Metacritic reviews

Multiverse of Madness isn’t wildly unconventional in its story choices, but the fun it has exploring the possibilities of this narrative makes it a treat.

At its finest, this psychedelic, horror-strewn romp’s artistry perfectly reflects the intensity of Strange navigating endless alternate realms.

In the hands of director Sam Raimi, Multiverse of Madness is a marvellously assured balancing act of bizarre weirdness and affecting human drama.

“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” might be the most insanely Marvel movie ever, for good and ill. Unleashing the infinite possibilities of the multiverse throws open the studio’s toybox, but the anything-goes aspects of that can be alternately thrilling, disorienting and occasionally, a little silly. All told, this sequel proves highly entertaining, if not quite worthy of the pent-up demand for it.

The action sequences are fun. Paired with the film’s visual style and horror elements, it fares well enough, though the personal journeys are lacking.

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.

This isn’t one of the best movies of this genre. But when at its best, it takes Marvel places it’s been entirely too timid to go before, and I’m NOT talking about this endlessly flogged “multiverse” business.

The multiverse madness is treated with genial high-energy panache, though I have to say that this infinite profusion of realities does not actually feel all that different in practice from the shapeshifting, retconning world of all the other Avengers films. And infinite realities tend to reduce the dramatic impact of any one single reality, and reduces what there is at stake in a given situation. Nonetheless, it’s handled with lightness and fun.

Though unsatisfying in some respects, the film is enough fun to make one wish for a portal to a variant universe in which Marvel movies spent more time exploiting their own strengths and less time trying to make you want more Marvel movies.

The film feels like a collection of ideas that never add up.