I've seen it, I feel disappointed. What I've heard from rumors before is actually true. The movie revolved more around Wanda than it did around Doctor Strange. Wanda was apparently still suffering from voluntary insanity and was depicted as pure evil. Imagine a young completely spoiled girl throwing a massive temper tantrum, but that combined with the most powerful witchcraft in the universe. That pretty much describes Wanda. What a disservice to her character. She was actually likeable in the Avengers movies. She is going to get her kids back, even if it means destroying everything in existence. It makes no sense. What makes even less sense is that she never really had kids to begin with. Those were just a figment of her imagination, from her imaginary life, with her imaginary Vision robot husband, in the imaginary town which she kept enslaved. Vision was already dead before that. So, why is it that Wanda has children in all those other universes? Then, in the end, Wanda sort of redeems herself a little bit (but in my opinion not quite) by seeing the light and cancelling her parade of destruction. Thus is completed, the arc of Wanda. That is the main arc of the movie. Basically, the character of Doctor Strange was just a vehicle placed as an obstacle in Wanda's path, only for just long enough to allow Wanda to reach her ultimate conclusion. There was barely any development in the character of the doctor at all, aside from him letting go of certain emotional baggage from his past. That was actually neatly depicted by the scene of him repairing the watch he had been gifted by his love interest and got broken in that car crash. A scene which lasted all of a few seconds. But the disservice to the Doctor Strange character doesn't end with Wanda. Another major purpose of this movie appeared to be to introduce an entirely new character to the MCU. America Chavez. Finally Latino American girls will have a superhero to look up to, after which they will be able to model themselves. Sure, there were Latino actors in some of the other movies, but they were never main characters and never had real super powers. Gamora was probably the closest thing, but she was a green alien, so I don't think the Latino girls felt sufficiently represented by her character. This America Chavez character is the crux the plot of the movie was built on. It is after all her super power that allows travel between universes, and that is why Wanda is after her. So she is essentially yet another vehicle to allow Wanda her moment in the spotlight. Basically, the movie is about the battle between Wanda and America Chavez, and Doctor Strange accidentally finds himself in the crossfire. Thankfully, since America is just a teenage girl who has yet to find herself and is therefore not strong enough to withstand the almighty Wanda, an opportunity is provided for Doctor Strange to step in as a protective father figure. Were it not for this, there wouldn't really be any reason for Doctor Strange to be in the movie. Isn't it funny how in a time where representation of any and all ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations, is massively pushed upon the masses through all platforms available, the powers that be are apparently capable of forgetting to sufficiently represent the titular character of a production. Can a Doctor Strange movie please be about Doctor Strange? That's after all the reason I came to see the movie, because I like Doctor Strange. You didn't advertise it as a Wanda movie. You didn't advertise it as an America Chavez movie. You advertised it as a Doctor Strange movie. It says it right there in the name, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", not "Wanda and America in the Multiverse of Madness". So, what else is there to say about this movie. There was a scene with some alternate universe characters. Instead of a white male Captain America, there was a white female Captain Carter, British instead of American. Instead of a white female Captain Marvel, there was a black female Captain Marvel. Those were the only two characters that were changed though. They had some additional characters, like a dude from Fantastic Four, and a guy with a tuning fork on his forehead. Apparently that last one is an inhuman. And of course, there was our beloved Sir Patrick Stewart in the form of Charles Xavier. Together, they were the Illuminati, which was apparently that particular alternate universe's equivalent of the Avengers. None of this was too bad though, since the scenes with these characters filled only a couple of minutes of the movie. That and they all died gruesomely at the hands of Wanda. Something which to me was notably out of tune with other movies in the MCU was the quality of the special effects, or rather the CGI I suppose. Not that of the magic stuff, that was fine. But, the CGI monsters and creatures were just sub par. The giant octopus-like creature early on, for example, seemed cartoonish, not at all like the CGI monsters from movies like The Avengers, Thor, and Guardians of the Galaxy. As fantastical as the concept of multiple realities is, the movie didn't manage to use that to create an enticing story. It fell rather flat. The first Doctor Strange movie did great things just with the mirror-dimension alone. Compared to that, this felt hollow. What's perhaps the worst yet, comes right at the end of the movie. Doctor Strange now has a third eye and looks like a total freak. The credits scene confirmed this is how the character will be portrayed from now on in any further adventures we might find him. Doctor Strange has been officially defaced. I don't know what Benedict Cumberbatch has done to the powers that be to deserve this kind of treatment, but it must have been something terrible, since they sure bent him over a barrel and ravaged him like a gimp.
I'm not even going to bother with spoiler tags, because it's really not worth it. But consider this your warning.
After having been introduced to the first Doctor Strange movie, I've been eagerly anticipating this sequel. Now that I've seen it, I feel disappointed. What I've heard from rumors before is actually true. The movie revolved more around Wanda than it did around Doctor Strange. Wanda was apparently still suffering from voluntary insanity and was depicted as pure evil. Imagine a young completely spoiled girl throwing a massive temper tantrum, but that combined with the most powerful witchcraft in the universe. That pretty much describes Wanda. What a disservice to her character. She was actually likeable in the Avengers movies. She is going to get her kids back, even if it means destroying everything in existence. It makes no sense. What makes even less sense is that she never really had kids to begin with. Those were just a figment of her imagination, from her imaginary life, with her imaginary Vision robot husband, in the imaginary town which she kept enslaved. Vision was already dead before that. So, why is it that Wanda has children in all those other universes? Then, in the end, Wanda sort of redeems herself a little bit (but in my opinion not quite) by seeing the light and cancelling her parade of destruction. Thus is completed, the arc of Wanda. That is the main arc of the movie. Basically, the character of Doctor Strange was just a vehicle placed as an obstacle in Wanda's path, only for just long enough to allow Wanda to reach her ultimate conclusion. There was barely any development in the character of the doctor at all, aside from him letting go of certain emotional baggage from his past. That was actually neatly depicted by the scene of him repairing the watch he had been gifted by his love interest and got broken in that car crash. A scene which lasted all of a few seconds. But the disservice to the Doctor Strange character doesn't end with Wanda. Another major purpose of this movie appeared to be to introduce an entirely new character to the MCU. America Chavez. Finally Latino American girls will have a superhero to look up to, after which they will be able to model themselves. Sure, there were Latino actors in some of the other movies, but they were never main characters and never had real super powers. Gamora was probably the closest thing, but she was a green alien, so I don't think the Latino girls felt sufficiently represented by her character. This America Chavez character is the crux the plot of the movie was built on. It is after all her super power that allows travel between universes, and that is why Wanda is after her. So she is essentially yet another vehicle to allow Wanda her moment in the spotlight. Basically, the movie is about the battle between Wanda and America Chavez, and Doctor Strange accidentally finds himself in the crossfire. Thankfully, since America is just a teenage girl who has yet to find herself and is therefore not strong enough to withstand the almighty Wanda, an opportunity is provided for Doctor Strange to step in as a protective father figure. Were it not for this, there wouldn't really be any reason for Doctor Strange to be in the movie. Isn't it funny how in a time where representation of any and all ethnicities, genders, and sexual orientations, is massively pushed upon the masses through all platforms available, the powers that be are apparently capable of forgetting to sufficiently represent the titular character of a production. Can a Doctor Strange movie please be about Doctor Strange? That's after all the reason I came to see the movie, because I like Doctor Strange. You didn't advertise it as a Wanda movie. You didn't advertise it as an America Chavez movie. You advertised it as a Doctor Strange movie. It says it right there in the name, "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness", not "Wanda and America in the Multiverse of Madness". So, what else is there to say about this movie. There was a scene with some alternate universe characters. Instead of a white male Captain America, there was a white female Captain Carter, British instead of American. Instead of a white female Captain Marvel, there was a black female Captain Marvel. Those were the only two characters that were changed though. They had some additional characters, like a dude from Fantastic Four, and a guy with a tuning fork on his forehead. Apparently that last one is an inhuman. And of course, there was our beloved Sir Patrick Stewart in the form of Charles Xavier. Together, they were the Illuminati, which was apparently that particular alternate universe's equivalent of the Avengers. None of this was too bad though, since the scenes with these characters filled only a couple of minutes of the movie. That and they all died gruesomely at the hands of Wanda. Something which to me was notably out of tune with other movies in the MCU was the quality of the special effects, or rather the CGI I suppose. Not that of the magic stuff, that was fine. But, the CGI monsters and creatures were just sub par. The giant octopus-like creature early on, for example, seemed cartoonish, not at all like the CGI monsters from movies like The Avengers, Thor, and Guardians of the Galaxy. As fantastical as the concept of multiple realities is, the movie didn't manage to use that to create an enticing story. It fell rather flat. The first Doctor Strange movie did great things just with the mirror-dimension alone. Compared to that, this felt hollow. What's perhaps the worst yet, comes right at the end of the movie. Doctor Strange now has a third eye and looks like a total freak. The credits scene confirmed this is how the character will be portrayed from now on in any further adventures we might find him. Doctor Strange has been officially defaced. I don't know what Benedict Cumberbatch has done to the powers that be to deserve this kind of treatment, but it must have been something terrible, since they sure bent him over a barrel and ravaged him like a gimp.
