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With the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, WandaVision, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, I was slightly concerned about this film being able to stand on its own. I very much enjoyed the first Doctor Strange film and thought his character has made a nice progression thus far in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. MoM sure plays the part of a giant action adventure blockbuster, but with so many ups and downs interweaving in what I feel is a directorial mess it's hard for me to straight up recommend to anyone. There was a sophistication to 'magic' from the first film that Raimi's style inadvertently undoes, the clever charm and reverence for the superhero genre created by previous Marvel titles is under attack here and that more than anything is the key issue for me. I think the lack of finesse really squandered a lot of pivotal moments in Multiverse of Madness, it's not supposed to feel gaudy and dumb… that's not the strengths of what Doctor Strange established. Occasionally scenes cause raised eyebrows and unintended laughs, half the time I was wondering if I was watching an 80's horror (Evil Dead) while others harkened to some really tacky looking visuals (Spider-man 1-3) or just straight up amateurish scenes where expository devices are cheaply thrown in to give characters prescribed depth (What were those invasive memory machines on the street, hahaha) Raimi's directorial sensibilities are dated, juvenile and frankly the man has no place directing a modern Marvel film. Then the credits rolled and it clicked with me, it was directed by Sam Raimi. Why Stephen's unrequited love subplot was so incredibly boring and void of chemistry (or why it sidelined the much more interesting character story of a powerful pragmatic man who struggles with choices of morality on an occasional grand scale) Many moments in the film just felt oddly… unrefined.

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So I'm sitting here wondering how the maternal drama of a grieving Wanda could work so well in a TV series but come off so incredibly benign and unconvincing in this film, every scene with her kids had my eyes rolling at the inauthenticity. Yet the driving conflict in the plot is through the questionable motives of a young mother. However the human elements are more than often contrived and the personal stories all feel forced. Multiverse of Madness is a visual fiesta that doesn't pull any punches in the visual effects department and is surely on par with the biggest Marvel titles in that regard. Overall though, Doctor Strange 2 (has it really only been 2?) is a ton of fun. My only disappointments are I would have liked to see more than a handful of multiverses, but that seems to be what this phase of Marvel is building towards as a whole anyway, and the directing is solid but could have been a little more succinct.

And obviously the acting and effects are all great, the cameos are a ton of fun, we knew all this would be the case and it all holds true.

And speaking of Evil Dead, holy crap, this is almost a horror movie! I'm not complaining, but damn, the creepy factor is pretty high here! With a unique villain I did not see coming with motivations that are hard to discredit, you almost sympathize until they're literally shredding people to pieces. He did it with Evil Dead way back when, now he did it with this. I guess that's the magic of Sam Raimi, he makes messes work.

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This movie is a mess, a big sloppy mess, and not in the way people were predicting but in brand new ways no one could have predicted.

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