The multiverse is vast and full of possibilities.
Small choices ripple across the time stream and little decisions can can change the world. On our earth Sam Raimi directed Spider-man 3 and it was a critical disaster leading the director to leave superheroes behind.
But on Earth 615 things turned out differently.
On this world, after the blockbuster success of the first Spider-Man the suits at Sony decide that they will keep their hands away from the actual creative people telling the story. With a free reign each Spider sequel in what becomes a tetralogy is more successful than the last helping making Sony the dominant creative force in the entertainment industry.
Raimi tells the Gwen Stacy story as it was meant to be and saves Venom for the fourth movie after successfully nailing The Sinister Six in the third flick.
Meanwhile, Marvel, fresh out of bankruptcy, begins making its own movies but just as production is set to begin on its first film Sony purchases Marvel in an all-cash deal.
Kevin Feige, frustrated with his experiences trying to get blockbusters off the ground sets up a small studio that helps first-time writers/directors make art films on a tight budget. Did you see The Green Knight? In this universe, it’s known as The Emerald Knight and Feige produced it. It won the Oscar for Best Picture.
Sony carves out a new division, Marvel Films, and sets Raimi up as the head of the studio.
First, he taps Quentin Tarantino who writes and directs George Clooney as Nick Fury in Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos.
“I want 50 Nazi Scalps,” Clooney says in a Southern accent early in the film. Also, Fury does not lose his eye to a cat/alien thing but instead while fighting a Nazi Captain (Christopher Waltz) on a sinking battleship shortly before jumping overboard to save the necklace he just purchased for his love, The Contessa.
Captain America (Brad Pitt) shows up late in the film and ends up in the ice again after stopping the Red Skull (Tim Roth).
Fury fights all the way to Berlin where he kills Hitler (Martin Wuttke) by punching him until his head explodes.
The movie is a monumental success.
Next, Raimi taps John Woo to direct Tom Cruise in Iron Man. Tony Stark is a spy in this and not an inventor. The suit is a creation of America’s non-specific enemies. And Tony does not suffer from alcoholism. Cruise didn’t want to play weak.
But, when he puts the suit on for the first time and blasts off as doves fly around him it is a sight to behold. Also, as Tony (Cruise) turns to Pepper Potts (Nicole Kidman) and says, “You complete me,” the audience weeps.
For his next trick, Raimi turns to a master, Martin Scorsese, and asks him to helm Daredevil. Scorcese turns it down.
“These things are just a carnival ride,” he says. “Don’t confuse them with cinema.”
But Raimi is persistent. He sends over Frank Miller’s Daredevil run and Scorcese, looking for his next project and a decent payday after Kundun accepts.
He recognizes, of course, not only how brilliant Miller’s work is but also how Miller’s passions mirror his own. Here is a man living in a world filled with mobsters seeking to stop evil while also living outside the law as a vigilante.
Where a child’s sacrificial act to save another causes him to live the rest of his life suffering in darkness.
A man who loses his father, a boxer, to violence because he won’t back down in the face of immense corruption.
Matt Murdoch is struggling with blindness while also struggling to live up to his Catholic faith.
He is, clearly, the embodiment of a Scorsese protagonist.
They call it The Man Without Fear. In Martin’s hands, it is much more than a superhero movie. It is a manifesto on Faith, the power of love, the search for justice, and the struggle to be a good man in a fallen world.
It is 3 and a half hours long and most of the running time is spent in philosophical conversations between Murdock (Leo DiCaprio) and his trusty pal Foggy Nelson (Jeremy Renner). Electra (Gwen Stefani), Murdock’s lover and superhero partner in the comics, is barely in it and is only there to give Matt a girl to run to after his father dies. She is killed by Bullseye (Joe Pesci) midway through the movie but Matt doesn’t confront him, or even put on the suit, until another hour of discussion about his internal struggles with a priest (Harvey Keitel).
Daredevil doesn’t confront Kingpin (Robert Deniro) at all as Scorcese thinks that should be dealt with in a sequel.
The movie is a critical and commercial disaster.
Raimi, now dealing with worried executives from Sony, announces that he will go back to directing.
He will take the helm of Doctor Strange 2 in The Multiverse of Madness.
In this universe, the first Doctor Strange movie was directed by David Cronenberg. (It’s not all that different from the one you remember. Except Kaecilius keeps turning his victims into cockroaches. The transformation is very painful and umm there is a monumental amount of puss.)
Mysteriously, Doctor Strange 2, is exactly the same in this universe as it is in ours. In fact, Doctor Strange 2, like The Darkhold and the Book of Vishanti, is exactly the same in every universe. Even in the Dark Realm.
It is a fixed point in the multiverse.
So what kind of movie is it?
Well, it’s pretty strong with a decent amount of scares and that patented Raimi hyperactivity. The camera never slows down and the heroes never stop running. Long-time Raimi fans will enjoy the throwbacks to Evil Dead and Army of Darkness — including a scene where the point of view shot is a demonic creature that is stalking an innocent in her home.
It does, at times, feel like it could have been called It Came From the 90s. In other words, it feels like a movie that might have existed if Raimi had started making Doctor Strange films after the Spider-Man flicks.
The dialogue is weak (Illumiwhati?) at times but the story isn’t. Everything that is set up at the start (including a dead body buried by the heroes) is paid off at the end.
Also, anyone who tells you that this movie makes the end of WandaVision redundant didn’t pay attention to the end of WandaVision.
And thankfully, unlike some lesser superhero films, this doesn’t overstay its welcome. It tells its story, offers a few scares, a few laughs, and a giant eyeball monster wreaking havoc in New York City.
Anyone who was hoping for more than this will have to find a way to dream walk through the multiverse and watch a different version of Doctor Strange 2.
Unfortunately, for them, there are no other versions of this flick.
It’s just Multiverse of Madness all the way down.
Dark Highways 
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