Marvel’s highly anticipated ‘ Doctor Strange in Multiverse of Madness’ was released on May 6. Coming from a big fan of Marvel, I really enjoyed the movie and would highly recommend it to other Marvel fans. But if you don’t have a pretty in depth understanding of Marvel, it might be a little bit less enjoyable or confusing. 

     To start off, this movie got a critics score of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is kind of on the lower end of the scale for most Marvel movies, but I can kind of see where that came from. Sometimes, a big reason why people like superhero movies is because they’re fun and action-filled with an easy-to-follow storyline and coherent plot. In the Multiverse of Madness, there are definitely parts of the movie that could be very confusing to some casual viewers that aren’t really big fans of Marvel due to some storylines that were followed throughout the film. 

     For example, if you haven’t watched the Marvel series Wandavision, there’s a solid chance you won’t understand about half of the movie. Also, if you haven’t watched the first Doctor Strange, there is part of his storyline that might be a bit cloudy as well. Wanda (one of the main characters), has a huge role in this movie, but it is all centered around what happened in Wandavision and the two previous Avengers movies (Infinity War and Endgame). So if you haven’t watched those, you won’t really understand why she does the things she does or what caused her to want to do them. 

     The movie is 2 hours and 6 minutes which is a little under average for these Marvel movies, but it packs in action from just about start to finish. It starts fast and does not slow down at all until the end. The first scene is an action-packed chase scene, then about four minutes of downtime, then it just blows up into absolute madness. I think it could’ve been beneficial for the movie to have a bit of downtime instead of just going full speed at all times. 

     It’s also a lot darker and more violent than most of the franchises’ other movies so it’s definitely different than we’re used to. But I personally really like the way it had a more thriller-type feel to it because they were really able to do more with the film than if it was just a normal Marvel action movie. The introduction of other characters from different universes and other superheroes such as Reed Richards and Captain Carter of the Marvel Illuminati was pretty cool but again, if you haven’t learned about who they are or anything like that, then it could’ve been sort of underwhelming.  

     The idea of Doctor Strange and a multiverse traveler moving through dimensions while being chased by one of the most powerful beings in the MCU is pretty cool when you think about it. But the time that this movie was squished into just made it feel pretty rushed and the film really would have benefited from some downtime so the viewer isn’t constantly stressed about the constant action sequences. I do also think that if the movie was just a bit longer, it would’ve allowed for the ending to have more closure and really just make the whole movie a little bit better.

     That being said, I personally really enjoyed this movie. I really like Wanda and Doctor Strange and it was very cool to see them together in a movie like this. I’m a big fan of Marvel and I think knowing who everyone was in this movie, even if they just had a cameo role, really helped me to enjoy it so I wasn’t confused. I do get why there were some mixed reviews about this movie but I would definitely recommend this movie to action or superhero fans, and I look forward to being able to watch it again soon.