In hindsight, I'm not sure I can articulate my expectations for this movie. I suppose "reasonably good acting, solid action, high production values" were there, of course, but those are there for every MCU film. They've set a pretty high bar for action blockbusters. Was I expecting a visually stunning, utterly unique fantasy film? No. I do feel pretty confident that I wasn't expecting those things. But even if I had been, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness still would have landed somewhere outside my expectations. Because I don't care how loose your expectations for a main MCU entry are, you probably weren't expecting a horror film.
So let's talk about meeting expectations in film. What we expect from a film is largely set by marketing for the film (official or word-of-mouth) and it's position to other films. Like if the movie compares itself to Star Wars, that's going to set some audience expectations. Or if a film is a sequel, that will also set some expectations. Doctor Strange: MoM got the same larger marketing treatment as most MCU films, with teasers, trailers, and posters widely distributed leading up to its release. It also had the benefit of the last Spidey movie setting the stage in a small way. So probably everyone was expecting a competent MCU-esque action movie with some weird crossover stuff, especially since one of the trailers was pretty transparent about Patrick Stewart reprising his roll as Charles Xavier in some form of the Marvel Comic's Illuminati.
The movie is also obviously a sequel to the original Doctor Strange, so like, probably most people were also expecting some psychedelic visuals and lots of magic mumbo-jumbo. I'm hoping people who saw the first were also expecting a certain irreverence to the film in the form of a lot of jokes where jokes probably don't belong. That was almost a failing of the first movie, if we're honest, but it was a bit of a trademark of Steven Strange. That's why he got on so well with Tony.
What I don't think most people were expecting, myself included, was a... Oh, wait.
Spoilers below.
Was a campy horror film in which Wanda Maximoff turns out to be, honestly, the most terrifying villain in the entire MCU. She makes the likes of Thanos, Ultron, and Loki look like b-grade amateurs. She is, just, so scary. Throughout very nearly the entire movie.
So what does that mean as it relates to our expectations for the film? Typically if audience expectations for a film are different than what the film gives us it's usually talked about either as subverting expectations or violating expectations. There's a fine line between the two terms, and some people use them basically interchangeably. But for my money a violation of expectations occurs when the marketing and context for a film is just wrong. Like this trailer for The Shining. When the promises made leading up to the film just aren't describing what the film is actually trying to be.
A subversion of expectations, on the other hand, is when a film deliberately obscures some aspect of itself while setting expectations. Everything it promised is still there, but the film also contains something that is going to run perpendicular, if not fully counter to what audiences were expecting going in. The Last Jedi, for all the hate it gets from the generally hateful Star Wars fandom, was a subversion of expectations. Mainly it plays just like every other Star Wars film, except when it comes down to it, the main character isn't driven by destiny. She doesn't have some impressive back-story. That is a pretty clear subversion of the expectations set by the context of the rest of the franchise.
I tend to like subverted expectations, as long as the execution is done well. You could make the argument that The Last Jedi's execution wasn't very good, but I don't think you could make that same argument about Multiverse of Madness. The bits of this movie that are essentially a multiversal horror film are, frankly, excellent. The production falls into that niche with grace, subtly shifting shot compositions and pacing to masterfully evoke the genre it's paying homage to.
But I don't think you can make the argument that Multiverse of Madness was a violation of expectations either. It is absolutely a main entry in the MCU; the acting is very MCU-esque, the production design is excellent, and the action is frequent, easy to follow, and engaging. It's also very clearly a Doctor Strange movie, with the accompanying visual style, musical style, and irreverent wit. The promised multiversal crossovers also lived up to the expectations I had of them, giving us an MCU Professor X that codefies the definitive performance of that character, a glorious vision of Maria Rambeau as Captain Marvel, more Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mordo which I will never complain about, a live-action version of my favorite potential MCU mainstay in Captain Carter, and an honestly perfect casting of Reed Richards in John Krasinski. I got absolutely everything I was expecting out of this film.
And then Wanda spends half the movie Grudge-walking after them and the other half killing all the new people I was excited to see.
But it was so well done that honestly I thought it was stunning. I was thrilled. Did I want to see more of Captain Carter that didn't end with her getting bisected by her own shield? Yes. Did I want to see, like, absolutely anything of Mister Fantastic that wasn't him getting cut to ribbons? Yes. Did I want to see the TV show Inhumans codified into at least multiversal cannon by the inclusion of Black Bolt? Uh... no. But the character of Black Bolt is pretty cool, and that actor was probably the least offensive part of that show.
But here's the beautiful thing about what has been happening to the MCU since Avengers: Endgame; there's an infinite number of all of these characters floating around out there somewhere. The Illuminati from that universe is dead, sure. But if you're not expecting to see Professor X and Mister Fantastic show up again in the MCU, you're crazy.
So the expectations I had for the movie were met, and then subverted, and then enlarged, and it still managed to deliver on that larger set of expectations. The single biggest reason for that may have been Wanda. I mentioned how she was terrifying, and how she effectively turned a large part of the movie into a horror film, but this movie, taken in the context of her story as told through Age of Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War, and Wandavision, is a frankly amazing cap to her character arc. Given everything she has been through, given the utter ridiculousness of her power, it was pretty much inevitable that she was going to wind up evil at some point. She has suffered absurdly, in ways basically nobody else in the MCU has, and she feels downright tragic as the villain of Multiverse of Madness.
Which, interesting, is the thing that made Doctor Octopus such a compelling villain in Spiderman 2. And her redemption at the end of the movie felt just as sad and cathartic as it did in Spiderman 2. Do you need to watch Wandavision in order for that to land properly? Maybe. Hard for me to say, given I have seen Wandavision, but I suspect it's not strictly necessary, though it might help. But it's a fabulously intricate villain performance either way the likes of which I haven't seen since Spiderman 2.
Do you think it's a coincidence both films were directed by Sam Raimi? Oh wait, the Evil Dead franchise is also his. I guess that's why the campy horror bits of the film landed so well. And why Bruce Campbell is punching himself until after the end credits roll.
There's more to the film, of course, like how the music is shockingly well done. Seriously one of Danny Elfman's most effective scores, right down to the inclusion of the X-Men musical stings to announce the presence of Xavier. Or how Xochitl Gomez is an excellent addition to the MCU as America Chavez. But this review is already pretty long. I'll just conclude by saying that I thought the movie was fun, fresh, and seriously well made, and that if I have one complaint it's that if I want to have 100% completion on the MCU I now officially have to go back and finish watching Inhumans.
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