I wanted to love Doctor Strange 2. I took a vacation to see her on a Thursday afternoon, then practically ran home later that night to write about Doctor Strange 2’s post-credits scenes. Unfortunately, though, I ended up giving it the same rating (2.5/5 stars on Letterboxd) as I gave Morbius.
As one of my co-workers told me, I had either underestimated Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness or overestimated Morbius. It might be a bit of both. But my frustration with Doctor Strange’s recent adventures stems from the fact that he has three of the most annoying issues in the MCU.
Sure, the movie scored high, but these three flaws just took me out of the whole experience, as the movie’s evil, visuals, and fan service somehow failed.
And without these three things prosperous? Marvel movie does not fit at all.
Of course, beware of Doctor Strange 2 spoilers below!
Doctor Strange 2 puts Marvel’s worst CGI front and center
If I remember the 2021 Black Widow movie for anything (other than Scarlet Johansson suing Marvel and apparently ending Disney Plus Premier Access in the process, or the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” cover for the opening credits), it’s the pretty obvious CGI from one of the final scenes .
General Drikov’s office, where Wanda had cracked her way to victory, looked shockingly fake to me. This wasn’t Marvel’s first bad CGI movie, though it won’t be the last.
That’s because the first big fight scene in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness gave me a reminder that something was wrong with the CGI labs at Marvel Studios. Like Strange, Wong and America Chavez deal with a giant tentacled monster, apparently half of the shots in this entire fight were mismatched lighting, and–there’s no more than a moment when Strange is in front and the monster is behind.
Not long after that—when Strange, Wong, and Chavez were standing on a rooftop where they soon buried Doctor Strange for another universe—I had other memories of the Black Widow. The wide shot of this rooftop looked like a very clear sound stage shot of New York City that had been captured by CGI. I don’t know who was supposed to be fooled here, and I was hoping director Sam Raimi would avoid these issues.
Doctor Strange 2 gave us the lowest value fan service
We knew going to Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness that this movie would give fans some red meat, as Charles Xavier has been teasing since the Super Bowl announcement below. And it all started as soon as Doctor Strange was captured by Baron Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), but unfortunately, it was practically over at the same time.
Fan service started with Kristen Palmer’s variant (The World of the Illuminati is a great gig) telling Strange and Chavez that they’re in Earth-838 — as opposed to Earth-616, their original universe. These numbers may have sounded like gobbledygook to people who haven’t read the comics, but I bet a lot of people in your theater are pretty excited to hear that.
Definitions of universes 616 and 838 have been something of a long-standing presence in Marvel comics, and it seemed like this was a big moment for the MCU.
Things get even cooler for fans when it’s a file Marvel Fantastic Four movie Fan choice John Krasinski as Reed Richards has become a reality. Next, we get the really exciting reveal of Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier in the MCU.
All of this would have been cool, and I probably would have only blogged about CGI above were it not for the fact that all of this was basically scrapped by Wanda Maximoff/The Scarlet Witch killing all the Illuminati, except for Mordo. Huge bumblebee.
Sure, Earth-838 may now be mainstay in the MCU, but does it look like this would have a lasting effect if no Professor X and Reed Richards were? While Richards leaves a widow (Sue) and children (Johnny), and Xavier gets a whole school for talented young mutants, I don’t think Marvel Studios’ Fantastic Four or X-Men would happen without those characters.
All this to me means This is amazing It doesn’t actually matter Earth-838. This is the equivalent of Ralph Bonner, the fake Pietro from WandaVision. Something gets us excited and we quickly realize it just doesn’t make sense. cheerful.
Doctor Strange 2 recycles MCU stories (from 2021)
Although I didn’t pop a bit for the 838/616 stuff and Reed Richards’ look, I was brought back down not long after. The moment that completely kicked me out of Doctor Strange 2 was when I realized that Wanda had turned evil thanks to her experience reading Darkhold, which led to her sons’ visions. This is a full reboot, but not from WandaVision – it’s from Shang-Chi and Legend of the Ten Rings.
This entire movie revolves around one central plot idea: Shang Chi’s father Shu Wenu (Tony Leung) is tricked into thinking that his wife (Shang Chi’s mother) was still alive and inside the mythical land of Ta Lu, behind the dark gate. This may have slight differences from Wanda Maximoff’s story, but the Legendary Item Corrupt is a device too simple and too cute to run in years on end.
Yes, Wanda’s story is more complicated — and Elizabeth Olsen’s performance is solid — but her plan was so short-sighted (what about the other Wanda, Wanda?) that I felt like I was eating reheated leftovers.
Outlook: What can be done to fix this?
However, there are solutions. If the people working on all of these movies and scripts could work with more awareness of each other’s projects, maybe we wouldn’t see The Ten Episodes and Darkhold spoiled in retrospect.
Marvel could also suggest not offering the Engraving Service to fans if it is to be rolled back in a short time. Finally, well, I’m not a movie producer – and I imagine Covid-19 restrictions have hampered the production of this movie – but I’d love for Marvel not to release movies with scenes that look like the opening fight scene.
However, I’m still excited to see Thor: Love and Thunder and the other upcoming Marvel movies. However, my expectations were more tattered than Doctor Strange’s robe.
How does all this hurt Marvel? Why should they care? Well, I’m definitely less interested in rewatching Doctor Strange 2 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 the new Marvel and Star Wars shows.
Disney’s got one of the best streaming services out there, but a good deal of Disney Plus’s strength lies in the back catalog of Marvel movies – which needs improvement.