Opinion | New Doctor Strange film shows Marvel's struggle to meet its peak

A film student discusses visuals, runtime and the Marvel formula in this spoiler-free review of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” Photo collage by DANIEL PEARSON, Photo Editor

With Marvel Studios’ recent masterpiece of “Spiderman: No Way Home,” I had concerns as to how any project moving forward could top, or even meet, the level of expectations set by the studio. Unfortunately, my concerns were confirmed in their latest release.

Sam Raimi’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” shows that, while Marvel Studios’ charm may never dissipate, the studio has clearly reached a point where they will struggle to meet the standard of quality set with previous films in the franchise.

“Multiverse of Madness” is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and follows the cross-encounters of Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and teenager America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who has traveled to Strange’s universe using her multiverse travel abilities. Viewers soon learn Chavez is attempting to run away from demons sent to steal her powers, and it is up to Strange to protect Chavez while traveling the multiverse and confronting her enemies.

Benjamin Moscoso, sophomore broadcast journalism major

With limited knowledge of the multiverse apart from his recent mishaps in “Spiderman: No Way Home,” Strange reaches out to Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) to get a better understanding of what he needs to dip his toes in. However, the results only lead to the situation at hand getting more complex than it ever needed to be.

Throughout the multiversal travel and the captivating action scenes, “Multiverse of Madness” carries the same qualities that are to be expected of Marvel Studios’ films. The visual effects are (for the most part) unmatched in quality, and given how visually appealing the first film was, the “Multiverse of Madness” visuals excel — especially during the multiversal travel scenes.

All of the characters in this film are portrayed wonderfully as well, with Cumberbatch flawlessly pulling off Strange and Gomez creating a brilliant addition to the MCU. I have to especially give credit to Olsen, who portrayed the Scarlet Witch at the absolute best in her MCU career thus far through her raw emotional portrayals and shocking action sequences.

But none of these characters could have excelled if it weren’t for Raimi’s specific direction of making the film take on a more gothic horror approach. This single creative decision made the film stand out far more than any MCU project to date, and it works incredibly well given the characters and concepts utilized in this film. 

The overall plot is also paced well, which is a surprise considering that the run time of this film happens to be its biggest downfall.

Compared to other Marvel movies like “Avengers: Endgame” which spans a duration of over three hours, “Multiverse of Madness” has a short-for-standard run time at two hours and six minutes. As a result, there are clear signs of compromise in terms of what was prioritized during the film. 

Coming into the film, I expected the slower story-building scenes to be overshadowed by the action scenes, but the exact opposite occurred. Given the abundance of story-building scenes, I left the theater feeling as though there could have been so much more emphasis placed on the action in this film. 

Marvel Studios heavily advertised the concept of the MCU multiverse as a major aspect of the “Doctor Strange” sequel — which has the word “multiverse” in its title — but unfortunately, I believe this concept wasn’t utilized to its full potential.

This was incredibly disappointing, as the visual and world-building potential of deep-diving into the multiverse concept could have easily sent this film’s overall quality over the roof. Even the major surprise in this film was incredibly short, which felt like a disservice to future Marvel films, considering the impact this reveal could have had on the entirety of the franchise going forward. 

I was let down when the movie’s biggest spoiler was not only of limited importance to the actual film but a complete let-down to the MCU fanbase.

That doesn’t even dive into the two major technical gripes that make this film go down a few notches. For starters, while most of the visuals were done to a T, there were also some scenes that clearly showed the use of a green screen, making those scenes feel very unnatural. 

But perhaps the most important technical inconvenience was the fact that “Multiverse of Madness” is the first film in the MCU that requires a full understanding of some of their Disney+ series to grasp some of the film’s most important aspects. While this is a wise financial decision, I don’t exactly like the concept of purchasing a subscription in order to not be kept out of the loop.

Even taking all of these flaws into account, “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is still a good film with (mostly) unmatched visuals, a great portrayal of characters and solid overall pacing. However, with the sheer amount of potential that the advertised concepts would’ve brought to the table, I can’t help but wonder how much this film could have improved if it was just 30 minutes longer. 

This film truly makes it seem as if Marvel Studios has reached its peak, which is both a blessing and a curse for projects to come.