Doctor Strange 2 is just okay. I think that, as always, Cumberbatch is a wonderful actor and Strange is a great character, the CGI is great, the movie's visuals are great, but other than that... not much else is good about this film.
When I saw that Sam Raimi was directing, I went into this movie expecting the genius that was Spider Man 1&2, but we got none of that here. What we do get, though, is a poor attempt at doing horror, but Marvel-friendly. We get to see some blood and stuff, but it isn't scary at all, because, again, Marvel. This is not, however, the only problem.
My major issues are with the script, dialogue, and, in particular, the characterization. I love the MCU films for their complex and in-depth characters, and I went into this expecting no less than that standard. However, what I got was far below that standard. The villains in the MCU usually have somewhat rational motives that you find yourself sometimes identifying with and saying, oh, I get why he'd do that (take Thanos, for instance,) and you could actually sympathize with the villain -- this is what made Marvel villains so compelling. However, in this, you have the Scarlet Witch who is, for absolutely zero explanation, is now this super evil lady that wants to kill people for her fake children. In this movie, she is portrayed in a cartoonish fashion, and she seems like a villain out of a 40s batman comic or something, not an MCU film. The whole point of Wanda-Vision was that she was a conflicted character, who was doing what she was doing for a somewhat noble purpose. And, of course, at the end, she vowed never to do something like this ever again. But, in this movie, she just goes plain evil. There is nothing to sympathize with because she is evil without any redeeming qualities. Again, what made Wanda in Wanda-Vision so compelling was that you could understand and sympathize with her actions, but in this she is literally planning on massacring entire universes. Quite a step in the other direction. Normally, I would be fine with this if there was more explanation. What they did instead was just say, oh, yeah, she's super evil now, without ever showing on screen her descent into that evil, the struggle she must have had. This is a rookie mistake.
Another thing I hated about this movie was the character of America (yeah, that's actually her real name (sigh.)) She just showed up out of no where and said, yeah, I'm super important, and you have to protect me. There is no substance whatsoever to this character; she is literally a plot device which serves to keep the story going. If you replaced her with an artifact or something that could do the same thing, there really would be no difference, except for the fact that we would be spared her wooden and awful dialogue. She was just a MacGuffin, pretty much, not an actual character.
Finally, one major problem is the entire plot. It's supposed to be about the multiverse (hey, it's in the title, right,) but instead, we get a movie that is hardly about the multiverse. There is some multiverse stuff, but it mostly is about evil Wanda and random girl that came out of nowhere. My jaw dropped to the floor when I learned that Patrick Stewart would be reprising the role of Dr. X, which officially means that the X-Men are in the MCU, and John Krasinski as dr. Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4, one of my favorite comics, and also it's Jim. Sadly, they got a couple of lines before being killed off. Very disappointing.
Overall, it's a pretty bad movie, and Spider Man: No Way Home did the multiverse WAYYYYY better than this movie. 6/10.
When I saw that Sam Raimi was directing, I went into this movie expecting the genius that was Spider Man 1&2, but we got none of that here. What we do get, though, is a poor attempt at doing horror, but Marvel-friendly. We get to see some blood and stuff, but it isn't scary at all, because, again, Marvel. This is not, however, the only problem.
My major issues are with the script, dialogue, and, in particular, the characterization. I love the MCU films for their complex and in-depth characters, and I went into this expecting no less than that standard. However, what I got was far below that standard. The villains in the MCU usually have somewhat rational motives that you find yourself sometimes identifying with and saying, oh, I get why he'd do that (take Thanos, for instance,) and you could actually sympathize with the villain -- this is what made Marvel villains so compelling. However, in this, you have the Scarlet Witch who is, for absolutely zero explanation, is now this super evil lady that wants to kill people for her fake children. In this movie, she is portrayed in a cartoonish fashion, and she seems like a villain out of a 40s batman comic or something, not an MCU film. The whole point of Wanda-Vision was that she was a conflicted character, who was doing what she was doing for a somewhat noble purpose. And, of course, at the end, she vowed never to do something like this ever again. But, in this movie, she just goes plain evil. There is nothing to sympathize with because she is evil without any redeeming qualities. Again, what made Wanda in Wanda-Vision so compelling was that you could understand and sympathize with her actions, but in this she is literally planning on massacring entire universes. Quite a step in the other direction. Normally, I would be fine with this if there was more explanation. What they did instead was just say, oh, yeah, she's super evil now, without ever showing on screen her descent into that evil, the struggle she must have had. This is a rookie mistake.
Another thing I hated about this movie was the character of America (yeah, that's actually her real name (sigh.)) She just showed up out of no where and said, yeah, I'm super important, and you have to protect me. There is no substance whatsoever to this character; she is literally a plot device which serves to keep the story going. If you replaced her with an artifact or something that could do the same thing, there really would be no difference, except for the fact that we would be spared her wooden and awful dialogue. She was just a MacGuffin, pretty much, not an actual character.
Finally, one major problem is the entire plot. It's supposed to be about the multiverse (hey, it's in the title, right,) but instead, we get a movie that is hardly about the multiverse. There is some multiverse stuff, but it mostly is about evil Wanda and random girl that came out of nowhere. My jaw dropped to the floor when I learned that Patrick Stewart would be reprising the role of Dr. X, which officially means that the X-Men are in the MCU, and John Krasinski as dr. Reed Richards of the Fantastic 4, one of my favorite comics, and also it's Jim. Sadly, they got a couple of lines before being killed off. Very disappointing.
Overall, it's a pretty bad movie, and Spider Man: No Way Home did the multiverse WAYYYYY better than this movie. 6/10.