Doctor Strange: In the Multiverse of Madness Review

WARNING: spoilers ahead!

Originally planned to be released on May 7, 2021, then November 5, 2021, Doctor Strange: in the Multiverse of Madnessfinally hit the cinemas on May 6, 2022 (so after a year's delay). But was it worth the wait?

After the very successful release of the beloved movie, Spider-Man: No Way Home and the not-so-beloved Morbius, MCU fans have been impatiently waiting for MoM, some with very high expectations, others, well, not so much.

The movie takes place sometime after WandaVision and No Way Home, the latter showing us the idea that the multiverse does in fact exist and explores this topic further. While in NWH, this is explored in Marvel's typical way, one could say, MoM takes a very different approach, being probably the first MCU movie to include horror-like elements.

I was lucky enough to watch the movie on May 4, the premiere day in my country, and even though it was nothing like what I expected, I enjoyed and loved it very much.

The whole cast gave an amazing performance, including the actors who only had a brief cameo (which I will touch on a bit later) but especially Elizabeth Olsen. No doubt, she did a great job portraying Wanda in the previous movies but in this one, she really leaned into Wanda's darker side, the Scarlet Witch, and did a marvellous job at it (pardon the pun). The number of times she made me shudder was too many to count and I truly believe this was Olsen's best performance yet (in the MCU, at least). Marvel's newcomer, Xochitl Gomez (America Chavez), despite her being only 14 at the time of shooting, was a delight to watch and I'm so excited to see her journey in the MCU. And, as always, Benedict Cumberbatch's multiple Strange performances were breathtaking, playing each version differently and excitingly.

Coming from the word "Multiverse" in the tale, one would expect at least as many cameos of characters from different universes as we got in No Way Home but Marvel fell a bit short on this aspect. Sure, they brought in Patrick Stewart, aka Professor X from the X-Men movies (when I tell you the whole cinema audibly gasped when he showed up on screen, I'm not exaggerating), and Reed Richards from Fantastic Four, as well as different versions of Captain America and Captain Marvel, I still feel like they really missed out on a lot of great opportunities here. And even the character they brought in, was killed in the span of about ten minutes, which yes, showed just how powerful Wanda is, felt a bit rushed nonetheless.

I’m no expert on film music and I won’t pretend to be one but I just want to quickly touch on it. Danny Elfman did a spectacular job, matching music to the scenes perfectly, the scene with the battle of notes was, in my opinion, genius.

MCU fans are very divided on this movie, some of them loving it, some of them hating it. I see why the fandom’s divided and I completely understand it but the only thing everyone can agree on is that it was great to see Marvel venture into something new, even if that something new isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I spend a lot of time on social media and from what I’ve gathered, other than fans debating whether the movie was good or not, what they are even more divided on is, if Wanda is a villain or not.

Wanda was in a lot of pain after Infinity War, Endgame and WandaVision, having lost the love of her life three times (even if one of them was created by her) and her kids. Of course, her pain doesn’t excuse her actions but it does explain them because what good mother wouldn’t do anything for their kids? Another thing to keep in mind is that Wanda was under the influence of the Darkhold, which we learn is very powerful and it influences the person reading/using it immensely. So no, I do not think Wanda is a villain, she definitely isn’t a hero in this movie but calling her a villain would be wrong, especially after she destroyed the Darkhold in every universe and even her temple at the very end of the movie. While I see why people would dislike her for her actions, the amount of hate she gets is way too much and I do have an opinion on why but I’ll keep that to myself so instead, I’ll just let Wanda speak directly: “You break the rules and become the hero. I do it and I become the enemy. That doesn’t seem fair.”

So, to answer the question at the start, was it worth the wait? I would say yes. Even if the movie is missing some things, it was refreshing to see something new from Marvel, something horror-esque, and this movie definitely opened up a lot of new opportunities for future MCU stories.