Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sam Raimi
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong,
Xochitl Gomez, Michael Stühlbarg, Rachel McAdams
Despite it making a gazillion dollars at the box office, George Lucas
took onboard criticism of his Star Wars dialogue and
promptly hired two of the best screenwriters about – Leigh Brackett and
Lawrence Kasdan – to work on its sequel. After over 30 movies, Marvel
head honcho Kevin Feige has yet to display any such
self-awareness. As long as these things keep making money, who cares
about the quality, right? The dialogue in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
has had a curious evolution, going from being overly stacked with Joss
Whedon-esque quips to the purely functional dialogue of more recent
entries.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Macguffins boasts the
worst dialogue of any MCU entry thus far. It's two hours of characters
explaining the plot to one another, with not a single memorable line.
Brackett and Kasdan it ain't.
The movie is written by Michael Waldron, who has only previously
worked in TV. Therein lies the problem. Writing for TV and writing for
the movies are two very different disciplines, yet the Hollywood
producers of today keep making the same mistake of hiring writers with
no experience of the big screen medium. This movie doesn't really have
much of a story, but it has a hell of a lot of plot, and all of that
plot is conveyed through dialogue rather than action. It often feels as
though the script is being made up on the fly, like some unimaginative
Dungeon Master pulling a half-assed plot out of thin air during a late
night game of Dungeons & Dragons. A major criticism of the MCU
movies is that they tend to come off as though they're more focussed on
setting up future instalments than telling a single story. Nowhere does
this criticism apply more than DSITMOM. This movie has no life of its own. It exists merely to set up a new
line of Funko Pops, introducing new characters who presumably will play
a bigger role further down the line, but doing nothing interesting with
them. "Oh look, it's Captain Spaghetti," a character shrieks. "Wait,
isn't that Doctor Meatballs?" another reacts, as various human action
figures walk onto the screen and stand around uncomfortably, their PVC
outfits struggling to contain their 'roided up Marvel muscles. Some of
the comics' world's most beloved characters pop up here, but as is
always the case, they just end up punching one another. Who looks at the
vast back catalogue of Marvel comics, with all its imaginative heroes
and villains, and thinks "Let's have them throw rocks at each
other?"
The people in charge of the MCU, that's who! Every movie is the same
bullshit – 90 minutes of plot explaining followed by 45 minutes of
characters breaking off bits of scenery and hurling it at someone. None
of the action set-pieces are ever memorable because they're not
conceived by directors but by "pre-vis" teams. Why hire a filmmaker as
distinctive as Sam Raimi to direct your movie if you're going to
direct it for him? Ironically,
Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange
movie looked more like a Sam Raimi movie than Raimi's own Doctor Strange
movie. Fans of Raimi are tossed a few crumbs here, like a book that
looks a lot like the Necronomicon and a brief
Bruce Campbell cameo that is easily the most entertaining moment
in the whole movie, but there's practically none of Raimi's signature
style on display.
There's a whole lot of multiverse, but not a lot of madness. On the
madness scale I'd place it equivalent to the sort of workplace that
displays one of those "You don't have to be mad to work here…" signs.
Anyone expecting Raimi to take Marvel's millions and deliver a big
budget Three Stooges tribute will be sorely disappointed. As for the
multiverse, well you certainly get your fill if that's what you're
after. The multiverse is one of the greatest cons played on cinema-goers
since the days of William Castle's gimmicks. It essentially removes all
the stakes, as a movie can kill off a character only to say "Don't worry
folks, they're only dead in that universe." If any major characters are
killed off we know they'll be back at some point down the line.
The actors do their best, God love them. Newcomer
Xochitl Gomez is a bright spark as America Chavez, who presumably
is the next Captain America, but her potentially fun chemistry with
Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange is scuppered by the
functional dialogue. You can see the two actors crying out for a few
good lines (why can't Shane Black come back to this franchise?), and
Benedict Wong looks visibly embarrassed with every line he
delivers. Elizabeth Olsen, who has been squandering her early
potential for the past decade, will have you wondering what a great
Catwoman she might make with a performance that evokes '60s icons Julie
Newmar and Elizabeth Montgomery. Every word that comes out of her mouth
is exposition, but at least she manages to make it sultry.
Perhaps the greatest example of Marvel's "Tell, don’t show" approach to
its storytelling is the relationship between Cumberbatch's Strange and
Rachel McAdams' Christine Palmer. The movies keep telling us that
the two are madly in love, but is there any visual evidence to back up
this assertion? A lot of characters remind Strange that he loves
Christine here, but we're left to ask "Does he really though?" as we've
never seen any proof of this. In his unfairly dismissed
Superman Returns, Bryan Singer found an ingenious way of showing how much Superman
cares for his love interest Lois Lane by having him use his x-ray vision
to follow her all the way down an elevator ride. I'm not arguing the
case for rehabilitating Singer, but surely there are other filmmakers
that possess that level of visual storytelling know-how? Maybe Marvel
should let that Sam Raimi guy direct one of their movies. I bet he'd do
a good job.