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Phantoon

I cuss you bad
Extenuating circumstances don't hint at redemption, they imply why someone may be a certain way. Equally though, people still have choices to not be that way. Hela is literally a personification of death in this story, not some poor understood creature. She's happy with what she is, unfortunately some people are irredeemable. Maybe that's not even her fault, but sometimes damage goes too deep.

I'm wondering what film you watched, because "Thor beat up his sister" does not happen. Not even a tiny bit. She spends any time in contact with her brother beating seven bells out of him and trying really hard for eight. She shows up and singlehandedly wipes out Asgard's army, what are you going to tell her that'll stop her rampage? "Hey sis, I wonder if you've considered not being a murder tornado?" What does Hela want? To rule over everything, it being dead or not is optional. If you can negotiate that one before you get turned into ribbons somehow, well bloody done.
 

SpoonyBard

Threat Rhyme
(He/Him)
Moon Knight is... weird. Probably one of the more 'ehhh?' of the shows, but I fear Disney will take the wrong reason from it. I actually LIKE that thus far it's had no connection at all to MCU nonsense, in fact if it wasn't for this week's mention of Black Panther's Astral plane and that fact that it's, well, Moon Knight, the show could easily be its own thing.

Sadly said thing was way more interesting in the first couple episodes and seems to have lost the plot a bit. I appreciate them tackling trauma like this, I don't want to diminish that at all, but I just don't find it as entertaining. Well at least it's not Falcon and Winter Soldier.

Honestly I'd be fine if Moon Knight stays apart from the MCU, but the character I REALLY want to see return is Hippo God Lady. Lookit them ears wiggle!
 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
I was all set to huff and sigh and roll my eyes through tonight's episode, but it ended up being really good. I don't know what to do with myself now.
 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Moon Knight blah blah blah waaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh:

- Episode 5 was the only one I unreservedly enjoyed. Taweret was immediately tiresome and the mechanics of the afterlife made no sense, but all the character work dealing with Marc/Steven's past was excellent. I'm still not sure how we get from that to Steven living in deep cover in London for months as per the beginning of the series, though. Marc doesn't want Khonshu to take Layla as his new avatar, but making himself useless to Khonshu for months at a time seems like a surefire shortcut to that outcome. It seems like the writers wanted to start the series with an identity mystery but forgot to make sure all the dots actually connected.

- They also went way too big way too fast. Councils of gods, turning the galaxy back, kaiju battles, stopping an Avengers-level threat... It's like if DC/WB did a Batman: Year One series and had him spend it on Apokolips instead of in Gotham. Like, yeah, he gets there eventually... but it's not really true to the core of the character or his origins, is it? It's not what you picture when you think of Batman. I really did just want crazier Daredevil in a white suit with Egyptian flavor, not Tomb Raider: Featuring Marc Spector From The Moon Knight™ Series. I don't ask for much!

- I honestly don't know why we skipped past MK's origin and reduced it to exposition and a quick flashback. It's not like it's a story everyone already knows, like Spider-Man's, and it's not overly complicated or lacking for action. Opening with Marc being a piece of shit mercenary, having his change of heart and then dying beneath a statue of Khonshu before being revived as Moon Knight would have made an amazing episode one. It writes itself! (Or you could even save the revival for episode two. Just straight up fucking murder your protagonist at the end of the first episode and then roll credits. How cool would that be?) Just a baffling decision.

- Didn't care for the overall tone of the series, either. I realize this is an MCU production and there's gotta be some humor in there, but it seemed they went for "goofy" more often than "quippy" and it really grated. Ending episode 4 on Marc and Steven doing a big wacky scream in unison directly into the camera had me cringing so hard I nearly clipped through my chair.

- MK doesn't have MAGIC HEALING ARMOR. He's just a dude who gets hurt like anyone else, and he has to deal with it. Watching him get two giant spears thrown through him in episode 3 and just shrug it off was extremely disappointing. Similarly, he doesn't just summon his suit out of thin air like Sailor Moon, but I'm less mad about that. I know Marvel Studios loves their suit-up sequences. Also I guess the CGI on the suit must be pretty expensive because I think we got about 41 seconds of it in total outside of the finale.

- Speaking of the suit, I am still fuming about the Mr. Knight persona being played off as a gag. It doesn't even make sense comedically, as Steven had already seen the actual Moon Knight suit at the end of episode 1, and isn't an idiot. I guess there's still room for them to course-correct on this one, though.

- I suspected, and the exposition of her backstory in episode 4 confirmed, that Layla is a modified stand-in for Marlene Alraune from the comics. That's actually fine with me, and I like that she seems like a more capable character than Marlene ever was, whose character arc mostly consisted of her moping around Steven Grant's mansion and complaining about him. I still don't know about Layla being married to Marc and apparently having no idea about his DID, but whatever. (Why does the avatar of a hippo goddess have wings?)

- I'm a sucker for an affable villain so I mostly enjoyed Ethan Hawke's Harrow (both the real one and the imaginary Dr. Harrow), though I would have liked more detail about him being a former Fist of Khonshu. There was meat on those bones. Apparently putting the glass in his shoes at the beginning of the first episode was Hawke's idea, and I think it was a great one.

- Khonshu himself puts in a pretty poor showing, as we see way too much of him and he comes off as an easily-manipulated dope in the "trial" of Harrow. "Our case has to be airtight!" he says, and then proceeds to present zero evidence and just bellows at Harrow to confess. How about "where were you literally one minute before you arrived in this chamber? Can we take a peek through the door you took to get here and see what you were doing?" Come on, man. In the comics he's more distant and unknowable, and it's unclear whether he actually is a god or just something pretending to be one. There's a line in a recent run stating that he's "colonized" Marc's mind, and I always found that chilling. He's a demanding voice in Marc's head, always pushing for more vengeance to be exacted, more blood to be spilled in his name. Very little of that present here.

- As much as I complain, I don't think Marvel Studios' version of this character is unsalvageable. Rather unusually for an MCU actor, Oscar Isaac is apparently not contracted to appear in any future projects; I guess he didn't want to be tied down to another mega-franchise like Star Wars. But he's been enthusiastic about the character in interviews, so that gives me hope that he might return as something a little more recognizable as Moon Knight.

That's the thing about the moon: It's always changing.
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
BACK IN JULY 2021:
I know I'm VERY mean when it comes to Disney, but I will give the devil their due, they've actually been pretty good about making MOST Marvel things that I've watched feel COMPLETE. Like yeah they hyped up Thanos for a good 8 years, but you never HAD to give a shit about him. He was just some guy in the background, who would maybe get a line or two after the credits that would KINDA setup his next appearance, but it was just a nice bonus. Modest amounts of worldbuilding that never dragged you out of the thing you were actually watching. A little tiny maybe we'll do this next won't that be fun! to make you go "why yes that does sound fun!"

But I guess 13 years of actively stoking the fires of YOUTUBE THEORISTS for free marketing and getting your own streaming service that's all you all the time is not GREAT for encouraging that kind of restraint.

Frankly, if I were one of the creative minds on this, I'd be pissed. I know the lines between ARTISTIC VISION and MARKETING MACHINE are blurrier than they've ever been, but I genuinely can't imagine being happy with ending something I'd assume you worked really hard for on Hopefully this will get them to google "He who remains" so they can find the screenrant article telling them why they need to watch Ant Man and the Wasp 3.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it DEPRESSING, but its DISHEARTENING to see the marvel thing finally TRULY become exactly what I said it was when posting mean things about their parent company on Twitter.

Does that make any sense? No? Well, regardless. It's just kind of a shame.

I don't know how bad I expected this disease to get, but I certainly didn't call them SKIPPING THE ENTIRE FUCKING CLIMAX TO SET UP A GOGDAM CREDITS REVEAL.

The credits reveals are supposed to be BONUS BITS. Little pieces of EXTRA fluff to make us go "Oh wouldn't it be neat if they did something with that eventually!" or "Oh so that's why [SECONDARY CHARACTER] was acting all shifty!" The very definition of something that's absolutely NOT ESSENTIAL to the meat of what you just watched.

It's like.

I was FINALLY onboard. They FINALLY had an action scene worth a damn. I was actually looking forward to seeing how the two guys stuck in a single brain were gonna get out of this one! How exciting!

NOPE

FUCK YOU

JOKES ON YOU FOR THINKING YOU COULD WATCH A TV SHOW WITH AN ENDING.

WE GOT FUCKING *LORE* WE NEED YOU TO GOOGLE HOP TO IT PUNKASS
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
You remember when Iron Man 3's credits scene was just to reveal that that Mark Ruffalo found Robert Downy Jr's rambling story boring?

Or when the Guardians credits scene was an just an alcoholic duck making fun of a stupid space nerd?

That shit was FINE.

How did we let it get this bad?
 
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Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Doctor Strange: Other M was the prescription I needed to cure my Moon Knight blues. Compared to No Way Home, I knew blessedly little about this movie going into it, and I (mostly) loved it.

This was surpassingly dark for an MCU movie! Sam Raimi really brought his horror chops, and Wanda... Whoof. "Wildcat's not going to be happy with this one" was a thought I had in the theater. I love a sympathetic villain, me, and they don't get much more sympathetic than this, but I'm honestly a little uncomfortable with where Wanda's arc ended up taking her. Contrast her with Thor, who has also lost just about everything in a similar cavalcade of tragedies. He, the man, deals with it with some fat jokes and a smile, and goes back to being a fun, colorful hero, whereas Wanda, the woman, is corrupted into a monster by her emotions. I guess it's different when it's your children, but... She even calls out the hypocrisy to Strange in the orchard, for all the good it does her. Not sure I fully dig it! I'll have to roll it around in my head for a bit. That said, give Elizabeth Olsen all of the awards.

I rarely enjoy it when a movie starts off with a big crazy action sequence before we know what's happening or what the stakes even are, like we're just supposed to be impressed by stuff blowing up right away. But I guess it works here, since (our) Strange doesn't know what it means at first either, and it's perfectly well explained later on.

America Chavez is immediately likeable and someone we care about and want to see protected, without which the movie would not work. I'm looking forward to seeing her in Young Avengers, whenever that ends up happening.

I liked the repeated question of whether Strange is actually happy, as superheroes' inner lives don't always get interrogated much in these kinds of stories. But I think I would have felt his longing for Christine more if their relationship had been more of a focus in the first film. (Or if she'd been mentioned at all in the intervening six years, one episode of What If...? aside.)

I LOVE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE SHIT. The Illuminati had my whole theater whooping and cheering. John Krazinski's living the dream! And Professor X got a sting of the 90's X-Men cartoon theme! If I'm honest, though, I expected a little more in terms of multiverse shenanigans, but we only spent a significant amount of time in two alternate universes, and one of them was practically empty (aside from, uh, The Flash...?). I was certain the third act would have us rapidly flipping through a series of weird-ass worlds, but it was not to be. Yes, in a movie this overstuffed with wacky shit, I wanted more. Oh well.

Interesting that we don't see a hair of our universe's Mordo, but Strange is already aware of his vendetta. I'm a little sad that happened off-screen. Also, Strange really went out on a limb by trying to convince the other Strange of his identity via the story about their sister. You don't know that it happened the same way in this timeline! He could have had a brother named Jimmy who fell into a grain thresher instead.

If Wanda from Earth-616 needed America Chavez to cross universes, how was she able to find her and send the monsters after her in other universes to begin with? Dreamwalking, I guess. Also, this is the nerdiest thing ever but I found it interesting that both Mysterio (who was a fraudster pretending to be a multiverse traveler) and Christine Palmer from Earth-838 (who really does know about the multiverse) both refer to the main MCU universe as "616." Did Mysterio actually know more than he let on? It's probably not important.

Finally, as I was heading home from the theater I stopped in a Wawa to grab a sandwich, and the cashier noticed my Captain America shield shirt.

CASHIER: Have you seen Moon Knight yet?
ME: Yeah... I'm actually a big Moon Knight fan from the comics, and I wasn't really happy with how they did the series.
CASHIER: Me neither. You know what the problem was? It was too Marvel.
ME: Well...
CASHIER: I was expecting something more like Daredevil.
ME: EXACTLY

The people have spoken!
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I liked it more than Falcon and Winter Soldier, but that’s mainly because Oscar Isaac was carrying things very hard and also because it had a Bird Mummy.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
I don't think I've seen a goofier looking MCU shot than an alligator goddess growing rapidly while she consumes glowing pink-purple souls
 

Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Scarlet Witch: The Movie, featuring Doctor Strange from Thor Ragnarok felt like, if nothing else, a movie that will have folks talking. I'm not sure how much of it will be good things, how much of it will be about how women are written in narratives, how much will be about What This Means For The Future Of The MCU, how much will be about how the New Mutants movie's attempt to do a horror-superhero movie was found dead in a ditch, how much will be folks saying it's funny how people were clamoring for Professor X and Reed Richards to appear in WandaVision, and the Disney MCU Writing Robot was like oh you want them to meet Scarlet Witch? (-:. Probably not a lot on those last two.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I was FINALLY onboard. They FINALLY had an action scene worth a damn. I was actually looking forward to seeing how the two guys stuck in a single brain were gonna get out of this one! How exciting!

NOPE

FUCK YOU

JOKES ON YOU FOR THINKING YOU COULD WATCH A TV SHOW WITH AN ENDING.

WE GOT FUCKING *LORE* WE NEED YOU TO GOOGLE HOP TO IT PUNKASS
I just completely disagree with this. There were lots of clues throughout the show that there was a third persona. In episode 3 Marc blacked out a couple of times and came to having beaten up or killed a bunch of people (not Steven's style at all). He was also confused about why he was holding a bottle of booze at the start of the episode. He had been a mercenary, but there are scenes throughout the show where he is hesitant to kill people. In episode 4 he talks about how Layla's father was killed, but said that it wasn't his fault. He lead some other guy there and the other guy killed her father. Then at the end of the episode in the white psych ward you see a second coffin that's shaking (after Steven came out of one) but they run away before it opens. In episode 5 there's a scene where (presumably Marc) is talking to Harrow in the therapist's office, but he has a bandaged face and is speaking with an accent. This is the only scene in that office when Marc becomes violent. Finally, during the final fight he blacks out again and it's much more explicit about neither Marc or Stephen knowing what happened. The credit sequence reveals Jake's name, but I didn't think it was supposed to be a surprise at that point that he existed. Just like he created Steven to hide from the reality of his mother's abuse, he created Jake to hide from the reality of his violent life as a mercenary. To me, the surprise was that Konshu was still using him even though he had said he would free Marc and Steven. Using Jake as his avatar is a loophole. that feels very in line with the kind of thing they reveal in credit scenes.

You can google that a name came from the comics, but as Vaeran keeps saying, the show doesn't follow the comics too closely. I've never read any of the comics or googled his backstory, and it made sense to me and felt like a self-contained story.
 

chady

(He/him/his)
Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness: Eh. Fine, I guess. Lots of Raimi touches that I appreciated. Though if you're going to title your movie Multiverse of Madness, maybe you should visit more than like, 1.5 different universes.

I would complain about the direction that the more recent movies and TV shows have been headed, except for the most part it feels like they're not headed in any direction at all. Everything is spinning its wheels. Multiverse of Madness has a bunch more weird meta stunt-casting, and none of it means anything at all. At this point it's not even comic book fan-service, it's more like MCU rumor mill fan-service. Phase 1 and 2 had these little easter egg moments, but it felt like they were building towards something. Now it has been built and it's just, eh. Everything is signposted with "THIS WILL HAVE LARGER IMPLICATIONS THROUGHOUT THE MCU" but then the movie comes out and it's like, I dunno. I guess there could be larger implications. Doesn't feel like it in the moment.

And maybe that's fine. Maybe these movies should just be fun. The new Thor looks like it might be fun. But Multiverse of Madness wasn't fun enough. Another 2 universes as wild as the one they spend half the movie in and maybe they get there. Even What If? did more with the multiverse premise than this did (and the trailers leaned on What If? pretty heavily, but it turns out, nope, this has nothing to do with that either).


Edit: Oh, I almost forgot! Multiverse of Madness happens to be released in the wake of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which does so much more with the multiverse concept that it's laughable.
 
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Pajaro Pete

(He/Himbo)
Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness: Eh. Fine, I guess. Lots of Raimi touches that I appreciated. Though if you're going to title your movie Multiverse of Madness, maybe you should visit more than like, 1.5 different universes.

I would complain about the direction that the more recent movies and TV shows have been headed, except for the most part it feels like they're not headed in any direction at all. Everything is spinning its wheels. Multiverse of Madness has a bunch more weird meta stunt-casting, and none of it means anything at all. At this point it's not even comic book fan-service, it's more like MCU rumor mill fan-service. Phase 1 and 2 had these little easter egg moments, but it felt like they were building towards something. Now it has been built and it's just, eh. Everything is signposted with "THIS WILL HAVE LARGER IMPLICATIONS THROUGHOUT THE MCU" but then the movie comes out and it's like, I dunno. I guess there could be larger implications. Doesn't feel like it in the moment.

And maybe that's fine. Maybe these movies should just be fun. The new Thor looks like it might be fun. But Multiverse of Madness wasn't fun enough. Another 2 universes as wild as the one they spend half the movie in and maybe they get there. Even What If? did more with the multiverse premise than this did (and the trailers leaned on What If? pretty heavily, but it turns out, nope, this has nothing to do with that either).


Edit: Oh, I almost forgot! Multiverse of Madness happens to be released in the wake of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which does so much more with the multiverse concept that it's laughable.

EEATO also did better job dealing with parental love and also just like visually looked better
 
I found it interesting that both [character A and character B] refer to the main MCU universe as "616." Did [they] actually know more than he let on?

If any character refers to the MCU as 616 and thinks it's correct, it should be a sign that they know less than they think.
 
Enjoyed this more as it went on, mostly because the villain (no idea if the identity is a spoiler) is like hatefully brutal. Don’t see so much of that in these movies! Actually liked that the film mostly spent time in one alternate universe because it really underlined that omg wanda sucks; she is a problem. The Illuminati weren’t that bad!

Also the climax with everyone bluntly and confidently giving one-sentence explanations of the metaphysics and the consequences of whatever was going on… beautifully first draft. The screenwriter(s) are right; none of this matters!

Better than Doctor Strange (2016 film) for sure.
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
I just completely disagree with this. There were lots of clues throughout the show that there was a third persona. In episode 3 Marc blacked out a couple of times and came to having beaten up or killed a bunch of people (not Steven's style at all). He was also confused about why he was holding a bottle of booze at the start of the episode. He had been a mercenary, but there are scenes throughout the show where he is hesitant to kill people. In episode 4 he talks about how Layla's father was killed, but said that it wasn't his fault. He lead some other guy there and the other guy killed her father. Then at the end of the episode in the white psych ward you see a second coffin that's shaking (after Steven came out of one) but they run away before it opens. In episode 5 there's a scene where (presumably Marc) is talking to Harrow in the therapist's office, but he has a bandaged face and is speaking with an accent. This is the only scene in that office when Marc becomes violent. Finally, during the final fight he blacks out again and it's much more explicit about neither Marc or Stephen knowing what happened. The credit sequence reveals Jake's name, but I didn't think it was supposed to be a surprise at that point that he existed. Just like he created Steven to hide from the reality of his mother's abuse, he created Jake to hide from the reality of his violent life as a mercenary. To me, the surprise was that Konshu was still using him even though he had said he would free Marc and Steven. Using Jake as his avatar is a loophole. that feels very in line with the kind of thing they reveal in credit scenes.

You can google that a name came from the comics, but as Vaeran keeps saying, the show doesn't follow the comics too closely. I've never read any of the comics or googled his backstory, and it made sense to me and felt like a self-contained story.
Yeah I also figured out there was a third brain dude in episode 3.

I just don't see why they had to SKIP THE FUCKING CLIMAX.
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
Denying me the thing I was actually watching to go OH WE MIGHT ELABORATE ON A DIFFERENT THING A YEAR FROM NOW was never going to build any goodwill from me.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Then what lore did you need to google? The show was extremely self contained (I think the only MCU reference was a brief mention of the afterlife from Black Panther). The stuff in the post credit scene made sense within the context of the show. I don’t think they need to elaborate on anything or even necessarily will. They left it open to the character coming back, but no more than any other Marvel show.

And they didn’t cut away from the climax so they could have a post credit tease. That cut was consistent with everything in the show up to that point. Marc is good at fighting and thinks of himself as ruthless, but when he has to kill people Jake takes over. The post credit just confirmed everything that had been subtext up until then. And, the real climax was when Marc declined to shoot Harrow. He has serious issues with murder (as evidenced by him having an entire persona just to deal with that) and deciding not to murder for Konshu was a big character moment.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
Doctor Strange: Other M was the prescription I needed to cure my Moon Knight blues. Compared to No Way Home, I knew blessedly little about this movie going into it, and I (mostly) loved it.

This was surpassingly dark for an MCU movie! Sam Raimi really brought his horror chops, and Wanda... Whoof. "Wildcat's not going to be happy with this one" was a thought I had in the theater. I love a sympathetic villain, me, and they don't get much more sympathetic than this, but I'm honestly a little uncomfortable with where Wanda's arc ended up taking her. Contrast her with Thor, who has also lost just about everything in a similar cavalcade of tragedies. He, the man, deals with it with some fat jokes and a smile, and goes back to being a fun, colorful hero, whereas Wanda, the woman, is corrupted into a monster by her emotions. I guess it's different when it's your children, but... She even calls out the hypocrisy to Strange in the orchard, for all the good it does her. Not sure I fully dig it! I'll have to roll it around in my head for a bit. That said, give Elizabeth Olsen all of the awards.

I rarely enjoy it when a movie starts off with a big crazy action sequence before we know what's happening or what the stakes even are, like we're just supposed to be impressed by stuff blowing up right away. But I guess it works here, since (our) Strange doesn't know what it means at first either, and it's perfectly well explained later on.

America Chavez is immediately likeable and someone we care about and want to see protected, without which the movie would not work. I'm looking forward to seeing her in Young Avengers, whenever that ends up happening.

I liked the repeated question of whether Strange is actually happy, as superheroes' inner lives don't always get interrogated much in these kinds of stories. But I think I would have felt his longing for Christine more if their relationship had been more of a focus in the first film. (Or if she'd been mentioned at all in the intervening six years, one episode of What If...? aside.)

I LOVE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE SHIT. The Illuminati had my whole theater whooping and cheering. John Krazinski's living the dream! And Professor X got a sting of the 90's X-Men cartoon theme! If I'm honest, though, I expected a little more in terms of multiverse shenanigans, but we only spent a significant amount of time in two alternate universes, and one of them was practically empty (aside from, uh, The Flash...?). I was certain the third act would have us rapidly flipping through a series of weird-ass worlds, but it was not to be. Yes, in a movie this overstuffed with wacky shit, I wanted more. Oh well.

Interesting that we don't see a hair of our universe's Mordo, but Strange is already aware of his vendetta. I'm a little sad that happened off-screen. Also, Strange really went out on a limb by trying to convince the other Strange of his identity via the story about their sister. You don't know that it happened the same way in this timeline! He could have had a brother named Jimmy who fell into a grain thresher instead.

If Wanda from Earth-616 needed America Chavez to cross universes, how was she able to find her and send the monsters after her in other universes to begin with? Dreamwalking, I guess. Also, this is the nerdiest thing ever but I found it interesting that both Mysterio (who was a fraudster pretending to be a multiverse traveler) and Christine Palmer from Earth-838 (who really does know about the multiverse) both refer to the main MCU universe as "616." Did Mysterio actually know more than he let on? It's probably not important.

Finally, as I was heading home from the theater I stopped in a Wawa to grab a sandwich, and the cashier noticed my Captain America shield shirt.

CASHIER: Have you seen Moon Knight yet?
ME: Yeah... I'm actually a big Moon Knight fan from the comics, and I wasn't really happy with how they did the series.
CASHIER: Me neither. You know what the problem was? It was too Marvel.
ME: Well...
CASHIER: I was expecting something more like Daredevil.
ME: EXACTLY

The people have spoken!
Hahaha calling me out like this

So here's the thing. I love Wanda. She is by far my favorite MCU character. I agree that I would have preferred Raimi et al to have written a villain Wanda differently than how she is here...it's clear Raimi wasn't that concerned about where WandaVision took her (and he's admitted he didn't watch all of it), but I think the interpretation of a corrupted Darkhold Wanda was established in the stinger for WandaVision, so seeing the apple orchard suddenly turn red I just went "all right, villain mode enabled, let's go" and I had a hell of a good time. Yes, Wanda's emotions being manipulated sucks. Yes, her stated reasoning comes off as stilted at best, particularly the line about needing America's powers to cure her son's sickness...that felt incredibly forced to justify why Wanda has been harassing a 14 year old teenage girl across multiverses the whole film time. But to have a Sam Raimi directed exploration of Wanda's powers unleashed...that was incredible. And Elizabeth Olsen turned in a performance above anything else in the MCU. Her motivation may have been flimsy and cliched and sexist, but at least Olsen made the most out of it with incredible effects, cinematography and art direction. Wanda was SCARY. And I loved it. And I don't think she's done, either. Can't kill Scarlet Witch with a collapsing tower. I refuse that. lol

Anyway, I really enjoyed the film immensely and can't wait to see it again.
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
Ugh, I enjoyed most of MOM but ended up hating it.
I'm fine with Wanda as a villain. She was already a villain, really, and pitting her against Strange is a good idea because he's a hairbreadth away from universecide himself. And I agree that her absolute brutality makes the movie quite a watch. But when Christine says "she did the right thing" it felt like the movie was arguing that some people are so broken that the best thing they can do is kill themselves. I know that's not the intention of that line, but I had to walk out.

And yes, there's no way Wanda actually died. It's going to be hilarious when they give her a redemption moment and try to memory hole this movie as "that wasn't you, that was the Darkhold" because fiction loves wielding mental illness as that thing that makes people evil and dangerous for a bit. WandaVision navigated that space with ease and of course they screwed it up immediately. I can't argue with the fact that it made the movie more fun, and I honestly expected as much, but I'm still disappointed.
Oh well. I said after WandaVision the MCU could do whatever it wants because it gave me all I needed, and I'll still cherish that show. But I definitely feel back in the territory of just ignoring these things unless my husband wants to go.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
I really enjoyed Dr. Strange 2. It was completely my jam.

As a quick aside, I have seen a few people criticize Wanda’s role, and I agree that there are issues there. At the same time, the movie doesn’t make Strange out to be better. The three other versions of him try to kill America, destroy an entire universe, and then attempts to buy Christine. Yes, our Strange avoids all of that, but like just barely. And a running theme is that he lies about and is unable to express his feelings. The last shot is him painfully sprouting a third eye after directly telling Wong, his closest friend, that he’s fine. Meanwhile, the movie shows that other versions of Wanda are heroic, and our Wanda is being influenced by dark magic, which she rejects once she’s able to see what she has become.

But also, Marvel has a really shitty track record with female characters and only recently have tried to turn that around, so that certainly counts against giving them the benefit of the doubt there.

But also also, my gosh did I enjoy watching this movie. It was a big, silly, fun time, and I was cackling throughout. It had scenes of Strange playing dueling banjos with himself, the Illuminati being killed in extremely goofy and gory ways, Bruce Campbell beating himself up (and helpfully telling us when the movie is over), the works. I saw it in 3D and it looked great, except for a few parts that stretched the screen that made me a bit sick.

The plot is pretty thin, but it’s mainly an excuse for Sam Raimi to play with Marvel’s toybox. Character issues aside, Elizabeth Olsen looks like she’s having a blast. America Chavez is great, and Christine at least had a bit more to do in this one. I like that they’re sticking with Wong being sorcerer supreme. He’s been popping up in a lot of other movies and he brings a lot of cohesiveness to the MCU. The cameos were all well done, and I’d be happy to see any of them return.

I dunno, I loved Sam Raimi movies when I was a teen, and this movie is just littered with shots that are like Sam saying “oh yeah, well check this out” and then he drives a spike into a giant eye or has someone get grabbed and pulled into a puddle. And instead of being horrific it’s funny and you are briefly surprised but then you get to laugh along with it. It made me genuinely happy to watch and I’m really glad it exists.
 

Patrick

Magic-User
(He/Him)
Two other great scenes I forgot to mention:
the fight outside Christine’s wedding reminded me a lot of Spiderman 1/2. Partially because it involved the side of a building, but also it a clear, easy to follow action scene.
And
Zombie Strange making a cloak out of the damned souls was fun to watch.

But when Christine says "she did the right thing" it felt like the movie was arguing that some people are so broken that the best thing they can do is kill themselves.
I did not read it that way at all! It was that she destroyed the darkhold. Also, I don’t think anyone in the movie even thinks she’s dead. they just spent a whole movie showing how crazy powerful she is, she’s not going to be taken out by some rocks.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
OH MY GOD! REED, COOL SCIENCE DAD BEARDO REED!

This was very definitely a Sam Raimi-ass movie. I was surprised and delighted by that.

The MCU really likes sending Wanda through the ringer
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
You think the quickest way to get kicked off a Sam Raimi set is to suggest to him that the camera should stop moving for a few seconds?
 

Sprite

(He/Him/His)
I did not read it that way at all! It was that she destroyed the darkhold. Also, I don’t think anyone in the movie even thinks she’s dead. they just spent a whole movie showing how crazy powerful she is, she’s not going to be taken out by some rocks.
I definitely read it that Stephen and Christine thought she was dead. But you're almost certainly right that she's not dead, which honestly makes everything that much more frustrating for me.

It's annoying, because the movie is doing what so much fiction does in that it wants the emotional heft of a character dying while leaving things open that they're not actually dead. The last scene of Wanda bringing the tower down around her is filmed as though she is sacrificing herself, though of course they wink at the end with a red burst that's either Wanda exploding or apparating away. And I hate that what I find to be a super fucked-up scene will just get handwaved away because of metanarrative conventions.

It's whatever. I liked everything except that scene, and hated that scene mainly because I spent most of the movie in a state of dread that they were going to do exactly what they did.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
The question the movie keeps posing of “Is Steven Strange happy?” Is clearly “yes” because he finally found someone with a sillier name than he has
 
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