Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

This weekend, I went to see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The film picks up after the events of “WandaVision,” and we watch the story from the perspective of America Chavez. Wanda Maximoff is the antagonist who stops at nothing to be reunited with her kids. Stephen Strange travels a dark path with costly repercussions in a fight to save America and the multiverse from an incursion.

It was an entertaining film with several easter eggs. There are two post-credit scenes, one of which sets the stage for Doctor Strange’s more profound journey into the mystical realm, and the other is more of a nod to Sam Raimi’s film “Army of Darkness.” Overall, I thought the film was good. While the film is not on the top of my list, I would recommend it to any Marvel fan.

Review: Captain Marvel

Synopsis

Carol Danvers becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. (IMDB) The film stars Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendolsohn, Jude Law, Lashana Lynch, and Annette Bening.

Review

The opening Marvel montage paid tribute to the late Stan Lee. A touching homage to one of the greatest writers, publishers, and creators. The film had a Star Wars meets Top Gun feel to it. Carol Danver’s origin story was told through bits and pieces of her broken memories.

During the scene when Carol Danvers was caught in the light speed engine explosion, I could not help but think of that scene in “The Watchmen” when Dr. Jonathan ‘Jon’ Osterman became Doctor Manhattan.

We learned that Mar-Vell, played by Annette Bening, came to Earth and covertly worked her way into Project Pegasus, creating the light speed drive using the power of the Tesseract.

The Skrulls invaded Earth after probing Danvers memories. However over the course of the story, we learned that the Kree were the true villains. The Skrulls were a race of displaced people wanting to return home. The Kree’s deception and manipulation of Danvers was a reasonable motivation for her to go back to Kree space and stop their war.

And I can’t forget about Goose, the Flerken that Fury thought was a cat. He played a pivotal role in saving Fury, protecting the Skrulls, and keeping the Tesseract safe. A trusted ally.

The two end-credits scenes were worth watching as the first scene sets up Captain Marvel’s return in Avenger’s Endgame and the second scene is Goose finally “giving up” the Tesseract.

Thoughts

I thought the overall film was good, the action was entertaining, and I liked how they used this film to bring the Avengers Initiative full circle. While the film put a sympathetic twist on Skrulls, I would rather have seen them mistrusting humans thus putting S.H.I.E.L.D. into the middle of the Kree-Skrull war. This could have been the reason that Fury proposed the Avengers Initiative, just my opinion. Brie Larson did a fine job as Carol Danvers, hopefully Avengers Endgame will reveal a character change from her time in space. Samuel L. Jackson showed us a more jovial side of Fury, which was fun to watch. Ben Mendolsohn was phenomenal as Talos and I hope to see him in future MCU films.