Blog 38: The Multiverse of Crazy Moms and Arrogant Heroes

*WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS*

I was really looking forward to watching this movie, but I’m left with these conflicting feelings about what I just watched. Don’t get me wrong, this movie was far from being terrible, but that doesn’t mean I thought it was great. The movie had a stellar cast of actors, Cumberbatch and Olsen rocked their roles as Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch, the special effects team pulled off amazing work, and Sam Raimi’s horror magic fit surprisingly well with the MCU format, but unfortunately there were more negatives displayed than positives. Let’s talk about it, shall we?

The Plot

The movie opens with a Doctor Strange (we’ll call him Defender Strange) form another universe running away from some demon with new character, America Chaves. They’re both trying acquire this glowing book in some a space between universes, but Defender Strange is killed by the demon who almost captures Chaves before she opens up a portal to the main MCU universe. That’s when our Doctor Strange wakes up from a nightmare about himself dying, but he quickly shrugs it off and gets ready to attend Christine’s, his ex, wedding. After an awkward conversation with Christine during the reception, and dealing with an old colleague who questioned Strange about his decision to give Thanos the time stone, Strange sees octopus-like monster rampaging through Manhattan . He quickly dons his robes and flies into action, and he notices that the monster is chasing America Chaves. Wong shows up to help Strange kill the monster, and they both question America about who she is and why the monster was chasing her.

America tells them that she comes from another universe and has the power to travel to different universes, and these monsters are trying to steal her powers. She proves this by showing Strange and Wong the corpse of Defender Strange that came through the portal with her. Wong takes America to Kamar-Taj to protect her, and Strange leaves to find Wanda Maximoff since he suspects that the monsters were summoned via witchcraft. He finds Wanda, he asks for her help, she reveals to Strange that she’s been reading from the Darkhold (as seen in the last episode of WandaVision), and that she’s been sending demons after Chaves. Her aim is to use Chaves’ power to find a universe where her kids, and Strange reminds her that her kids were never real. Wanda warns Strange that she was trying to be reasonable, but she’ll be coming for Chaves herself, and unfortunatley Strange told her where America is.

Scarlet Witch arrives at Kamar-Taj, killing almost all the sorcerers there, and just when she has America in her grasp, she opens a portal to pull herself and Strange into another universe. 

They land on Earth-838, and then they decide to look for that Earth’s Doctor Strange to ask for help in finding the Book of Vishanti, the book Chaves and Defender Strange were trying to get in the beginning of the book. The Book of Vishanti is the opposite of the Darkhold, and the book grants the user any power to save them from certain doom. They quicly find out that the Doctor Strange of Earth-838 died defeating Thanos, and the new Sorcerer Supreme is Baron Mordo. He welcomes them at first, but he roofies them and brings them to the Illuminati, their Earth’s equivalent to the Avengers.

Back on the MCU Earth, Scarlet Witch holds Wong prisoner as she tries a new spell from the Darkhold called “dreamwalking”, which allows the caster to possess their doppelgänger from any universe. She briefly possesses a Wanda until a surviving sorcerer destroys the Darkhold, which also kills her. Wanda forces Wong to tell her any other way of obtaining the Darkhold’s power, and he unwillingly takes her to where the Darkhold was written.

Back on Earth-838, Doctor Strange and America are in holding cells where they meet that Earth’s Christine, who happens to be working for the Illuminati. Mordo soon brings Strange to meet the Illuminati, whose members are Mr. Fantastic, Black Bolt, Captain Carter, Captain Marvel (Maria Rambeau), Mordo himself, and Professor X. Doctor Strange pleads his case saying he needs their help to find the book of Vishanti to stop Wanda, but the Illuminati says Wanda isn’t much of a threat, but Strange is. They explain that their Doctor Strange, we’ll call him Supreme Strange, used the Book of Vishanti to dreamwalk into other universes to figure out how to beat Thanos, but in doing so he caused an incursion, which is when two Earths collide and either one or both Earths are destroyed. He killed trillions of people to kill Thanos, and the Illuminati killed Supreme Strange shortly after.

Scarlet Witch, possessing Earth-838 Wanda, breaks into the Illuminati’s HQ to find Chaves. Black Bolt, Mr. Fantastic, Captain Carter, and Captain Marvel try to stop her, but she kills them all with little ease. Professor X attempts to break into Scarlet Witch’s mind to free Earth-838 Wanda, but she kills Professor X before he could save her. America was able to break free with the help of Christine, and after Strange has a little brawl with Mordo, he meets up with the two of them to find the book. Christine leads them to a doorway to a pocket dimension where Supreme Strange stored the book, but the book is quickly destroyed by Wanda when they find it. Wanda grabs America, forces her to open a portal to get rid of Strange and Christine, then she forces America to open a portal back to the main MCU Earth to steal her powers.

Strange and Christine arrive on an Earth post-incursion, and the only move Strange has is to find the Doctor Strange of this Earth for help. He finds him in his Sanctum with this Earth’s Darkhold, we’ll call him Sinister Strange, and he learns that this Strange used the Darkhold to find a universe where he was still with Christine (similar to how Wanda wants to fine a universe where her kids exist), but he was unsuccessful. He also admits to killing other Strange variants to “relieve their pain”. They both fight, Doctor Strange kills Sinister Strange, and he is forced to use the Darkhold to save Chaves. Since he’s stuck on that Earth, he realizes he has to dreamwalk into another Strange on the main Earth, but luckily the Strange doesn’t have to be alive to be possessed.

He possesses the corpse of Defender Strange, arms himself with the souls of the damned, and fights Wanda in a Evil Dead inspired fight. Wong tries to help, but Wanda is still too powerful. Strange is able to save America and inspires to not be afraid of her powers anymore. She then harnesses her portal energy to fight Wanda, but instead of trying to beat her, she gives Wanda what she wants. She opens a portal inside the home of Earth-838 Wanda, where her sons still exist, and they’re terrified of Scarlet Witch. Earth-838 Wanda tries to stop her, but she’s beaten very quickly (she’s still recovering from her forced-fight with the Illuminati), and Scarlet Witch tries to reassure her sons that she’s not a monster, but they couldn’t even look at her. It was then when she realized that she became a monster, a villain. Her kids are gone, and she can’t steal another version of them from their mom.

She returned back to the main Earth, and she destroyed the Darkhold’s chambers to banish its power. It’s believed that Wanda died destroying the chambers, but I highly doubt that. Chaves was able to get herself and Wong back to Kamar-Taj, and she brought Doctor Strange and Earth-838 Chrsitine back home. The movie ends with Chaves becoming a student at Kamar-Taj, Doctor Strange realizes he has a few personal issues to work through, but it seems that everything is going to be okay. Until Strange manifests a third eye on his forehead, a side effect of using the Darkhold, which is what Sinister Strange had.

There are two end credit scenes, the first features a new character Clea, a mage from the Dark Dimension. She tells Strange that his actions have caused an incursion and they have to save the two universes involved. Strange agrees to go with her to the Dark Dimension, while showing off his third eye, and the movie ends. The second end credit scene is an inside joke from an earlier scene, nothing important there.

My Take

The plot on its own was very intriguing and the fast-paced story did keep me on my toes. My main issue with this movie is that I felt that some of the characters were a little dumb/arrogant, and this is mostly with Doctor Strange and the Illuminati. Strange straight-up tells Wanda where Chaves was hiding in the first Act, even though he knew about her enslaving the citizens of Westview to cope with Vision’s death (BIG RED FLAG). Strange isn’t usually this gullible or reckless with sharing this kind of information in his previous movie appearances, except for No Way Home when he helped Spider-Man cast the spell to make people forget his identity (which I still can’t remember).

The next problem is how arrogant the Illuminati were about dealing with Wanda. You have Captain Marvel acting all “macho” saying something on the lines “We can handle your little witch problem”, and they were already labeling Strange a villain since they believe all Strange variants are threats because of Supreme Strange. Also Mr. Fantastic made a little oopsie when he revealed the group’s trump card (Black Bolt’s powers) to Wanda during their confrontation. I can understand that Reed was trying to intimidate Wanda, but if I was there after watching her demolish a bunch of Ultron bots, I would’ve told Bolt to let it rip, Wanda could survive an attack from Black Bolt. Also I loved seeing Sir Patrick Stewert play Professor X in an MCU film, but did they have to kill him?! For fucksake, this is the third time I’ve seen this guy die in a Marvel movie!

Finally there’s Wanda, who stole the show with her performance. I suspected for a while that she was going to be the villain for Multiverse of Madness, but I did not expect her to be such a terrifying villain. I can tell that Sam Raimi had a major influence on her villain archetype, and Elizabeth seemed to have a lot of fun with being an insta-killing beast. Though I would say she had a whole “angry mom” vibe kind of downplayed her intensity, and her whole plan about conquering the multiverse just to be with her sons sounds a little weird when you remember that Vision is the father. It was almost like she completely forgot about Vision, and I kind of expected her to look for a world where all four of them could be together.

Also where the hell was White Vision?! We all know he got his memories back, so why hasn’t he looked for Wanda yet?! I’m sure he would have talked her out of her multiverse conquest, but I can understand why he wasn’t included. There’s only so much one can cram into one movie.

This movie had its issues, but I still left satisfied. I watched The Evil Dead from 1981 the day before watching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and it’s safe to say that Sam Raimi went back to that horror mindset when directing this movie. Even with the rumors about the script disagreements, cuts, and reshoots that have been floating around this movie, I enjoyed what Raimi delivered. I give this adventure a solid 7/10.

That’s all I have for you today, tell me down in the comments your thoughts on the movie. Be sure to like and subscribe to the blog to be emailed updates on my latest posts. This is your friendly neighborhood cosplayer saying goodbye, and see you next time.