Scarlet Witch and the Multiverse gets Mentioned (minor spoilers)
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My wife and I saw Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness last night, and we were both left a bit disappointed and underwhelmed.
First, and let's get this out of the way immediately because you saw the spoiler in the title, Wanda is the villain here. That bit in the trailer where she complains about "you break the rules and they call you a hero, I do it and become the bad guy"? Very literal. She is The Bad Guy of this movie, for reasons that completely negate her character arc from WandaVision.
And the thing is, while it does take a bit before she's introduced, after that point she quickly takes over the film. This is a Wanda movie far more than it is a Doctor Strange movie. With the possible exception of Infinity War, I don't think we've ever seen another MCU film that revolves around the villain this completely!
When the conflict between Wanda and the Sorcerers begins, Dr. Strange gets hurled across the multiverse for plot reasons. Remember that line from the trailers where Wong blames the whole mess on Strange's botched spell from No Way Home? Completely absent from the movie. He has some adventures in World 838, gets hauled before the Illuminati, learns some stuff, ends up in a broken world, does some more stuff, and comes back home for the climactic showdown with Wanda.
That's it. Two worlds, one of which is in ruins with barely any inhabitants to interact with. Not much of a "multiverse of madness" honestly.
Nitpicks:
Upon arrival in World 838, he almost gets hit by a car trying to cross the street at a green light, because green means stop in this world, red is go! This might have actually been an effective surprise if it hadn't been done in the very first episode of Sliders as (once again) the first sign our protagonist gets that This World Is Different.
Being a Sam Raimi film, it's not surprising that we get a Bruce Campbell cameo. He's obnoxious to Dr. Strange, but nowhere near bad enough to deserve what Strange did to him in retaliation! That was, if not outright villainous, at least villainy-adjacent, and he just laughed about it!
Isn't he supposed to be the good guy?There's a reason I haven't mentioned America Chavez this whole time: she makes very little impression. She's built up as this important character you're Supposed To Care About, but then she just gets treated as a living MacGuffin throughout the whole plot. Yawn.
When Strange and Wong are fighting the tentacle monster at the start of the film, why did they not immediately throw the thing into the Mirror Dimension? Isn't that supposed to be the entire point of having it?
Conclusion:
So... yeah. This was a disappointing film with far too little Multiverse, not enough Strange, and really no "madness" at all except for a brief scene when crossing universes for the first time which doesn't even come close to comparing to the good doctor's trip across worlds in his first movie!
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Scarlet Witch and the Multiverse gets Mentioned (minor spoilers):
trying to cross the street at a green light, because green means stop in this world, red is go!
Efficient, and either can be easily adapted for China or will just play really well there...
But, to the point, this is significant shared trauma, and your implicit question, "should we seek counseling?" A resounding yes.
