Strange Days
A review of "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness"
For a movie that takes so many dark thematic and stylistic turns, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is an undeniably fun film. It’s an intense, spooky, and wild cinematic adventure that’s driven by its lead characters and grounded in their humanity. Director Sam Raimi holds together what might otherwise have been an unruly undertaking with his own distinctive and idiosyncratic filmmaking sensibility, a style that treats horror and dark fantasy elements at the heart of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness as opportunities for playfulness as well as suspense.
The movie’s multiverse conceit serves almost entirely as scaffolding for the narratives of its two main characters: the titular protagonist Doctor Stephen Strange (portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch) and antagonist Wanda Maximoff (a stellar Elizabeth Olsen), the erstwhile Avenger now also known as the Scarlet Witch. It’s a film that benefits enormously from nearly a decade’s worth of storytelling and time spent with Strange and Wanda across five previous movies and a limited television series. Audiences may not know these two characters quite as well as the original six Avengers, but we’ve seen them on a number of occasions since Wanda’s first appearance in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.
This shared history lends gravity to the backward-looking themes raised by Multiverse of Madness. Over the years, we’ve witnessed Strange make questionable decisions convinced there’s no alternative and we’ve watched Wanda suffer an unbroken string of profound personal tragedies. Where the first Doctor Strange in 2016 half-heartedly surfaced potentially intriguing ideas about time and mortality amidst its psychedelic aesthetic trappings, Multiverse of Madness charges headlong into more complicated ruminations on the choice between heroism and happiness, torturous re-examinations of our past choices, and the ruinous futility inherent in wanting the impossible.
These themes stand in conspicuous contrast to the reality-warping talents of both the movie’s lead characters. That’s especially the case with Wanda Maximoff, whose attempt to travel to a universe where the children she conjured up in WandaVision exist presses the story forward and puts her at odds with Strange. She’s an eminently sympathetic antagonist, one who desperately wants what she cannot have – the faintest semblance of a normal life – and chases it across the multiverse with reckless abandon. Olsen and director Sam Raimi imbue Wanda with the relentless, single-minded ferocity of an individual so determined to achieve her goals that she will not stop or show mercy, no matter who or what stands in her way.
In perhaps the film’s most memorable sequence, Wanda tears apart the Illuminati, an ersatz alternate reality version of the Avengers, one by one in sublimely and spectacularly brutal fashion. She then hunts down Strange and America Chavez, the movie’s multiverse-hopping human MacGuffin, with the tireless tenacity of a killer robot. The sequence allows Raimi to put his horror expertise to superb use, ratcheting up the tension bit by bit as Wanda pursues Strange and company through a series of derelict sewers and tunnels.
Though Wanda comes across as something of a merciless force of nature in Multiverse of Madness, Olsen’s outstanding performance makes clear that her motives remain rooted in her own humanity and emotional pain. She’s not evil or even necessarily malevolent, at least not in her own eyes; early on, for instance, she warns Strange to stay out of her way so she doesn’t have to become “unreasonable.” It’s a testament to Olsen’s prowess as an actor and her commitment to the integrity of her character that we’re still able understand where Wanda comes from even as she breaks bad in the worst way possible.
In the end, however, Wanda comes to realize that she’s gone much too far in pursuit of her impossible ambitions – so far, indeed, that she terrifies her own children in an alternate reality and has to insist against all available evidence that she is not in fact a monster. Wanda doesn’t really achieve redemption in the end, and it’s hard to see how she could given what she’s done over the course of Multiverse of Madness. But she does finally recognize her own limits and calls off her hopeless quest for what she cannot possibly have. Indeed, it’s quite striking to see a character with seemingly unlimited power and the ability to manipulate reality as she sees fit accept that real life, with all its attendant pain and hardship, cannot simply be ignored or wished away.
For his part, Strange suffers from a related but subtly different set of problems: his own need for control over events as well as nagging doubts and regrets about his past choices. Like Wanda, he confronts a choice between heroism and happiness – or at least what the pair believes will make them happy. While Wanda rejects heroism completely to pursue happiness no matter the cost, Strange chose the life of a hero without necessarily reflecting on what that decision entails or fully understanding the personal sacrifices it might require. When it comes time for him to try and persuade Wanda to change course, Strange’s arguments lack the necessary conviction and Wanda brusquely tells him not to speak to her of sacrifice. What’s more, Strange holds tight to the mistaken notion that professional accomplishment – whether earning global renown as a top neurosurgeon or saving the world as one of its mightiest heroes – will make him happy.
When we first encounter him in Multiverse of Madness, we see Strange still pining for his former medical colleague Christine Palmer (played by Rachel McAdams) even while attending her nuptials. When Strange plaintively asks her whether it could have ever worked out between them, Christine says probably not since he insists on “holding the knife” in any and all situations. Strange also faces lingering doubts and questions over his decision to hand over the Time Stone to arch-villain Thanos at the climax of Avengers: Infinity War, telling a minor character from his first cinematic adventure who wonders if it really had to happen that way that he took the only path available at the time.
That choice continues to haunt Strange when he faces off against Wanda for the first time. As a result of Strange’s actions, Wanda killed the man she loved in a desperate attempt to stop Thanos “and it meant nothing.” It’s a powerful moment that owes much to Olsen’s outstanding performance and plays to the strengths of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s ongoing, character-driven narrative; as audiences, we know what both these characters have been through and understand the emotional stakes involved. The exchange also neatly foregrounds the movie’s central thematic concerns regarding heroism and happiness: indeed, Wanda holds out the possibility that Strange himself could find a universe where he could find happiness with Christine – if only he lets Wanda have what she wants.
As he traipses through the multiverse, moreover, Strange literally comes face to face with himself and his fundamentally consistent character traits and tendencies. Even across a seemingly infinite set of realities, it seems, our personal proclivities and propensities remain more or less the same. The Illuminati certainly believe that all Stranges are the same across the multiverse: well-meaning but cocksure to the point of hubris, they tend to break the rules and push things a bit too far – often with disastrous consequences for themselves and others.
Just ahead of the film’s climax, for instance, Strange has to fight a variant of himself who pushes all his traits and idiosyncrasies to their worst extremes. Strange doesn’t deny these qualities, but instead recognizes and tacitly acknowledges them as his own. During the inevitable clash between the two Stranges that follows ensues, and Raimi conjures up a gorgeous magical fight complete with neon-tinged musical notes and scales transmogrified into razor-sharp weapons and protective shields. Composer and long-time Raimi collaborator Danny Elfman’s score works wonders here and throughout Multiverse of Madness, shifting moods and striking an overall tone that fits the film perfectly.
Ultimately, Strange works with rather than against his own tendencies and breaks the rules to once again save the day. He’s still more than willing to push moral boundaries and crash through ethical guardrails to do so, but he now possesses a level of self-awareness and sense of his own shortcomings that he previously lacked. Most importantly, Strange finally understands and accepts the responsibilities that heroism entails – including the harsh reality that he and Christine cannot and will not be together.
Each in their own way, Strange and Wanda show us the folly of seeking what we can’t possibly have and, perhaps more importantly, refusing to accept things for what they are. Even in a world of magic, sorcery, and the mystic arts, we can bend neither reality nor ourselves as we see fit – and that the reckless pursuit of the impossible only destroys ourselves and our compatriots. In the end, we’ve got to do our best with what we’ve got and what we’ve been given.
As dark as it can and does get, however, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ultimately stands out as a delightfully spine-tingling adventure - one that slips a solid set of themes in almost unnoticed amidst all the thrills and chills it delivers.