Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

A mild improvement over its nigh unwatchable predecessor, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness follows Benedict Cumberbatch’s title character as he battles Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff after she attacks a teenager (Xochitl Gomez’s America Chavez) capable of traveling between universes. Filmmaker Sam Raimi, working from Michael Waldron’s screenplay, delivers an erratically-paced and mostly underwhelming blockbuster that gets off to a fairly disastrous start, as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opens with a context-free action sequence that essentially (and effectively) sets the stage for a hopelessly uninvolving opening hour – with the movie’s partially tolerable atmosphere, then, due to the above-average performances and a small handful of compelling, entertaining digressions. (There is, in terms of the latter, a cameo by frequent Raimi collaborator Bruce Campbell that remains an obvious highlight within the proceedings.) And although Raimi has peppered the narrative with some appreciatively larger-than-life images and episodes, including (and especially) a creepy hall-of-mirrors interlude, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness eventually progresses into a complicated and convoluted second half that contains few, if any, elements worth wholeheartedly embracing and connecting to – which, when coupled with an aggressively larger-than-life (and somewhat endless) climax, cements the picture’s place as a typically overblown Marvel endeavor that feels like it could (and should) be so much better. (The padded-out, 126-minute running time does the movie no favors, ultimately.)

** out of ****

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