Review - Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness

Dr Strange 2 follows the titular wizard as he tries to protect a dimension hopping teenager from a powerful villain.

CONVOLUDED
A lot of people conflate the MCU as being one long story, which I disagree with; it’s a series of smaller franchises that share a universe and occasionally cameo.
Dr Strange 2 however feels a lot harder for new people; it references multiple movies and shows while trying to be a direct sequel to its previous movie. Being more selective with what to bring up and what to omit would have been a huge help, but that’s only half the problems I have with the movie.
Dr Strange’s arc feels somewhat confused about what’s it’s trying to be; is he a man trying to get over his ex, or a hero struggling with the fact that his alternate selves all seem to lose their way in one way or another. Picking and focusing on one arc would have really helped the flow of the movie; it’s a little over 2 hours but feels much longer.
It would also help to tie his story much closer to the villain as well as the new hero, America Chavez; it would make it feel like a much more like a solid movie than a bunch of sup-plots happening at once.

VILLAIN
The villain is much better handled; equal parts tragic and downright terrifying.
Especially terrifying!
The director, Sam Raimi is best known for his horror movies and this puts him right into his element, more so than his Spider-Man trilogy.
Unlike Strange, the villain is much more consistant in their goals and arc.

ACTION
The action is comparatively tamer than the previous movie, with more grounded set pieces which feel more typical super-hero.
The only real stand out is a battle where both sides use the soundtrack against each other, and that is not an exaggeration or a euphemism. Wish there were more moments like that.
Its does deliver on the visuals however; it shows what creative steps can be taken with CGI, with a lot of striking visuals that really stand out, debatably more so than the first movie and with a much more horror feel to them.

CONCLUSION
It’s a messy movie in dire need of a second draft, but it’s distinctive visuals and compelling villain make it a very enjoyable movie.

I’m interested to see how this feels to an audience new to the MCU; a movie should be accessible, no matter if it’s the second instalment or the twentieth, and I’m not sure if this one is.
It’s not a good entry point to the MCU, but it’s certainly not one you’ll forget, for better or worse.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Fantastic Beasts follows Newt Scamander, a Wizard who studies magical animals, as he tracks down several monsters that have escaped into New York, while also being drawn into a conspiracy that threatens the world.

The first theatrical spin off of the Harry Potter franchise, Fantastic Beasts tries to take the franchise in a more adult direction, which I applaud.
The fan base for this series has grown up and with it a more mature change of direction is a good direction to take it (though debatable this franchise hasn’t really been a kids story since around the fourth movie, but I digress).

The issue is with the execution; the story has a metric ton of plot holes that really start to add up.
Characters do stupid things or know things because the plot needs them too, and the ending pulls a Deus Ex Machina out of it’s all to solve all the movies problems.
It’s really distracting when you keep asking, “wait, why is this person doing something stupid?”

The biggest sticking point was an execution scene; Newt discovers the villains identity and he tries to have him killed via a strange execution method where the prisoner is sat on a chair over what looks like Mercury that…I think it burns them. Drowns them? It’s really not clear, but that’s the least of the problems.
Why is the villain using this method? Can he do this? There’s no trial? We saw in the Harry Potter movies that they have a judicial system to imprison people, but execution can be assigned by whoever?
And why kill them? It makes him look really suspicious. A better method would be to use mind control (which this series has established does exist), have them attack someone in public and gun them down in self-defence? Or have them go free and draw attention away from you.
It raises so many questions that could be easily avoided, but they were really set on filming this scene so just worked it in.
A recurring issue when we get to the sequels, but let’s stay focused on this movie.

It’s a very ugly looking movie too.
There’s little life to any of the images, it’s all shades of grey and brown. And scenes in the dark become really difficult to see what’s happening.
There’s a scene where they enter the American Ministry of Magic and this whimsical music plays, but it looks washed out and unimpressive, so the music feels like it’s trying to hard to impress me.

I did enjoy the characters however; Newt himself, played by Eddie Redmayne, is well cast and delivers the idea of a social awkward man who communicates well with animals but struggles with people. Redmayne has great subtle acting to accentuate this; the way he avoids making eye contact, his speech feels nervous without mumbling so we can still understand him.
The ultimate test is that the main danger is a human, the one animal he can’t talk to well, so it’s great to see him overcome his shyness to help someone else.

Another aspect I enjoyed was the romance between the characters Kowalski and Queenie. They are both very likeable characters that have a real friendly energy to them, and they make for an extremely cute couple.
Sure hope the sequel doesn’t do anything to mess this up! (it does)

CONCLUSION

This is a flawed but not unsalvagable movie; I can generally accept issues like plot holes and unappealing visuals if the characters are right, but this really tested my limits.

I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s not without it’s merits, and I can see someone else getting into this movie even if I didn’t. However I can’t recommend it.
The original Harry Potter movies were mature enough and all really good movies (well, except maybe 4, but I enjoyed that more than this movie at least), so I would say they are more worth your time.

Operation Mincemeat

Operation Mincemeat follows British spies in world war 2 that try to trick the German military in advance of a major battle.

I’m not really a fan of war movies, WW2 in particular; after a while they kind of blend together for me.
Though I am partial to the ones that feel different; Hacksaw Ridge for example was a refreshing subversion of the classic formula, and I feel the same about this movie.
Not only is a different sort of war movie, it’s a different sort of spy movie; it’s not about gunfights or gadgets (aside from a cute moment) but a more realistic look into espionage that pays homage to the real life spies that fought in the shadows to protect their homeland.

Sadly this movie falls apart in the character aspect.
The romance between Colin Firths Ewan and Kelly McDonald’s Jean felt underdeveloped and really dragged the movie down.
The idea of two character working on a cover story for a fictional soldier and his lover living vicariously through their fantastical characters has merit, but it never felt like a romance.
I honestly didn’t know that’s what they were going for until they just came out and said it.

But more annoyingly was the character of Charles, played by Matthew Macfadyen.
He comes across as a petty and jealous creep, who leers at Jean throughout the entire movie.
I would be fine if they wanted a love triangle, but it’s not even that. He’s not even an angle in this non-existant romance.
Nothing against Macfadyen’s portrayal; he’s clearly doing as directed and doing it well, but I question why he was written this way or what the movie was trying to bring across.

The movie really shines in the actual deception part of the movie; the plot is based placing fake documents on a dead body and making sure it makes its way into German hands, and that they believe it.
A lot of effort goes into showing the detail; manufacturing a cover story, getting the right dead body, having Charles wear the uniform of the soldier throughout the movie so the wear and tare looks realistic.
And when something goes wrong, there’s real tension; I was honestly on the edge of my seat time times when something threatened to unravel the whole plan.

It’s also a surprisingly funny movie; a lot of black humour works its way into the plot and it got a lot of laughs out of the audience I was with.

CONCLUSION

While the romance and characters felt lacking, the focus on espionage and the sense of humour helps elevate this movie.

My parents really enjoyed it so that may give you an idea if it’s right for you, and the parts that I strong are still enough for me to recommend this movie.
But maybe wait until it’s available for streaming; it is worth it for the unique take on the spy genre, so long as you can wait through the sucky parts.