Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) Dir: Sam Raimi
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Director Sam Raimi returns to the world of Marvel superheroes, but this time diving into the world of Dr Strange. The film has Raimi's fingerprints all over it, which made for a fresh feel for the Master of the Mystic Arts.
That said, I could not help but feel disappointed by what I saw. The film starts rather weakly in my opinion, and fails to really entice or excite me in any real major capacity.
Furthermore, some of the CGI was genuinely poor, which really took me out of the experience. The narrative felt a little all over the place and struggled to give enough attention to a couple of characters who should have felt like bigger inclusions.
The last hour recovers some of the film's quality and brings it to an average rating in my view. The usual post-credit scenes unfortunately did not live up to some of the tantalising ones of prior films, but I don't think that matters much.
Benedict Cumberbatch brings one of his weaker performances as Stephen Strange, particularly with some of the comedic lines, which felt painfully forced into the script at times.
Elizabeth Olsen, on the other hand, is probably the best character in the film, and provides one of the strongest antagonists in the MCU to date, especially for standalone films.
The debuting Xochitl Gomez struggles to feel like a credible character at times, but she comes around in the second half. I am still interested in seeing where she goes from here, despite this shaky start.
Benedict Wong is always solid in his consistent supporting role, and further shows why his character deserves more credibility than he seems to get.
Rachel McAdams returns to the MCU as Christine, and was given a lot more to do than in prior appearances - a pleasant surprise.
There were a number of cameos here from some returning characters, so if you wish to not know, skip to the 'overall' section.
So, of these cameos, Patrick Stewart was a great get for Raimi, as was John Kransinski, who is always popular. There were also decent, if brief performances from Hayley Atwell, Lashana Lynch and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Also, as is a Raimi tradition, there is a brief cameo from the iconic Bruce Campbell, which was fun, if a little silly.
Overall, I wish this film was better than it was. Whilst there was a number of great action scenes and unique moments, the film was let down repeatedly by some poor writing and pacing issues.
A number of interesting cameos could not save this from being an ultimately lackluster and subpar affair, which could have been so much more.
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