I remember being really excited for "Multiverse of Madness" back when it was first getting announced. I personally consider the previous Doctor Strange to be one of the MCU's best entries. Plus this sequel was being touted as the franchise's first horror film, which is maybe my personal favorite genre of movies overall. My anticipation quickly began to wane however as soon as the news broke that original director Scott Derrickson, a man known for delivering creepy hits such as Sinister, had departed the project over "creative differences." Now, like many I took this to mean that Derrickson's vision was too dark and scary for Disney/Marvel, who wouldn't want to hurt the all-encompassing appeal these flicks have and potentially lose out on some of their subsequent box-office returns as a result. Pair that with what a mixed bag Phase 4 has been and it shouldn't be hard for you to gather why I've sat on watching this for so long. A glimmer of hope returned upon hearing that Sam Raimi would be taking up the reins following his predecessor's exit. He delighted me in my childhood with his Spider-Man trilogy and in my late teenage, early college years when I discovered his prior Evil Dead series. Heck, I even liked his Wizard of Oz prequel. His presence behind the camera can definitely be felt here. Seeing Stephen Strange struggle with the failure of his love life carried similar vibes to watching Tobey Maguire pine for Mary Jane back in the 2000s, while an early action sequence set in New York calls to mind certain epic clashes against a robotic-limbed mad scientist. There are even plenty of unholy monstrosities that look like they jumped straight off the pages of the Necronomicon. Unfortunately, these personal touches can't hide the amount of studio interference bringing the experience down. Not because anyone necessarily prevented Raimi from delivering the amount of horror content he wanted to. The titular sorcerer conjures demons like he's Bayonetta or something, and there's a shocking amount of gore. Nothing quite worthy of an R rating, but still unexpectedly macabre enough to elicit a surprised reaction upon witnessing things like a monster having its eye impaled and then ripped out. Rather, it's that he's forced to work with and around a bland, unnecessarily convoluted narrative. One that fails to do anything interesting with the multiverse concept, instead just using it to shoehorn in more of those ridiculous, and honestly these days kinda bland, cameos meant to tease further waves of endless future installments. The plot gets so needlessly complicated that I struggled to pay attention around the midpoint and had almost mentally drifted out entirely by the end. The saving grace writing-wise is Scarlet Witch. Not only is Elizabeth Olsen absolutely terrifying, but her entire character arc over the course of the MCU has led to a fantastic sympathetic villain turn that makes sense and feels earned. Allow me to make it 100% clear, WandaVision is required viewing before stepping into this. Multiverse is more Maximoff's movie than it is Strange's, similarly to how everybody claimed Infinity War was for Thanos. Olsen absolutely COMMANDS the screen in this role, and I truly hope this isn't the last we see of her. Easily the cinematic universe's best, most well-realized antagonist to date. If there's one thing I can give Phase 4 credit for it's how experimental it has been. A lot of the wilder stuff from the comics has been getting adapted lately. It's hard to praise that too much though when the very nature of how these films and miniseries work makes it so all that's being introduced or tried out feels impermanent and therefore pretty superfluous, or even worse like something that's only going to payoff in a later phase somewhere down the line. This outing is another unfortunate victim of that fact. Its director does provide a bit of interest thanks to the hints of nostalgia and gruesomeness he brings to the table, and I love what was done with one of the more prominent longtime female Avengers. Yet, this overall comes off as yet another entry ultimately destined to be half-forgotten as the inconsequential chapter in the grander picture of the MCU that it is. The absurdly unintelligible adventure contains nothing of consequence and, while slightly creepier than the rest of its peers, doesn't contain the fear factor necessary to truly stand out from the from the pack in any meaningful way.