DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

I enjoyed Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness overall. Some of the dull & “uneventful” parts looked like a bad SyFy channel movie (which is a bigger overall issue with this most recent phase of the MCU outside of just this one movie) but other parts of it reminded me of the underrated Drag Me To Hell (the plot of this Doctor Strange sequel mostly focuses on a witch terrorizing our protagonists through multiple dimensions). No matter how much of the cookie-cutter MCU Disney ”look” is injected in to Multiverse Of Madness, we’re still occasionally reminded of why it’s a good thing to have a legendary veteran filmmaker like Sam Raimi direct this. He has style (like we saw in Drag Me To Hell and the Evil Dead saga) and it shines through at the right parts. Hating on Marvel films is so easy at this point and a large chunk of their online fans have taken on this fake oppressed sore winner persona where any (valid) criticism is seen as bullying or unfair. But I’m sorry - some of these recent Marvel movies are just uninteresting & flat-looking (The Eternals, the second half of Shang-Chi, Black Widow, etc). Something like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness should be praised due to having some original style. Even if this that style is borrowed the director's previous work...

Drag Me To Hell / Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Army Of Darkness / Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Evil Dead / 

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Other parts of the movie reminded me of classic horror that shaped Sam Raimi when he was younger (it was made clear that Multiverse of Madness would be horror-themed). I came across a recent interview on cinemablend.com where Raimi professes his love for Stephen King adaptations like The Shining and Carrie which he references in Multiverse Of Madness…

I love The Shining, but someone [Stanley Kubrick] already had that - Sam Raimi, cinemablends.com

The Shining / Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

I love CARRIE, but that had already been made by the time I had read it - Sam Raimi, cinemablend.com

Carrie /
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Raimi has always been an observant fan of cinematic connections outside of his own work so I appreciated all the homages to classic horror movies in Multiverse Of Madness...

Really the way he [John Woo] approaches sequences are very different. As different as when Hitchcock approached suspense. John Woo is to action what Hitchcock was to that - Sam Raimi, BBC

The Birds /
The Killer

Another (possible) Stephen King reference?

IT /
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

A possible Cocteau reference?

Orpheus /
Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

The chase scene we saw earlier is also similar to the tunnel chase in David Fincher's Alien 3...

Alien 3 / Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

At the end of the day this a was fun movie. Sam Raimi did a great job. Perhaps this will get folks to revisit/reassess his earlier comic-based films like Dark Man and the obvious Spider-Man trilogy (I’m still not a fan of the third one but at this point talking shit about that movie feels cheap & pointless). There are only a small handful of MCU movies that I truly dislike. Outside of that all the other movies range from tolerable to fun. In my opinion Doctor Strange in The Multiverse Of Madness was the most fun I’ve had watching a marvel movie since Black Panther.