Almost a decade ago to the day, Marvel gave fans exactly what they had wanted for years with The Avengers, a film that united six of their mightiest heroes in a film that felt unfathomable at the time. The Avengers, felt like Marvel had accomplished something major, a team-up that the company has often tried to one-up ever since. But the MCU has grown a remarkable amount in these last ten years. Disney+ has become yet another way for Marvel to expand this universe, and with the opening of the multiverse, the entirety of Marvel properties is now seemingly on the table. With so many options available, the MCU has quite literally become a multiverse of madness. No rumor too unheard of, no possibility too wild.

With the introduction of Doctor Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) in 2016’s Doctor Strange, it became clear that Marvel was bringing the multiverse into their cinematic universe. So far, Marvel has used this idea sparingly, having fun with the concept in the animated Disney+ series What If?…, and effectively blending the past and present of the Spider-Man films with No Way Home, in a way that both provided fan service and served a narrative purpose.

But Marvel has fully clasped onto this idea in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and in doing so, has shown the complete frivolity of showing a world full of limitless possibilities. When everything is possible, nothing matters, and as one character says when explaining their motivations in the film, “With the multiverse, there is a solution to every problem.” Post-Avengers: Endgame, this certainly seems to be Marvel’s purpose in expanding the MCU in this way. Through the multiverse, Marvel can provide increasingly exciting fan service stimuli, making all the fan dreams come true. While Marvel has usually provided fan service with a purpose, the Multiverse of Madness does so in a way that is little more than giving audiences a moment to hoot and holler in the theaters, and little more.

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Image via Marvel Studios

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In the beginning, Multiverse of Madness focuses on Dr. Stephen Strange’s loneliness, arriving alone at the wedding of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), as he watches the love of his life get married to another man. Post-wedding, after Christine tells Stephen they would’ve never worked out as a couple, Dr. Strange is soon fighting a giant squid monster in the streets of New York that is trying to kidnap America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). America has the ability to travel through the multiverses, although she doesn’t know how to control said power, and the attacking squid was attempting to kidnap her and bring her to Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who wants to use America’s powers to bring her to a reality where she can be with her children again. Strange and America must explore the multiverse and find a way to stop Wanda—who is succumbing to the darkness of the Scarlet Witch—in order to stop her from causing havoc in our own reality and in others.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is at its best when Sam Raimi’s style is front and center. In the first act, with the wedding and the squid monster attack in New York City, it’s hard not to think of Raimi’s work with his Spider-Man trilogy, particularly the melancholy that Raimi brought to Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker. Like Parker, Strange is stuck having to choose what is best for the greater good, while avoiding his own wants and desires. While several characters throughout Multiverse of Madness ask Strange if he’s truly happy, the sadness of the first act never quite permeates the rest of the film as effectively as it does in the opening.

Similarly, Multiverse of Madness also embraces Raimi’s horror roots effectively, allowing the director to make the closest thing the MCU has had to a horror film. For much of Multiverse of Madness, Raimi is crafting a film that feels much more in line with his Evil Dead films and Drag Me to Hell than his Spider-Man films. Doctor Strange is surprisingly dark and violent, as if Raimi has been given full freedom to almost create a horror story, complete with jump scares and an imposing villain that leaves a trail of bodies in their wake.

Scarlet Witch, played by Elizabeth Olsen, stares in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Image via Marvel Studios

Multiverse of Madness strength is in highlighting the scale and possibilities of letting Raimi do his thing. In the first act, Multiverse of Madness feels like a throwback to the early 2000s of Marvel films, while for the first time in over a decade, Raimi gets to go all-in with his insane brand of horror that is both extremely weird and frightening.

But through Doctor Strange, we see that the multiverse isn’t that mad at all, instead, a disappointingly tame version of what it could’ve been. For example, in their first excursion through the multiverse, America and Strange get to see a myriad of possible realities. One where the world is created of nothing but paint, another that is quiet and robotic, and even a quick glimpse of an animated universe. Yet these are just rapid glances at what could’ve been, as a majority of the second act takes the audience to an alternate dimension where some of the biggest changes are that people walk on red instead of green, and pizza comes in ball form.

Yet it’s in this universe where we see the flaws in Marvel’s attempts to try and embrace fan service. Without spoiling the “madness” in this multiverse, Doctor Strange blatantly attempts a crowd reaction akin to the final fight in Endgame, or the appearance of the other Peter Parkers in No Way Home, but without the narrative weight that made those other moments effective. In this desperate grasp for applause, Marvel tries to give the fans exactly what they want, paying off years of predictions, random possibilities, and unexpected cameos, and the result is a hollow plea for praise. It’s as if Multiverse of Madness carved out a segment of the film solely to give the fandom what it wants, and ends this sequence in a way that is shockingly cruel and wholly unnecessary.

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Image via Marvel

While a decade ago, The Avengers felt like the culmination of the MCU so far, the payoff to several stories intertwining and being told in unison, Multiverse of Madness shows just how hard it is to maintain that same idea this deep into this universe. Multiverse of Madness was originally set to be released before WandaVision, yet this story is now a very direct sequel to that Disney+ series. Raimi talked in a recent Rolling Stone interview about how he had to film without knowing what the ending was and without having a script ready, and the fragmentation of this story can be felt throughout. Rarely does this feel like a continuation of Strange’s story, but rather, an extra episode to Wanda’s story, and—when she’s not being used as a MacGuffin—the introduction of America and her possible implications in the larger universe.

Recently, the MCU has prioritized stories that are more closed off and narrow in their scope, be it with shows like Moon Knight and Loki, or in films like Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Black Widow, that focus on a specific part of this massive universe. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness goes in the opposite direction, attempting to tie together loose threads and show the scale and possibilities of this world, and the film just can’t balance all of these many spinning plates effectively. While the MCU’s interconnected nature was once one of this universe’s strengths, now, it almost suffocates what Raimi is trying to do here. As a film that highlights Raimi’s talents as both a director of distinct superhero stories, and idiosyncratic horror tales, Doctor Strange works. Yet as a larger piece in the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Multiverse of Madness starts to show the cracks in trying to continually attempt to build and one-up what came before.

Rating: C+

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes to theaters on May 6.