Director: Sam Raimi
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Xochitl Gomez
Have I Seen it Before: Feels almost normal to be catching a film on opening weekend.
Did I Like It: The first Doctor Strange (2016) had enough, er, strangeness going for it that it elevated a character for which I had absolutely no feeling previously and made him one of my favorite Marvel characters (I’m still marching my way through the Masterworks volumes). When the title for this, his second solo-film* was announced, I thought it just might be one of the wildest titles ever dreamt up by anyone. When the imminently competent Scott Derrickson stepped aside from directing duties on the sequel, owing to the ubiquitous destructor that is “creative differences**”, only to be replaced by Sam Raimi, it seemed like this one was well on its way to being one of the all time greats in all the MCU.
And… it’s fine. It is (in frustrating fits and starts) more interested in table setting than being as weird as it could be. We get how the X-Men and the Fantastic Four might join the MCU after Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, but that act isn’t really committed to. It’s not like we’re getting a post-credits scene of Avengers Tower being converted into the Baxter Building. As far as table-setting films in the MCU go, it probably fairs better than Iron Man 2 (2010) or Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), but the film is doomed to be less than the sum of its parts.
It rises above those other films, likely due to Raimi’s sure hand and singular style. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that this can probably double as the least satisfying Evil Dead film as well, so even Raimi isn’t really showing up to play, although I don’t get the feeling throughout that the man really wanted to get fired. I’m looking in your direction, Spider-Man 3 (2007).
*Has there been a character who has guest-starred in more Marvel movies? To my memory, I can’t come up with one.
** How many “could have beens” are there in the MCU? I’d attempt to list them, but after dwelling on just how great Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man (2015) might have been, I’d probably just get depressed and stop right there.