This mystical realm is so crowded with plot and characters and magical doodads that there’s no room for the characters
One of the planes of existence in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” features a swirling vortex that has a definite resemblance to the Everything Bagel in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” and it’s an unfortunate coincidence, as the Daniels’ boldly inventive indie movie explodes with wit and nerve and character – most of which are prominently missing from this latest MCU adventure. The follow-up to 2016’s “Doctor Strange” hits the ooh-and-aah marks we expect from a well-crafted Marvel adventure, but even with Sam Raimi at the helm, this entry goes heavy on the spectacle but light on the humanity. Raimi’s success with the original “Spider-Man” trilogy laid the groundwork — for better or worse — for the contemporary wave of superhero sagas, and while his brand of visual flair and scary-funny jolts serve the material well, the screenplay by “Loki” creator Michael Waldron piles on so many alternative universes, new characters, and books of spells (both good and evil) that there’s no breathing room left. (In the first movie, Dr. Stephen Strange goes on a hero’s journey; this time, he basically learns what not to do from the mistakes of his interdimensional doppelgängers.) “Multiverse of Madness” is a sequel to “Doctor Strange,” with the ex-Sorcerer Supreme (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) taking on a new threat to reality itself, but viewers should probably also be up on the Disney+ series “WandaVision,” in which Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) used her own magic powers to create an artificial reality in which her husband Vision had not died and the two of them had a pair of adorable sons in a sitcom-perfect suburb.
