I wanted to like Doctor Strange 2. I took time off to see it on Thursday afternoon and then practically ran home later that night to write about the Doctor Strange 2 post-credits scenes. ended up giving it the same rating (2.5/5 stars on Letterboxd) that I gave Morbius.
As a colleague told me, I was either underestimating Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness or overestimating Morbius. It may be a bit of both. But my frustration with Doctor Strange’s latest adventure stems from the fact that it suffers from three of the MCU’s most annoying problems.
Sure, the movie has its strengths, but those three flaws just took me out of the whole experience, as the movie’s villain, visuals, and fanservice all fell flat in one way or another. another.
And without these three prosperous things? A Marvel movie doesn’t hit the nail on the head at all.
Of course, beware of the Doctor Strange 2 spoilers below!
Doctor Strange 2 brings Marvel’s worst CGI to the fore
If I remember 2021’s Black Widow for anything (other than Scarlet Johansson suing Marvel and seemingly ending Disney Plus Premier Access in the process, or that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” cover for the opening credits ), this is the very obvious CGI of one of the final scenes.
General Dreykov’s office, where Wanda worked her way to victory, struck me as outrageously fake. That was not the first obviously bad Marvel CGI movie, though, and it wouldn’t be the last.
That’s because the first big fight scene in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness reminded me that something is wrong in the CGI labs at Marvel Studios. As Strange, Wong, and America Chavez deal with a giant sprawling monster, nearly half of the shots in this entire fight obviously had improper lighting, and – nothing more obvious than a moment where Strange stands at the foreground and the beast is behind him.
Shortly after that – when Strange, Wong, and Chavez were standing on a rooftop where they were soon to bury Doctor Strange from another universe – I had another Black Widow flashback. The wide shot of this roof looked like a very obvious sound shot that NYC had been CGI on. I don’t know who was supposed to be fooled here, and I kinda hoped director Sam Raimi would have avoided those issues.
Doctor Strange 2 gave us the least interesting fan service
We knew going into Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness that this film was going to give fans some red meat, as Charles Xavier had been teased since the Super Bowl ad below. And it all started once Doctor Strange was arrested by Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), but sadly, it pretty much ended in the same breath.
The fan service started with a variation of Christine Palmer (the Illuminati scientist being a great gig) telling Strange and Chavez that they’re on Earth-838 – as opposed to Earth-616, their home universe. Those numbers probably sounded like gibberish to people who haven’t read the comics, but I bet a lot of people in your theater were thrilled to hear that.
The definitions of the 616 and 838 universes have long been known in Marvel comics, and this seemed like a huge moment for the MCU.
Things got even more awesome for fans when the marvel movie the fantastic four John Krasinski’s fan casting as Reed Richards has come true. Then we had the already teased reveal of Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier in the MCU.
This would all have been great, and I probably would have only blogged about the CGI above if it weren’t for the fact that it was all basically undone by Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch killing all of the Illuminati, except for Mordo. Huge buzzkill.
Sure, Earth-838 may now be canonical in the MCU, but do you feel like it’s going to have a lasting impact if it’s the no-professor X and Reed Richards? While Richards notably leaves behind a widow (Sue) and children (Johnny), and Xavier has a whole school for gifted young mutants, I don’t believe Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four or X-Men projects will happen without these characters. .
All this, to me, means this Earth-838 doesn’t really matter. That he’s the equivalent of Ralph Bohner, the fake Pietro from WandaVision. Something to get us excited that we quickly realize doesn’t make sense. Fun.
Doctor Strange 2 recycles MCU storylines (from 2021)
While I did a little pop for the 838/616 stuff and the appearance of Reed Richards, I was brought back shortly after. The moment that completely dislodged me from Doctor Strange 2 was when I realized that Wanda had become evil through her experiences reading the Darkhold, which led to visions of her sons. It’s a full replay, but not from WandaVision – it’s from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
This whole movie revolves around a central plot: Shang-Chi’s father, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), was tricked into thinking his wife (Shang-Chi’s mother) was still alive and inside. from the mythical country of Ta Lo, behind the dark door. It may have slight differences from Wanda Maximoff’s story, but “the mythical object corrupts” is too bland and simple a plot device to execute in consecutive years.
Yes, Wanda’s story is more complex – and Elizabeth Olsen’s performance is strong – but her plan was so myopic (what about those other Wandas, Wanda?) that I just felt like eat reheated leftovers.
Outlook: what can be done to solve this problem?
However, there are solutions. If the people working on all these movies and scripts could work with a little more awareness of other people’s projects, maybe we don’t see The Ten Rings and The Darkhold getting corrupted in consecutive years.
Marvel could also make it a point not to provide fan service cameos if they were to be canceled at short notice. Finally, well, I’m not a movie producer – and I imagine Covid-19 restrictions hampered the production of this movie – but I wish Marvel didn’t release movies that have scenes that look like to that opening fight scene.
That said, I’m still excited to see Thor: Love and Thunder and the other Marvel movies to come. My expectations, however, are more tattered than Doctor Strange’s cape.
How does all of this hurt Marvel? Why should they care? Well, I’m certainly less interested in seeing Doctor Strange 2 again on Disney Plus, and if others feel the same way, that means Disney Plus subscriptions might not be as important to people when we’re between new shows. Marvel and Star Wars.
Disney has one of the best streaming services, but a big part of Disney Plus’ strength is in its catalog of Marvel movies, which needs to improve.