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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 332439" data-attributes="member: 23">Doctor Strange In The Multitude Of Madness continuedThe performances were great. Benedict Cumberbatch was fine. Sometimes with his Strange I get the sense that he’s almost phoning in his performance in what I presume to be his big moneymaking gig rather than an acting challenge. However, I don’t know if it just seems that way because he makes it look so effortless. Yet more good news is that his vocal creak has been greatly toned down here compared with earlier films. I barely noticed it here, while it was one of the more distracting elements of the first Doctor Strange film. Elizabeth Olsen was great as Wanda. Her more villainous Scarlet Witch read like The Queen from Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, which is great. Who doesn’t love an arch bitch. But at the same time I really felt her tap into the emotion of the entire WandaVision arc to inform her performance so that there were many layers and nuances, which really paid off as the film went along. By the time she was dreamwalking into her “nice” alternative universe self, I really bought they were two different people. And she made the film’s climax feel that much more important and meaningful. This may be a Doctor Strange sequel by name, but as a WandaVision follow up it’s even more satisfying. On reflection, I’m viewing this as a Scarlet Witch film, guest-starring Doctor Strange. On the subject of guest-stars, one of this film’s big surprises was spoilt for me by one of those autoplay trailers on a certain well-known video sharing site, which opened with Patrick Stewart’s distinctive voice addressing Stephen Strange. Naturally, I clicked immediately out so I didn’t have context, but it seemed a dead cert that Strange would meet a parallel universe version of Charles Xavier at some point. Thankfully, his appearance was a little more substantial and prolonged than I’d expected. What’s more, his introduction was accompanied by with an even less subtle interpolation of the theme from X-Men: The Animated Series than we heard in Ms. Marvel. This leads me to suspect that the MCU’s take on X-Men might well be at least partially influenced by that series, itself influenced by Jim Lee’s Blue/Gold era on the comics. Even in this film there were a few little flourishes that evoked the comics. Cartoony it may have been, but I really liked the “rippling wave” visual effects when Charles used his telepathy, which evoked how his power was shown at times in the early comics. I couldn’t help noticing that while he’s still a youthful octogenarian, Patrick Stewart now looks and sounds significantly older and frailer than he did a few years ago, which makes me feel that even if he’s Marvel’s (and the fans’) choice, he’s unlikely to want the rigours of playing Charles in a new series of X-Men films over the next decade. With this in mind, I made the most of his appearance here and think it’s nice that he’s made it into the MCU, even if this is it. By the way, is  this the third or fourth time poor Charles has been violently killed-off now?! Along with Charles came with a bunch of other surprises that I really wasn’t expecting with a bunch of parallel universe versions of some familiar faces. Anson Mount’s Black Bolt, segueing from Inhumans to the MCU; Hayley Atwell making another return as Peggy Carter, this time the enjoyably colourful Captain Carter version from What If…? And as close as we’ve got to Monica Rambeau’s version of Captain Marvel with her mother Maria taking the mantle in this universe (I didn’t actually recognise the actress until I Googled afterwards. I thought it was a new character. Even so, I enjoyed the similarities to the Captain Marvel I grew up reading). The most intriguing Illuminati for me is Reed Richards, said to be a member of the Fantastic Four and wearing a full FF uniform. With the FF film on the schedule, is this a taste of the FF we’ll get (actor included)?, or will the film go in a different direction? I’m going to enjoy the possibilities. Somewhere along the way, I'd read that Clea was also in the film but frankly her cameo felt like a damp squib after the excitement of the Illuminati members. As with the original, the score was wonderfully rousing and slightly retro. I’d assumed as I watched it was Michael Giacchino, but it turns out it was Danny Elfman (on reflection, it does have a lot of his hallmarks). With Sam Raimi directing (putting his horror background to good use), it’s pretty much the return of the original Spider-Man film team (Raimi even gives his lucky charm Bruce Campbell the final word). I enjoyed this far more than expected so, with no new MCU material on Disney+ and little to excite me about projects coming in the short term, Multitude Of Madness makes a perfectly decent coda to my seven month MCU journey.For now.</blockquote>

Verification: 6 + 4 =