Doctor Strange

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Marvel Studios/rated PG-13/126 minutes. Directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron.

You don’t need to have seen Ant-Man to understand Thor: Ragnarök, and you don’t need to have seen Black Panther understand Spider-Man: No Way Home. Nor do you need to have watched WandaVision to smile when Doctor Strange gets into a, uh, music battle, to be startled by the jump scares and be impressed by the tactile visuals on display. Michael Waldron’s screenplay isn’t afraid to let its “not a white guy” characters be flawed, wrong, problematic or ineffectual, and it’s not afraid to dip into some think-piece-friendly tropes for the sake of efficient storytelling. Oh, and folks who were especially invested in Wanda’s “It’s about trauma!” narrative on the Disney+ show (or folks displeased by the notion of a female villain wreaking havoc over their inability to be a mother) will find themselves as annoyed by Multiverse of Madness as Game of Thrones fans who named their daughters Daenerys. Again, by coincidence or design, much of this film seems a response to a fandom that views the MCU as a kind of progressive moral arbiter and/or makes their fandom a defining part of their personality. The rest of the film features Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Wong (Benedict Wong) and American Chavez doing their best to hold off a relentless, superpowered murder witch, an adventure that sends them to different universes and occasionally sees them interacting with alternate versions of themselves and/or other established MCU characters. That’s neither compliment nor criticism, but it underlines how Multiverse of Madness is “just a movie.” Multiverse-hopping aside, it’s still a stand-alone adventure with little overall impact on the overall MCU. This Doctor Strange sequel feels like an intentional throwback to when the MCU was just another big-budget Hollywood franchise, one that wasn’t expected to make the world a better place or be the one-stop-shop for blockbuster thrills and/or onscreen representation. It’s a good thing the spectacle delivers, because the story is pretty one-note, and the characters are mostly there for exposition and action sequences. The violence is as brutal and cruel as it’s been since the bad guys in Iron Man led a terrified family into a cave and machine gun-massacred them just offscreen. Yes, the film expects you to be familiar with the events of Doctor Strange and the last two Avengers films, but even explicit references to WandaVision are mostly there for those in the know. The top-secret cameos, which sadly are not Winnie the Pooh or Statler and Waldorf, are mostly confined to a mid-film sequence whereby Strange and Chavez travel to a rather idealistic version of Earth that looks like Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. I’m guessing this is a version of Earth where Al Gore rightfully won the 2000 presidential election, but this universe’s Stephen Strange is A) dead and B) not exactly anyone’s favorite superhero. Yes, as revealed twenty minutes into the 126-minute picture, the big bad is the Scarlett Witch herself. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a mostly stand-alone horror-fantasy adventure.

Benedict Cumberbatch returns as surgeon-superhero Stephen Strange, now on a mission to protect a teen who can visit parallel universes.

There is a funny scene in which they arrive in a version of New York where everything is decorated with plants and flowers (inspired by the High Line, perhaps), where you “go” on a red signal and where fast food is served in little balls. Familiar supporting characters recur: Benedict Wong is back, entertainingly playing Sorcerer Supreme, and Chiwetel Ejiofor is Strange’s old enemy Mordo. The Ancient One (played in the first film by Tilda Swinton and the subject of a brief culture-war casting row) is absent. America has the ability to “dreamwalk” – to enter into other parallel universes – and it is an ability she can’t control and which has enraged this demon; Strange realises it is his destiny to protect her.

There have been complaints about MCU properties that feel like they exist merely to get people interested in the next movie or TV show, but it's never felt ...

By the time that “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was pulling out the universe-bending scenes that will probably be spoiled by Friday afternoon, I started to wonder if there’s a breaking point to these CGI orgies that serve so many other properties they forget to be interesting on their own. It’s sad to see her and the character take a step back instead of exploring the ideas in the show that bore her name. It’s got a plot that could have creatively surprised viewers over and over with new variations on the very concept of a world with heroes in it and a director willing to go there. It’s very much a sequel to “WandaVision,” the show that expanded the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television. Think about how many properties are being sequel-ed in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” It’s a sequel to “ Doctor Strange,” although just barely in that you probably need to have seen that film less than the Strange adventures that followed. It’s a sequel to “ Avengers: Endgame” and “ Spider-Man: No Way Home” in that it references action in both films and extrapolates somewhat on the universe-saving decision that the title character made in the former.

The last time Sam Raimi made a comic-book movie, nobody had ever heard of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That film was Spider-Man 3, in 2007, the final ...

Across his many Marvel appearances, Cumberbatch has alternated between playing the know-it-all Strange as a stuffy prig and a more mischievous wisecracker, but Raimi helps him strike the right chord—befuddled, brusque but caring, and struggling to stay just one step ahead of anyone around him. Describing Multiverse of Madness involves writing around so much—even revealing the film’s central villain would be a spoiler, though far more intriguing plot twists are buried in the final act. But once the dimension-hopping kicked off, Raimi’s goofy, morbid sense of humor started to assert itself on-screen, and Multiverse of Madness settled into a far more satisfying rhythm. His camera is a character of its own, with shots that lurch, zoom across rooms, and crash into actors’ faces with anarchic impunity. Multiverse of Madness is overstuffed with the usual fan bait, but it’s also undeniably a Sam Raimi movie, and a remarkably good one at that. It picks up after the last Marvel entry, Spider-Man: No Way Home, in which the prickly super-magician Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) appears, waving his arms around with staccato fury to open portals and alter people’s memories en masse.

This month's LGBTQ-inclusive watchlist includes a buzzy new Marvel movie, a "Downton Abbey" film spinoff and an abundance of drag queens.

In “Bob’s Burgers: The Movie,” it’s high season for the mom-and-pop burger joint, but, as usual, something disastrous stands in the way of commercial success: a giant sinkhole that opens up right in front of the restaurant. The new series, “Ten Percent,” features a London agency, Nightingale Hart, modeled after its Parisian equivalent, Agence Samuel Kerr. In addition to the host of assistants, talent and other agents, the British office boasts its very own Andréa, the impossibly cool lesbian heartbreaker who’s known for staging hostile takeovers. “On the Count of Three” is a black comedy about best friends Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott), who make a suicide pact and then spend their final day together, getting their affairs in order. The deadpan comedy series “Hacks” was somewhat of a sleeper hit when it premiered in May 2021. Since it began airing on Fox in 2011, the offbeat series has been one of the most LGBTQ-friendly shows on mainstream television. The cast of already crowned queens includes: Jaida Essence Hall, Jinkx Monsoon and Monét X Change. Helping RuPaul and the veteran co-panelists decide who takes home the title of “Queen of All Queens” is a buzzy collection of guest stars, including Cameron Diaz, Naomi Campbell, Ronan Farrow and Nancy Pelosi. And back at the estate in England, Mary (Michelle Dockery) supervises a film crew that’s shooting on location in exchange for funds to repair the house. And this month, “On the Count of Three,” his directorial debut, is released in theaters. It is the second showdown between Disney and the Saudi government in a year, after “Eternals” was banned across the Persian Gulf states for featuring the MCU’s first gay superhero and his husband. His third stand-up special for HBO, “Rothaniel,” was an immediate success when it premiered April 1 — in no small part because he used it as an opportunity to come out to the world. In addition to the female leads, the campy series features a host of hilarious actors playing people you’d expect to find at a QVC-like network. In a stroke of luck, Joanna lands her dream job as a TV personality on the home shopping channel SVN and comes face to face with her hero, the network’s most beloved host, Jackie Stilton (Molly Shannon). While Jackie instantaneously takes to the newbie, the rest of Joanna’s co-workers and her new boss, Patricia (Jenifer Lewis), prove harder to win over.

Weekend box office preview 'Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness' eyeing a $160M-$180M opening in North America plus another $140M+ overseas.

Contrary to the 2016 film, Doctor Strange 2 is doing a simultaneous global release including all offshore markets in its opening suite. Looking at other MCU pics, Thor: Ragnarok opened to $141M offshore, and Captain Marvel — the film between the blips, which made it essential viewing — did $194M in like-for-likes. That would yield at least a $300M worldwide start, which would rep the second-best box office debut of the Covid era after No Way Home‘s $582M WW and ahead of The Batman‘s $251M WW. Similar to Batman, Doctor Strange 2 won’t have Russia and China in its offshore bookings. That’s not the best comp, given that the MCU expanded afterward to include new characters on the big screen — and the blip. It’s a fun week for Marvel fans as the season finale to another multiverse mindbender, Moon Knight, drops on Disney+ at midnight tonight. Does it play strictly to the Marvel fans, or will it rally the unfaithful?

After 27 box office-shattering blockbusters, the Marvel superhero films have no more worlds to conquer -- so they are headed off to parallel universes ...

a what-is-reality Marvel brainteaser and, at moments, a bit of an ordeal." IndieWire called the movie a "a violent, wacky, drag-me-to-several-different-hells at once funhouse of a film." It's very, very beautiful." A review from The Hollywood Reporter says the parallel universes concept -- on top of Marvel films' previous time-travel forays -- "starts to look like a franchise-sustaining crutch." "Multiverse of Madness" -- the second standalone "Doctor Strange" movie -- is packed with references not just to films that preceded it, but also to Disney+ television series "WandaVision" and "Loki." It's beautiful.

Critics say Elizabeth Olsen steals the show and Sam Raimi reaches back into his horror bag to deliver a visually spectacular, surprisingly violent entry in ...

–Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist –Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist –Michelle Kisner, The Movie Sleuth –Brittany Murphy, Muses of Media On an emotional level, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness leaves a lot to be desired. –Don Kaye, Den of Geek One of the biggest highlights of the film is easily Gomez’s star-making turn… [but it’s] much better than the shallow fan service of Spider-Man: No Way Home. –Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist This is the first MCU movie in which many of the shots have legible fingerprints on them. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has more twists than a bag of pretzels… Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is unlike any Marvel movie you have ever seen… According to the first reviews of the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, the Doctor Strange sequel is darker, weirder, and more surprising than most of the movies in the franchise.

The Spider-Man director adds some much needed flair to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Raimi runs right toward that madcap future, keeping Multiverse of Madness silly and loose and less concerned with the maintenance of careful branding. In Multiverse of Madness, the death of an entire universe, trillions of souls, is alluded to. Mortal stakes are much harder to render when there’s a very similar version of the same person—or alien, or god, or whoever—lurking just one croissant-layer of spacetime away. It’s a clever, kicky subversion of fan-service expectations, suggesting for a scene or two that the movie has a more developed vision of how to please, and surprise, an audience. The opening act of the film is hurried and featureless, the Marvel tank low on gas and Raimi seemingly stymied by the difficulty of taking the reins of a world so long after its genesis. Of course, now that we’re dealing with the multiverse, any of those characters could come back in a future film.

Benedict Wong is standing up for his co-star Xochitl Gomez after she was harassed online by homophobic trolls.

He went on to reprise the character in several MCU films, including the recent record-breaking “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” America’s inclusion in the film and dialogue referencing her lesbian mothers is reportedly the reason the “Doctor Strange” sequel is banned in Saudi Arabia and other territories. When Gomez’s co-star Wong heard about the backlash she’s faced, he jumped into the interview and said, “It’s not okay.

Walt Disney Co's Marvel Studios takes a turn into horror territory in a new "Doctor Strange" movie that begins its global rollout in theaters on Wednesday.

Disney declined to cut same-sex references in the film, and it will not be released in Saudi Arabia or a handful of other Middle Eastern countries, a source familiar with the matter said. In the clip, Chavez refers to having two moms. "It’s not really trying to terrify the audience."

In an exclusive chat with indianexpress.com, Benedict Cumberbatch reacts to buzz around Tom Cruise playing Superior Iron Man in Doctor Strange in the ...

Also starring Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Xochitl Gomez, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Stuhlbarg, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness will open in theatres on May 6. Was that a hint at Cruise being in the film or it was just a joke? On the subject of fan theories, the actor said he has heard his fair share.

REVIEW: This doesn't look or play like any of the other Marvel movies and it is – in hindsight at least – a recognisably “Sam Raimi” film.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is an odd and quite brave entry into the Marvel universe. I'm not convinced that a director as idiosyncratic and mischievous as Raimi is ever going to do his best work inside the sleek behemoth of a Marvel franchise entry. Because knowing that Raimi had been at the tiller for the previous couple of hours, at least made a few aspects of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness a little more explicable. This Doctor Strange opens promisingly, with a scene that looks like a video game out-take set in a whirling asteroid field of parquet flooring and glowing, mystical books. And why – for the love of God, why – the film suddenly lurched into a schlocky yarn about disembodied corpses being re-animated and attacked by demonic spirits who want to drag souls to hell. If I can get myself into that sweet-spot of being the “average fan” – whatever that is – then I'm probably going to be writing the review from the most useful and appropriate place.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" is in theaters Friday but is already breaking box office records as the most pre-sold movie of the year so far.

"It feels like very recognizable terrain, it feels like a recognizable culture and I think it means it's ever more urgent, ever more present, and it's atrocious what people are enduring. "It's a European war and feels incredibly close," he said. "And, if that wasn't enough, I then get to play a couple variants of the character himself to turbocharge his development, which was great fun."

Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen and Sam Raimi stir a dash of horror into Marvel's formula in this weird and wild blockbuster.

It's no coincidence that in the midst of the CG spectacle, the final blow is struck in the most everyday circumstances. This is just as complicated for fans as it is for the characters, as films and TV shows dizzyingly cross over. Newcomer to the MCU Xochitl Gomez plays plucky America Chavez, a comic book character also known as Miss America who has the ability to kick holes in the multiverse. The villain's monstrous power is signaled by jump scares and sinister horror movie flourishes, building to the most macabre final battle you're likely to see in a family-friendly blockbuster. Detractors were already talking about superhero fatigue, and I wondered if Marvel's unprecedented streak was facing a collapse, caused by this lesser-known comics conjurer in his wacky cape (sorry, cloak). But Marvel's magic held up, and audiences turned out for the franchise's typical mix of quips and eye-popping visual effects, even if the actual film was a distinctly average origin story. I have to admit I had doubts about the first Doctor Strange movie back in 2016.

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi adds horror to the Marvel mix in a parallel-reality-hopping sequel.

"Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" is hoping to land the year's biggest opening weekend. Can ticket sales reach $200 million?

Directed by Sam Raimi of Tobey Maguire’s “Spider-Man” fame, “Doctor Strange” picks up as the eponymous neurosurgeon-turned-Avenger casts a dangerous spell that forces him to travel into the multiverse to face a mysterious new adversary and alternate versions of himself. The first “Doctor Strange” opened to $85 million in North America and ended its theatrical run with $232 million domestically and $677 million globally. Should domestic estimates hold, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” would deliver the biggest opening weekend of 2022 and the second-biggest debut in COVID-19 times. Already, “Doctor Strange” has racked up $65 million in domestic pre-sales, which is significant because that is more money than many pandemic-era releases have grossed in their entire theatrical runs. Overseas, “Doctor Strange 2” debuts day-and-date in most countries (excluding China, Russia and Ukraine), where it’s targeting $125 million to $140 million. Marvel movies rarely miss at the box office (and all 27 have opened to No. 1 in North America with ease), but the follow-up to 2016’s “Doctor Strange” is far better positioned than its 2016 predecessor to thrive in theaters.

Ever since he headlined his first solo outing in November 2016, Doctor Strange has become one of the most prominent figures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

While old-school studios had struggled to nail down what a Doctor Strange movie could or even should look like, the hope here was that Marvel Studios would be able to turn the concept of this sorcerer being a movie star into a reality. Perhaps the studio just wanted to initially focus on the superheroes it was planning to use in the then-upcoming production The Avengers. Or perhaps, like so many studios before, Marvel just didn't see the value of Doctor Strange as a cinematic property at the time. Those artists were none other than director Guillermo del Toro and writer Neil Gaiman. Gaiman didn't unveil a ton of details on their concept for this solo superhero film, but he did note that he was hoping to make the sorcerer Clea a major part of the movie. Regency Enterprises was keen to make Doctor Strange, but at the time, the company distributed its movies through Warner Bros. That larger movie studio was in a spat with Marvel at the time and that pretty much assured that Cow and Lee’s vision for a Doctor Strange film was kaput. David S. Goyer had varying degrees of involvement in this incarnation of Doctor Strange thanks to his connections to the Blade franchise, but he’d eventually drop out. The pursuit of a Doctor Strange movie began back in the 1980s, roughly a decade after a long-forgotten TV movie had served as the character's first foray into live-action storytelling.

Why do Wanda Maximoff and our title hero seem to be zombies, and what is the Darkhold? Here's a rundown and a viewing guide to help.

At the end of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the spell appears to have worked, but it remains to be seen if or how the consequences of Dr. Strange’s actions will play into “Multiverse of Madness.” This was necessary because of a botched spell Dr. Strange had cast that was designed to make everyone forget Peter was Spider-Man, which only ended up pulling Spider-Men and villains from alternate M.C.U. universes into the same one. After she vanishes in his arms, the evil Dr. Strange rips apart reality and is left alone to nurse his broken heart. In Dr. Strange’s “Avengers” debut, he is kidnapped by Ebony Maw, who is after the Time Stone. Tony Stark and Peter Parker eventually rescue him, and it becomes evident how much more powerful he has become since “Doctor Strange,” as he holds his own against Thanos, the Eternal-Deviant warlord, despite possessing only a single Infinity Stone compared with Thanos’s four. The trailers for “Multiverse of Madness” have made it out to be a crossover event that’s maybe not “Avengers: Endgame”-level, but certainly close. Episodes 8 and 9 also show Ultron discovering multiple realities and seeking to conquer them. But those who didn’t watch “WandaVision” may be left going “Westview what?” after the new movie. The director of “Multiverse of Madness,” Sam Raimi, has said that the new film is a direct continuation of the last Marvel Studios blockbuster, “ Spider-Man: No Way Home,” released in December. When we last saw Dr. Strange, he’d just caused everyone to forget the existence of Peter Parker to stop the multiverse from exploding. In “Multiverse of Madness,” a distraught Wanda is still struggling to process the original Vision’s death in “Avengers: Infinity War,” as well as her attempt to escape it in the fantasy she created in “WandaVision.” In one of the trailers, she is greeted by her sons in their Westview home, though Wanda’s voice-over identifies the apparently joyful reunion only as a recurring dream. This nine-episode animated anthology series, which tells the stories of alternate versions of M.C.U. heroes in multiple realities, debuted with little fanfare in August, but Episode 4 provides some important context for “Multiverse of Madness.” Titled “What If … Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?,” it introduces a variant of Dr. Strange, Strange Supreme, created after Strange lost his girlfriend, Christine, in a car crash and became consumed by dark magic. The film plays an important role in establishing Wanda’s back story, as its events are the source of her grief in “WandaVision,” and continue to haunt her in “Multiverse of Madness.” In the earlier movie, Wanda was forced to kill Vision, with whom she was romantically involved, to prevent Thanos from stealing the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, only to watch Thanos reverse time, pluck it out and kill Vision again. Eagle-eyed fans will have spotted connections to “WandaVision,” “Loki” and even zombie versions of a few characters, apparently from Episode 5 of the lesser-known Disney+ animated series “What If … ?,” as well as the M.C.U. debut of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, the founder of the X-Men.

Fresh off an Oscar nomination for 'The Power of the Dog,' Benedict Cumberbatch plays multiple variations of his Marvel hero in 'Doctor Strange 2.'

“It’s so odd because it's live and there's cortisol and adrenaline in play, but also it's very late in the day,” Cumberbatch says. He just finished filming Wes Anderson’s Netflix comedy adventure “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” playing the title character in the Roald Dahl adaptation. “He's a human being and is frail and breakable, but he's also adaptable and a maverick (who) does act outside of the rules. “It's a very crowded film, let's put it like that, and I'd love to have done more of those characters. “He knew to tweak one little aspect of it, and understood what those changes would be.” “There was a sudden frost, and all the buds that were supposed to be open at that time had closed up," Cumberbatch explains.

'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' plays as a direct sequel to the magic and trauma of 'WandaVision,' starring Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet ...

“I loved the way the new costume feels and looks. In Marvel’s “WandaVision,” nothing is as it seems. As “Multiverse” composer Danny Elfman put it at the premiere, Wanda’s story “is heartbreaking all the time.” “Someone who’s taking ownership of that power and has more confidence than we’ve ever seen before.” “You want to make sure that people laugh, and you want to make sure that people have a really good time. “She was such a great character to score and to follow. I loved the hair and makeup. ... I never got tired of watching her.” The Disney+ series, which concludes Friday, mixed sitcom aesthetics, superhero stories and profound emotion. Inside the hex, Wanda was able to temporarily escape her debilitating grief by conjuring an idyllic life with Vision and their twin sons, Billy and Tommy, that resembled her favorite family sitcoms. If that all sounds a little dark and profound for a Disney-owned superhero franchise, it was. “Wanda has always been a huge character, and people love Lizzie as Wanda, but ‘WandaVision’ expanded her.

Why do Wanda Maximoff and our title hero seem to be zombies, and what is the Darkhold? Here's a rundown and a viewing guide to help.

At the end of “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” the spell appears to have worked, but it remains to be seen if or how the consequences of Dr. Strange’s actions will play into “Multiverse of Madness.” This was necessary because of a botched spell Dr. Strange had cast that was designed to make everyone forget Peter was Spider-Man, which only ended up pulling Spider-Men and villains from alternate M.C.U. universes into the same one. After she vanishes in his arms, the evil Dr. Strange rips apart reality and is left alone to nurse his broken heart. In Dr. Strange’s “Avengers” debut, he is kidnapped by Ebony Maw, who is after the Time Stone. Tony Stark and Peter Parker eventually rescue him, and it becomes evident how much more powerful he has become since “Doctor Strange,” as he holds his own against Thanos, the Eternal-Deviant warlord, despite possessing only a single Infinity Stone compared with Thanos’s four. The trailers for “Multiverse of Madness” have made it out to be a crossover event that’s maybe not “Avengers: Endgame”-level, but certainly close. Episodes 8 and 9 also show Ultron discovering multiple realities and seeking to conquer them. But those who didn’t watch “WandaVision” may be left going “Westview what?” after the new movie. The director of “Multiverse of Madness,” Sam Raimi, has said that the new film is a direct continuation of the last Marvel Studios blockbuster, “ Spider-Man: No Way Home,” released in December. When we last saw Dr. Strange, he’d just caused everyone to forget the existence of Peter Parker to stop the multiverse from exploding. In “Multiverse of Madness,” a distraught Wanda is still struggling to process the original Vision’s death in “Avengers: Infinity War,” as well as her attempt to escape it in the fantasy she created in “WandaVision.” In one of the trailers, she is greeted by her sons in their Westview home, though Wanda’s voice-over identifies the apparently joyful reunion only as a recurring dream. This nine-episode animated anthology series, which tells the stories of alternate versions of M.C.U. heroes in multiple realities, debuted with little fanfare in August, but Episode 4 provides some important context for “Multiverse of Madness.” Titled “What If … Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?,” it introduces a variant of Dr. Strange, Strange Supreme, created after Strange lost his girlfriend, Christine, in a car crash and became consumed by dark magic. The film plays an important role in establishing Wanda’s back story, as its events are the source of her grief in “WandaVision,” and continue to haunt her in “Multiverse of Madness.” In the earlier movie, Wanda was forced to kill Vision, with whom she was romantically involved, to prevent Thanos from stealing the Mind Stone from Vision’s head, only to watch Thanos reverse time, pluck it out and kill Vision again. Eagle-eyed fans will have spotted connections to “WandaVision,” “Loki” and even zombie versions of a few characters, apparently from Episode 5 of the lesser-known Disney+ animated series “What If … ?,” as well as the M.C.U. debut of Patrick Stewart’s Professor X, the founder of the X-Men.

Faced with infinite plot possibilities, Marvel couldn't come up with a less sexist Wanda story line for 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness feels like a bridge to further stories rather than a work that stands on its own. The superhero juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down as it balloons in ways that force audiences to subscribe to Disney+ to understand the full litany of connections across its characters and worlds. How can it when there’s no end on the other side of the bridge in sight? Olson is saddled with a character so thinly written as a crazy bitch, who can neither control her emotions nor her great powers, that of course her performance is half-hearted and tepid. (I won’t even get into the Illuminati, a group of superheroes in another dimension that is so clearly meant to satisfy internet fancasting.) The film strives to be blatantly weirder, bloodier, and more gruesome than the usual MCU fare (which is really not saying much as this series is primed to appeal to the widest audience possible), but it remains so disconnected from the tactile experience of inhabiting a living body that the effort feels pallid. The ideas that hold a gleam of potential are shot down by the film’s rank ugliness, its incessant pace of exposition, the utter slog of the first hour, and the insistence on special effects that render the horrifying as textureless. How can I not raise my eyebrow at the casting of America Chavez, who has predominantly read as Afro-Latina in comics? How can I not notice that the Zombie Doctor Strange has less frisson than Billy Butcherson’s mangled corpse in Hocus Pocus? Doctor Strange 2 is too keenly aware fans don’t need much to cheer at these wretched undertakings. Instead, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness left me more disenchanted than ever. The pleasure of director Sam Raimi’s trilogy of Spider-Man films beginning in 2002 can be found in the bombast. These are expectations that aren’t quite met in the latest MCU installment, a truth not so much surprising as it is grimly disappointing. The body can be a site of horror and power in the superhero genre, an idea that is made lightning bright by a combination of good scripting and the approach actors take to it.

Before seeing "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," here's everything you should know from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In one episode, titled “What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?,” an alternate Strange turns to the dark side after Christine Palmer dies and he embarks on a selfish and doomed quest to save her. This universe’s Christine dies in the same car accident that destroyed the original Strange’s hands and set him down the path to become the Sorcerer Supreme. Overwhelmed by grief, this version of Strange uses the Time Stone to travel back and attempt to save Christine, but he repeatedly fails. Several Spider-Man enemies from other universes (i.e. other film franchises) show up, as do two other Peter Parkers (i.e. the ones played by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield). Ultimately, Strange repairs the multiversal rift by casting a spell that makes everyone forget who Peter Parker is. “Spider-Man: No Way Home” reveals that Doctor Strange’s absence during the Blip means he’s no longer the Sorcerer Supreme — instead, the role fell to Wong. Without direct oversight from Wong, Strange tries to help Peter Parker (Tom Holland) by casting a spell in which the population will forget that he is Spider-Man. Peter interference during the spell — asking that it not apply to certain loved ones like Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and MJ (Zendaya) — causes Strange to open up an accidental tear in the multiverse. The dark doctor defeats the good version of himself and becomes so consumed by power and arrogance in his quest to save Christine, that he utterly collapses his universe and ends up trapped inside the tiny bubble that is left of it, alone. “WandaVision” ends with Wanda in a remote cabin studying the Darkhold, and suddenly hearing the voices of her sons scream out to her. By the end of the series, Loki’s female variant Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) kills the head of the TVA, He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors), and the multiverse is borne. After teaming up with Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Spider-Man (Tom Holland) in “Infinity War,” Doctor Strange finds himself captured and taken to space as Thanos’ (Josh Brolin) minions try to pry the Time Stone away from him. Such is the backbone of “WandaVision,” which finds Wanda’s magic so powerful that she even gives “birth” to twins, named Billy and Tommy. They age rapidly into tweens over the course of just a few days, and possess their own superpowers. Marvel movies and Disney+ series like “Loki” and “Spider-Man: No Way Home” have breached the topic of the multiverse, but Doctor Strange is plunging right in, with Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff, aka the Scarlett Witch, at his side. At Kamar-Taj, Strange befriends two fellow sorcerers: Wong (Benedict Wong), the acerbic librarian, and Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a black-and-white thinker who becomes disillusioned with how Strange and the Ancient One bend their moral codes to reach their ends. After helming the original Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” trilogy in the 2000s and changing the the comic book genre forever, Raimi has not touched a superhero movie since, and his last directorial effort was 2013’s “Oz the Great and Powerful.”

Nearly twenty years to the date of his first Marvel-based project Spider-Man (2002), director Sam Raimi, who didn't direct a superhero movie since 2007's ...

It was uplifting to see the director run with this opportunity and do it his way. Gomez was poised throughout the picture and impressed in several action sequences to boot. The film — which releases Friday, May 6 — seemed to spar with a multiversal variant of itself for much of its two-hour, six-minute runtime.

So when the director's chair was vacated for the Doctor Strange sequel, teased to be "the first MCU horror film", Raimi was maybe the most exciting choice ...

Despite all this, the film is still fun. That's not even to mention the first Doctor Strange. References are made to Spider-Man: No Way Home and the last two Avengers films.