After half a decade and some record-breaking films associated with the former Sorcerer Supreme himself, Dr. Steven Strange returns in Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, released on Friday, May 6. 

Like any other marvel sequel, Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness casts both familiar and new faces alike on the big screen such as Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, and Xochitl Gomez.

Behind the screens, Sam Raimi, who previously directed the original Spider-man trilogy, returns to have a grasp on Marvel’s strangest (and quite arrogant) superhero.

Being the sane member of society that I believe myself to be, I will not reveal the plot or any major events shown in the movie. To begin my rant, Doctor Strange has been the most bothersome movie to watch for a few reasons.

Firstly, this movie only appeals to a select group of Marvel fans, as this movie is tied to previous movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). I can understand that before watching a sequel to a movie, it is common sense to watch the previous movie; however, this doesn’t apply to the Doctor Strange universe. I feel that the concept of how connecting movies together may be appealing and rewarding for audiences to watch, but who’s going to sit through several TV shows and movies just to understand a few mild jokes in a mediocre movie?

Moving on, even if you did have the attention span to sit through hours of previous Marvel movies and TV shows, you would have to have a Disney+ membership even to have access to these shows. As cheap as the Disney+ monthly membership is compared to other streaming services, who has ever purchased a monthly membership for a two-hour movie? 

When I first entered the movie theatre with my friends to watch Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, I considered myself an avid Marvel enjoyer. I had previously watched every Marvel movie that came to the big screen for the past 5 years. By the end of this movie, I questioned my enjoyment of superhero movies in total. With the amount of fan service that Marvel usually provides, Marvel movies may feel like a breath of fresh air.

This film proved that idea wrong, as with all the fan service and cameos occurring, I could barely catch my breath, thus losing sight of the plot. I feel that recently Marvel has run out of entertaining ideas for movies and has to solely rely on fan service and CGI fights to make up for plot and creativity. Marvel has still done a great job providing fan service, but if they realized that people just want to watch a good movie that’ll stand out through its creativity and originality, then their films wouldn’t have to feel so hard to watch for some viewers.

Despite all this slandering, I still had an enjoyable time watching the movie, and I don’t regret watching it. The movie did include some amusing scenes that appealed to all audiences, with parts that made you believe you were watching a horror movie or a more sentimental movie. Some of the action scenes included in the movie were so amazing to the extent that they could’ve made the movie a 10/10 without any plot. The ending was most definitely my favorite part – and I’m sure many others can agree with that. The ending was unexpected, but it also provided an original storyline to look forward to. 

As confusing as this movie was for me – it perfectly put horror, action, and romance all into one story. I would rate it 7.5/10. I would possibly watch it again if I had a larger grasp on the storyline. 

Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, Marvel’s newest and highly anticipated film, is out now in theaters.