On a muggy Sunday afternoon, I went to see the new Dr. Strange movie. It’s very far from my favorite Marvel movie, but it was extremely entertaining. The whole movie is basically everyone versus the Scarlet Witch (Wanda), who is trying to take the power of a young girl (America Chavez) with the ability to move throughout the multiverse. Wanda kills everyone in the Kamar-Taj during the first 30 minutes of the movie, so it’s up to Stephen Strange, zombie Dr. Strange, evil Dr. Strange, Christine (Dr. Strange’s love interest), Wong, and Chavez to save the multiverse.

I really enjoyed seeing Wanda so powerful in this movie, but her villain arc was a bit disappointing. Throughout the movie she was acting like a crazed, delusional “mother,” trying everything to get back to her two annoying children, who aren’t even real and sing creepy songs about ice cream. Wanda only realized her wrongdoing within the last 20 minutes of the movie, and then died. Maybe. But overall, I love her character, she was my first favorite marvel character and still is. She was especially amazing during the jump-scare scenes.

America Chavez, on the other hand, was a fairly decent character: your average sassy young kid with the power of multiversal travel. Chavez and Strange’s friendship was nice too, yet it didn’t make up for her slightly irritating moments. Chavez continuously claimed that she couldn’t control her powers and that they only worked when she got scared. Plenty of terrifying things were happening during the movie, but they never sparked her ability to travel into a different dimension. After a pep talk from Strange’s zombie variant at the end, she suddenly had full control over them even though she never tried to take control over them before. 

Moving onto the plot, it was sort of a zombie-comedy-suspense-thriller. They tried to pack too many genres into the movie, but the thriller/suspense/horror aspects were honestly pretty good. A lot of the jump-scares actually got me. It wasn’t terrible, I just think they tried to pack too much into this movie. Some students, like Alice Young, had similar thoughts about the movie.

“The movie definitely had a lot of twists – some were interesting and some felt unnecessary. They had a lot of ideas for the movie and just decided to do everything.” said Alice Young, a junior at AHS. “It was pretty chaotic at times which occasionally led to a really great scene. Wanda’s development into a villain felt somewhat rushed in the beginning which led me to believe she wouldn’t stay evil for long. Then she started killing everybody. She was the most interesting part of the movie for me, and hopefully this won’t be her last appearance in the mcu. Also, she’s really hot. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie despite some of its flaws, and I’d recommend it to others,” 

The script was wonky, with unnecessary, confusing dialogue surrounding unfunny jokes. A lot of the jokes and plotlines sort of took me out of the story. For example, the Illuminati. Apparently the Illuminati are a group that protect interdimensional travel, and hate Dr. Strange. Also, John Krasinski and Charles Xavier are quite active in the group. Does Xavier’s involvement in the Illuminati mean that the X-Men are also associated? So many questions. That said, a lot of the story and awkward moments did sort of work. Looking back at the movie, some of the ridiculous plot points and jokes weren’t really that bad. 

Overall, it wasn’t that bad. Not as bad as Morbius, at least. I think I just expected more from the trailer and Sam Raimi, the director. A little more Raimi and a little less Illuminati would do this movie some good. 

Photo Courtesy of WIKIMEDIA COMMONS