Why is Doctor Strange 2 not "strange" anymore?

"Doctor Strange" once created an alternative protagonist with a unique sense of weirdness. recently released its sequel "Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness". The new film attempts to further integrate Doctor Strange into the Marvel universe, but it also strips away the "strangeness" of the characters to a certain extent. And that's exactly where the first film's strengths lie, and why the Doctor Strange corner is so successful. Compared with the first, the sequel is very conservative: there is no such distinct sense of "strangeness", and there is no narrative technique of symbolic unknown ending. Instead, it is a blunt combination with the Marvel universe, trying to cater to Marvel. of the old paradigm.

In Doctor Strange 2: The Multiverse of Madness, Stephen Strange, aka Doctor Strange, played by Benny , is a former neurosurgeon. He was physically impaired in a car accident, but unexpectedly gained magical powers. In a nightmare, he dreams of his efforts to save a teenage girl named America Chavez from the clutches of monsters. This nightmare turns out to be an alternate reality - America's superpowers to travel across different universes.

America introduced Doctor Strange to the theory of the multiverse, and he was soon able to experience it firsthand: Doctor Strange's former colleague and love interest Christine Palmer; As a guest at Palmer's wedding, he sees a monster wreaking havoc in midtown Manhattan. Doctor Strange jumped from the balcony of the ceremony site and flew into the fight. It turns out that Wanda Maximoff (aka Scarlet Witch ), eager to be reunited with her two sons in another universe, tried to take the superpowers in the hands of America. She was going to kill the girl, and she would not hesitate to hurt the masses. Doctor Strange and his longtime allies "The King", Christine and America have no choice but to step into a bloody battle to challenge the omnipotent witch.

Along the way, Doctor Strange encounters challenges from many other Marvel characters, not least a secret society called the Illuminati. Members here wear name tags and there are even team building activities. It's not hard to see the propaganda intention of the film. It became a hodgepodge of Marvel movies, series, and comics - all of which were set as part of the movie's main plot, trying to advertise them. The commercial swindle of has already begun to emerge in "Avengers: Infinity War": the mad murder of Thanos at the end of the film is proven to be reversible. Of course, the setting of this different world also opens up possibilities for many popular characters, giving them more potential attributes and storylines.

However, this writing strategy prevents the story from adequately describing the main mission. Doctor Strange, America, Wang and Wanda have become fleshless marionettes, their actions are confined to a narrow field, and the complex struggle between the inner and outer of human nature has not been fully unfolded. The characters' dialogues are either as verbose as proverbs or as rigid as telegrams. The action scenes were a major attraction of the first "Doctor Strange", but in the sequel, the action scenes are not as exciting as they used to be, but only formal convolutions and transformations. Those grand scenes, which should have been very emotional, also seemed simple and sloppy.

This Marvel-bound sleazy production is directed by terrific horror title director Sam Raimi . This is a joyful and frustrating thing. Remy's talent has been shown to a certain extent in the later part of the film, but it is superficial and very abrupt. In the film, Wanda's murderous rage is a horror element that runs through the entire film, as a madman traveling through the multiverse. But it's presented like Disney's sacred praise of family and motherhood. Remy's expressive, exaggerated art is submerged in it.

But there is still a shot in the film that conveys a real sense of wonder. You may not expect , it appeared very early in the seemingly unremarkable narrative segments of the film. Shortly after a fight with a giant swirling octopus in the city, Doctor Strange and Wang meet up with America at a pizzeria, where America details the multiverse system. Here, Remy'sThe visual talent is on display: surprising, twisting close-ups that bring out the director's own fascination with the coexistence of multiple worlds and the strangeness of the characters' multiple identities. This little scene is almost a masterpiece of vigorous imagination.

Early on, Remy seemed to say that the most expressive and meaningful Doctor Strange film he could make would be a verbal film - a talk movie about superheroes, in texture and form Works similar to Coen brothers and Richard Linklater .

But of course, Disney isn't going to spend $200 million on a movie that's just talking at a coffee table. but that would be a really good movie with a superhero at its core. Such a film propped up by conversation will prove that those who are serious about comic storytelling enjoy the simplicity of telling as much as the acting, the spectacle and the intricate drama, the effect and the watch to the thinking behind it.

From critics who defend the proliferation of superhero movies, to fans and even academics, the comic book franchise is a modern mythological construct. But if these stories are modern mythology, the ones under the Marvel and DC Films should welcome the masses to freely reimagined. But instead, corporate studios have turned these stories into some sort of quasi-religious dogma that, under the guise of so-called copyright, prevents “heretical” reinterpretations and innovations—in other words, building a relationship with fans high wall. The monopoly on ownership of such popular stories exacerbates the unfree state they now embody. viewers are being domesticated. What they see is not the natural appearance of art, but the appearance after layers of commercial manipulation. As long as the studios monopolize the control of the story in their own hands, their interpretation of the story is not myth but dogma; not even interpretation, but propaganda.