Movie Review: Dr. Strange
/(IMAGE CREDIT: MARVEL STUDIOS)
With Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (MoM), the MCU officially embraces the insanity of inter-dimensionality. The multiverse has profound implications for the future of the MCU, but comic book fans know that such a vast potential can offer both excitement and risk. Marvel comics have been playing with the multiverse for decades, and has both delighted and exhausted fans in the process. On the one hand, the multiverse allows for amazing possibilities--like seeing 3 different Spider-Men on screen, or merging universes so that new heroes like the X-Men and Fantastic 4 can join the Avengers.
At the same time, it can dramatically lower the stakes for an audience. Multiverses have been used in comics for cheap gimmicks, often so that Marvel can have their cake and eat it too. Want to have a major character die to amplify the stakes and emotions (and sell a lot of comics?) Not to worry, we can always find get another one from the multiverse and bring them back whenever (so that we can continue selling comics.) Bringing this into the movie universe means that significant deaths, like Tony Stark, Black Widow, and so many others, can be undone in ways that rob their significance.
MoM plays with all of these possibilities but with a light touch. It uses the multiverse to show Steven Strange various versions of himself, the end result of choices he has yet to make. With a glimpse at the implications of his choices on himself, his relationship, and an entire universe, Strange is able to identify the dark side of his impulses and actively work against them. On the gimmicky, fun side, MoM uses the multiverse to show us classic Marvel heroes in the Illuminati, and hint at their future use in the movies, even as we watch them get decimated by Wanda.
When I was reflecting on the risks and rewards of the multiverse, I couldn’t help but consider the parallel to Christian eschatology (the study of “last things.”) Ultimately, what Christians believe about the end of everything can be similarly double-edged sword. To believe in the reign of God, that an alternative world with vastly differing values that has collided with our own through Christ, is sort of like embracing a multiverse. There are some Christians who allow it to challenge the way they live now, like Strange did: contrasting the realities where we allow ourselves to be driven by greed and fear, and actively working to create a different reality. However, there are also those who use it as a cop out, wanting to have their cake and eat it too. If another world is coming, and I’ve determined myself as “in”, there are little stakes to my decisions and how they impact the world.
I would be remiss if I didn’t engage an important critique of MoM, which I think bears reckoning for Christians who understand forces like patriarchy to be not part of God’s reign. While the MCU has now produced 28 movies and 6 miniseries, only three focus on female heroes, and both were released in the last 5 years, one of which was WandaVision. While WandaVision presents a well-rounded, character who commits grave harm, MoM turns the most powerful female character in the MCU into a noncomplex villain, and unfortunately ties her villainy to motherhood. Because Marvel is so far behind in providing adequate female representation on screen, they have not earned the benefit of the doubt here. With so many female-driven movies and shows on the docket, though, the story of Wanda may not stand out so much as Marvel’s definitive read on the intersection of womanhood, motherhood, and power.
I hope that the MCU is able to utilize the multiverse for the best it has to offer: deep character studies that cause reflection and change, and a little bit of fun on the way. In doing so, I hope that Marvel Studios continues to reflect on its own impact as a primary cultural storyteller and uses that platform to represent the world not only as it is, but as it should be. Similarly, my hope for my fellow believers, as we embrace our own eschatology of madness, is that we see in the forthcoming reign of God the opportunity for reflection and responsibility to become the type of people who would be citizens of that new world.