![]() Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is trying for a blend of horror and humor, something close to the heart and terror that Raimi was able to bring to bear throughout his career. And it’s easy to see why Marvel would absorb Raimi, with all his weight and prestige, into its machinery. Your career either dies with some integrity or you live long enough for your artistry to be absorbed and nullified by the Marvel machine. These are expectations that aren’t quite met in the latest MCU installment, a truth not so much surprising as it is grimly disappointing. ![]() It has also piqued audience expectations for a familiar blend of pop art and macabre intrigue. In hiring a beloved “auteur” like Raimi to take over the Doctor Strange sequel, Marvel has given the Multiverse of Madness some heft. But in films as mammoth as these, the latter can only go so far. The body can be a site of horror and power in the superhero genre, an idea that is made lightning bright by a combination of good scripting and the approach actors take to it. The swooning camerawork elevates sequences like the failed surgery of Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) in Spider-Man 2 - darkness swallows the characters whole, while the cutting sound design of nails scraping against tile leaves you with goosebumps. ![]() ![]() Its arch dialogue and visual ecstasy serve to streamline our understanding of the characters, allowing them, as well as the world they inhabit, to feel uniquely real even with its heightened tone. The pleasure of director Sam Raimi’s trilogy of Spider-Man films beginning in 2002 can be found in the bombast. Faced with infinite plot possibilities, Marvel couldn’t come up with a less sexist Wanda story line? ![]()
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