Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Directed by Sam Raimi, screenplay by Michael Waldron, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Xochiti Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Rachel McAdams

Okay, so this has been streaming on Disney + for a while now, and has been in cinemas for even longer, but I have some things to say about it. Spoilers follow. Very definitely spoilers.

You may remember that I quite liked the first Doctor Strange movie. I was initially optimistic about the sequel, once I heard that Sam Raimi was directing; I like his Spider-Man movies, which I felt captured the Ditko Spidey on screen as well as anyone was ever likely to, and pairing him with another Ditko character would be interesting. But I’m afraid that in the end I cannot extend the same affection towards the sequel as I had towards the first.

My prime objection is that it’s a shit-on-the-Scarlet-Witch story. This is hardly a surprise, despite lots of commentators saying how shocking it was that Wanda turned out to be the villain. That this was the way that the MCU was taking her was obvious to anyone who had watched the TV series WandaVision, and who had any familiarity with the stories that have been told of the character over the past twenty years or so. What is galling is the glee with which various creators recounted their decisions to take Wanda in this direction, seemingly unaware of the contingent of Wanda fans who have been unamused ever since John Byrne took a torch to her domestic happiness. As D Franklin pointed out on Twitter, the treatment of the Scarlet Witch, and other powerful heroines like Jean Grey/Phoenix, conforms to fundamentally misogynist tropes. Women aren’t allowed to be powerful for too long, or if they are, they can’t be powerful and good. One worries for Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, who has also had some shitty things done to her in the comics.

You would hardly guess from the way she’s treated in this movie that this character has been a well-loved hero for nearly sixty years.

True, Wanda does get a moment of redemption just before she dies. And true, this movie does at least acknowledge that Strange himself is every bit as big a potential danger. But whilst various alternate Stranges buy it in this movie, ‘our’ Strange survives, and continues to be a good guy. Whereas the Wanda we’ve followed since the end of The Winter Soldier is dead. Even if Elizabeth Olsen comes back, it won’t be as this Wanda.

And it’s all unnecessary. The basic plot is the same as that in Into the Spider-Verse, i.e. person loses their loved ones in this universe, and so goes looking for them in another. But in Spider-Verse, the danger was posed by the method of crossing the barriers between universes. Here, America Chavez (Xochiti Gomez) crosses the multiverses causing little direct damage. Couldn’t, therefore, Wanda have sat down, worked out with America how to control her powers, and then gone looking for a universe in which Tommy and Billy had lost their mother? In an infinite Multiverse, she must be able to find such a version of the boys. Instead, she attempts to steal America’s powers and kill her in the process, and goes after the first Tommy and Billy she can find. Presumably sitting down and thinking logically about this is beyond the thought processes of a mere woman.

That aside, Multiverse of Madness is okay, I suppose, if you’re the sort of person who thinks making Bruce Campbell’s street vendor beat himself up for weeks is funny, rather than pointlessly cruel. It’s nice to see the Illuminati, especially Lashana Lynch as an alternative Captain Marvel, Hayley Atwell (Captain Carter movie now, please!) , and Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier for the first time in an MCU movie. If this had been an Illuminati movie, they would, of course, have wiped the floor with the Scarlet Witch, but as it’s a Doctor Strange movie, they almost all get killed.

Benedict Cumberbatch still plays as if he’s bothered about the role, which he’s now well settled into, after all the guest appearances he’s done between this and his first outing. Benedict Wong’s Wong, now Sorcerer Supreme, is fast becoming the central character who holds the rest of the MCU together, with appearances in Shang-Chi,  No Way Home, this, and forthcoming in She-Hulk. And it’s nice to see Clea (Charlize Theron) pop up in the mid-credits sequence. But none of this is enough to remove the sour taste left by the treatment of Wanda.