Spoilers - Dr Strange 2 - Spoilers

[Jbo]

Loved it.

After 28 of these movies most of them follow a boring formula. This one did not feel like that. Saw it with the wife for Mother's day and she agreed.

Reading on-line them introducing incursions for Secret Wars is awesome.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Jbo

Loved it.

After 28 of these movies most of them follow a boring formula. This one did not feel like that. Saw it with the wife for Mother's day and she agreed.

Reading on-line them introducing incursions for Secret Wars is awesome.

This is precisely it.

It bucked the formula.

Took some creative risks and even killed off characters (mcu is frustratingly shy about doing this which lowers the stakes in every conflict imo).

I was taken off guard by some of the deaths depicted because it was so NOT like the mcu to do.

About ####ing time they dabbled outside of their proverbial box of low-risk, formulaic storytelling.

This entry will recieve a lower score than most overall because of the weirdos that just wanted more of the same, but its exactly the entry that the mcu needed right now in this post-endgame hangover phase.

It injected some life back into the franchise creatively, at least for this outing.

[GreenLantern]

To be fair, they killed off characters from one of infinite universes that could easily be replaced by another universe. There really is no jeopardy in those characters that died fighting Wanda. It was a a really cool scene and I enjoyed how smug they were till she hit them, but I mean they were glorified “red shirts”.

Now taking an iconic hero like Wanda and turning her into the main villain? Now that was awesome and was a risk. But I doubt she’s gone for good..

[Hack&Lube]

Do I need to watch the Wanda TV series? Do I need to watch the last Spider-Man?

[GreenLantern]

I would suggest Wandavision yes. Not only because it is a good show, but it does set the stage for her involvement in this movie. You may be confused by some things with out it, you could also just read the cliffs notes.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Do I need to watch the Wanda TV series? Do I need to watch the last Spider-Man?

They're both quite good, so yeah you should see them. If you have an interest in seeing this Dr. Strange movie then you'd enjoy both of them.

[Cole436]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Do I need to watch the Wanda TV series? Do I need to watch the last Spider-Man?

WandaVision is essential to understand her arc in the movie.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Hack&Lube

Do I need to watch the Wanda TV series? Do I need to watch the last Spider-Man?

You don’t need to watch spider man.

You do need to watch WandaVision. Id also add Episode 4 of what-if

[habernac]

People complaining that they had to watch WandaVision to get it? Well duh. All of the movies make more sense if you see the rest of the films or series.

Also, do the people who really disliked it have kids? If you don't I can see how it might be harder to understand the motivation of the villain.

I enjoyed it, they took some neat risks.

[#-3]

To busy this past weekend, finally got to watch it yesterday afternoon before the game.

I didn't hate it, but it didn't leave me with the warm feeling of enjoyment that most of the MCU content has.

I'm not a horror movie guy, and while I recognized and understood allot of the allusions and tropes, they didn't inspire much of a reaction from me.

I've really liked in the past that a lot of the MCUs effects were more grounded in practical with multiple layers of CG layered on. Something about the last 5 or 6 installments gives me the feeling that they have either gone progressively to more straight CGI or fewer layers of texture on top of the practical sets. I'm wondering if 12 hours of content / year was the sweat spot for their team, and even if the D+ stuff is lower production level, pushing them up to 40+ hours / year is spreading their team too thin.

I struggled a lot with Wanda's motivation, I think something as simple as allowing her the hubris to believe that she could take America's powers without killing while telling us that was not true, would leave us believing she started doing bad things with good intent, and then let her spiral down form there. Having her know that her express intent was to kill the girl from the beginning before she started out on her journey hurt a lot of the character development we have seen form her over the past 10 years.

I think it would have been nice to see the illuminati take a more sinister turn. They asked Reed about his family, he could have said he lost them, then we could have found out he sacrificed them to save himself in some circumstance, we could have had a similar vignette about Steve and Peggy or possibly Maria and Carol. They could have shown us all of these characters were willing to throw their friends and family away to protect themselves. I think showing that they are not the heroes we expect to meet in the future and having them stand in contrast to Stephans protection of American and Wandas desire to have a family she can protect would have made their deaths a more satisfying resolution.

And the last one is, I think it would have been good if it was a little harder to find Wanda at the beginning. the movie was relatively short by current standards, and I think they could have eased us into the conflict a little more gently. From my understanding this is about 1.5 years after Wandavision, so I think having Wanda hidden somewhere that could only be reached by Strange and Wong would have given us some time to sit with the opening action and a sense that Wanda has also gone a little bit crazy from a long period of isolation.

I think it is one of Marvels worst outings, because there were lots of little character things that didn't give us a sense of who they were, why they were different, why they were doing what they were doing. It just seemed less thought through on a character level, which is what they normally excel at.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by GGG

You don’t need to watch spider man.

You do need to watch WandaVision. Id also add Episode 4 of what-if

I'd say WhatIf isn't essential at all.

Even though they steal a lot of the visual style and themes from it, it's clearly not drawn from the same reality that you are thinking of.

[belsarius]

I enjoyed the movie because it was not the same formula and because it didn't give the warm feelings at the end. The comedy was more subdued and it lacked the wise-cracking of the insect heros. I am actually still disturbed by the Illuminati deaths, I didn't expect this level of gore from a theatrical MCU film. It made sense though, and you could feel their contempt and superiority over 616 Strange. They acted invulnerable and got ripped apart for their arrogance. I feel sorry for any kids that were brought to the movie expect another Spider-man type romp.

But I like Raimi, and thought he was given more rope on this than he ever was on his Spider-man trilogy - but the Evil Dead call backs felt a little overdone. I thought the story pacing was good, not a lot of dull moments, but hearing that 40 mins were cut, I wonder if a little more fleshing out would have made the film better.

My two gripes are that the trailers gave too much - I enjoyed having the 90s X-men theme show up, but it would have been so much better had they not revealed the hover-chair, just Stewarts voice was enough of a tease. And there wasn't enough multiverse - I wanted Loki style multiverse adventure with a bunch of different types of variants, instead we got a 60 second montage (which was cool, but give that to me in like 5 minutes with some real interaction).

I was never a big Dr Strange fan in the comics so I really don't know what to expect of the character, but he is definitely different from the standard MCU hero mold. It was nice to see his arc with Christine play out and see him grow from his "This is the only way" to seeing the world as less black and white.

Theory time tho! I wonder if the Mr. Fantastic cameo and death was more than just fan service, and I don't just mean bringing Krasinski back for the F4 movie. Thinking of the larger implications to the MCU in this phase and the multiverse.

Spoiler!

Since Kang is Nathaniel Richards - a descendent of Reed, I feel like killing him off in 838 is motivation for Kang the Conqueror (or a different Kang). Needing to discover how to access the multiverse in order to extract revenge on the Scarlett Witch would be a pretty plausible and straightforward way for a future Nathaniel on 838 to become Kang - and a way to maybe redeem Wanda

[#-3]

Originally Posted by belsarius

Spoiler!

Since Kang is Nathaniel Richards - a descendent of Reed, I feel like killing him off in 838 is motivation for Kang the Conqueror (or a different Kang). Needing to discover how to access the multiverse in order to extract revenge on the Scarlett Witch would be a pretty plausible and straightforward way for a future Nathaniel on 838 to become Kang - and a way to maybe redeem Wanda

We're both spoilering for speculation about future projects, but we are probably both wrong.

Spoiler!

Barring a big change to the backstory, I don't foresee this one directly motivating Kang. As a person of English descent, I'm kind of over the fact that the Normands probably killed some of my Ancestors during the conquest.

I'm assuming if they are going to use the direct descent explanation from John Krasinski to Johnathan Majors, then they are going through a few generations in there just to make sure it passes the smell test (but who knows, maybe MCU Sue and Johnny are black, or 616 Reed is not actually Krasinski).

I think the more likely Candidates for drawing Kang into the current narrative are the events;
Loki - Avenge He Who Remains.
Moon Knight - Something to do with his Rama Tut variant.
End Game - Was the real event that screwed up the Balance Kang set up, and Loki was just a loose thread.
Antman & Wasp - If Kangs seat of power is in the Quantum realm and htey tripped over it.

[Blaster86]

Spoiler!

I am in the boat that they don't put out the dream fan-casting of Krasinski if there isn't a plan to use Krasinski in 616. Remember every other illuminati character had the actor who had portrayed that character in their main universe. I suspect Krasinksi will be the same and one of the first times we see him will call back to this scene with him actually doing something intelligent to get out of the situation.

[djsFlames]

Think it goes without saying, if you're not a fan of the horror genre and the methods and style of Raimi-made films, you probably didn't have a lot of fun with this one.

I don't think the alt-universe characters were there to be developed.

As for you know who, I think he showed up as foreshadowing to his eventual casting later in the main MCU universe.

I still think even if you weren't a fan, that maybe some of the originality employed here could be appreciated. At least they did some different things for a change.

Not everything has to follow the tried and true formula of the MCU to a T.

Eventually it becomes just comfort food, but with no pizzaz.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Think it goes without saying, if you're not a fan of the horror genre and the methods and style of Raimi-made films, you probably didn't have a lot of fun with this one.

I don't think the alt-universe characters were there to be developed.

As for you know who, I think he showed up as foreshadowing to his eventual casting later in the main MCU universe.

I still think even if you weren't a fan, that maybe some of the originality employed here could be appreciated. At least they did some different things for a change.

Not everything has to follow the tried and true formula of the MCU to a T.

Eventually it becomes just comfort food, but with no pizzaz.

For all my complaining, I think it was a perfectly fine movie, but not up to Marvels stnadards

To the extent Marvel has a formula, this was it to a tee. Although I disagree that Marvel is a boring formula.

They picked a genre, found some representative samples, explicitly copied some set pieces and shots in the film making. Made some quippy jokes amid super hero action, and they chased down a macguffin.

The thing they forgot to do was ground the characters in the continuity for us. Making us believe that Wanda believes she is justified, instead she just took a heel turn fully aware that she was the bad guy now. And like I said with the variants, we just needed something that will easily draw contrast from the real versions we eventually get, the one that seemed easy to me was to make them like The 5 from The Boys, have them so self obsessed that they don't even understand how they compromise the values of a hero. Neither of these problems have anything to does with the horror genre.

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by #-3

For all my complaining, I think it was a perfectly fine movie, but not up to Marvels stnadards

To the extent Marvel has a formula, this was it to a tee. Although I disagree that Marvel is a boring formula.

They picked a genre, found some representative samples, explicitly copied some set pieces and shots in the film making. Made some quippy jokes amid super hero action, and they chased down a macguffin.

The thing they forgot to do was ground the characters in the continuity for us. Making us believe that Wanda believes she is justified, instead she just took a heel turn fully aware that she was the bad guy now. And like I said with the variants, we just needed something that will easily draw contrast from the real versions we eventually get, the one that seemed easy to me was to make them like The 5 from The Boys, have them so self obsessed that they don't even understand how they compromise the values of a hero. Neither of these problems have anything to does with the horror genre.

Huh?

She came across as feeling very justified.

The "heel turn" felt justified too as she witnessed herself the terror in her boys eyes looking at her, whereas she assumed they would embrace her up until that point. That made a ton of sense to me.

I think everything around Wanda was the strongest part of this film, and she's probably a top 3 villain over the 28 films because of her well-developed arc and EO's acting.

The alt heroes thing sounds like very specific desires you had that were unlikely to be met exactly as you would've had them anyways.

All of them were really cool in their own ways.

The only thing I'll give you is Krasinski didn't have to be so vanilla. But the rest "varied" enough I'd say.

[OptimalTates]

The Reed Richards cameo was great but I felt the Susan Storm one was even better.

[Harry Lime]

Raimi was allowed to put a lot of himself into this movie, and every time that he did the result was entertainment. Some of the trudging through marvel exposition stuff wasn't as engaging, but I'd put that part on level with the other marvel movies. The Raimi stuff elevated.

[#-3]

djsFlames

Wandas self justification is singly the worst part of the movie, anyone who is complaining about the movie is complaining about that part, it's the part of the movie that didn't work at all for people who have been fans of the MCU portrayal of Wanda to date.

And typically when someone says heel turn, they are talking good to bad (not bad to good). So I'm talking about the beginning of the movie. the ending where the use the boys reaction to her to stopped her did work for me.

The Alt heroes, I'll grant it's a nit pick, and not one that bugs me much. I do just wish they had come off as a little more sinister. I would have just liked to have had a bizzaro Reed Richards feel from it, so this version does not taint whatever future "real" version we eventually get.