As a follow on to the previous post, just thought I would post some impressions and think out loud.
I have always preferred marvel comics. There may be a bit of a bias in my impressions of these films.
So, going in to Multiverse of Madness, I was already a fan of the Dr Strange movie. I loved the fact we where starting to get the more supernatural side of the Marvel into the films (as an aside, please give me a decent Ghost Rider on the big screen). I loved the inception style effects, I loved the fact that Dr Strange grew as a character but was still a Arogant Jerk, just not a selfish Arogant Jerk. Although I thought the interpertation was off in No Way Home and that is only compounded after seeing this film.
- Anyway, that means I was really looking forward to this film.
As another user posted above this is most definately Marvel does the Evil Dead. And I loved it for it. I would go so far to say, after this, Marvel should let Sam Raimi make a Marvel Zombies movie. Like immediately. I have been a fan of Raimi's films since hunting down the Evil Dead during the whole video nasties debacle in the UK.
The films moves at a fair pace, the exposition parts don't come across as info dumps and the cameos where great. However first spoilers so be warned
the speed they where all dispatched was a bit disappointing. I honestly believe 2 of the cameos where designed as a preview/hint to future movies. Just a minot gripe. The cameos where great and I am looking forward to seeing FF & X-Men in the MCU.
This may sound contradictory but I also found the main villain to be surprising yet not surprising at the same time. Contradictory I know. It makes sense if you have kept up to date on all things MCU but I liked their character a lot and the actor as well. Spoilers again but more on themes this time and one of my disappointments in the film
my main problem is that Holywood has gone down the route of grief and madness leading to evil. I know it has always been a part of this character but it is still a shame to see this trope/stereotype again.
For the most part the special effects where top notch. I will say there wasn't enough mirror universe/dark dimension stuff in this film. However that is more than made up for by the Multiverse stuff. I think between this and No Way Home they both owe a big debt to the visual styles of Into The Spiderverse. My only gripe was that
Zombie Strange looked a bit rubbery and too close to CGI (cloak was amazing though).
Acting was great, Xochitl Gomez was great in it and a bit of a revelation for me. Benedict Cumberbatch is perfect for Strange. Again Benedict Wong is always great in every cameo in the MCU and always great to get more screen time. Rachel Adams gets a lot more to work with this time around. As mentioned above I love the villians actor already.
Some final thoughts and problems I have going forward.
- I said it above but I will say it again. Marvel need to let Sam Raimi make a Marvel Zombies film.
- Great film for me, not to the heights of IInfinity War/End Game but still good (bias for the supernatural stuff & Sam Raimi?!?!)
- Film tickets are fucking expensive now.
- Great cameo at the end.
So this film leads me to one misgiving about the MCU going forward. They are starting to lean a bit too heavily on past knowledge and having seen a lot of the MCU movies & TV series. Going in to this I would recommend people have seen Loki, What If, No Way Home (funnily enough you don't really need to have seen the first film) and a couple of other bits to get to grips with character motiviations, what the multiverse is and why the multivers suddenly is. a thing. It's just starting to get a bit too much.
One of the main reasons I dropped comics from the big 2 back around the early 2000's was the big cross over event where you "HAD" to read all the tie ins and you could never be sure which ones where the critical ones. So it was easier to stop reading them altogether.
To see how bad it got have a look at the tie in list for Dark Night Metal.
Updated weekly with new tie-ins and reordered checklist - Dark Nights: Metal is the DC Rebirth Batman event of 2017 in chronological order.
www.comicbookherald.com
To a certain extent I have started to appreciate the likes of Ant-Man, Guardians, Moon Knight and so on as they are less tied into the MCU and have so far been their own thing.
Anyway, sorry for the wall of text. Will be watching the last episode of Moon Knight later, so expect another wall of text...
