Dr Strange

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Marvel Studios/rated PG-13/126 minutes. Directed by Sam Raimi, written by Michael Waldron.

You don’t need to have seen Ant-Man to understand Thor: Ragnarök, and you don’t need to have seen Black Panther understand Spider-Man: No Way Home. Nor do you need to have watched WandaVision to smile when Doctor Strange gets into a, uh, music battle, to be startled by the jump scares and be impressed by the tactile visuals on display. Michael Waldron’s screenplay isn’t afraid to let its “not a white guy” characters be flawed, wrong, problematic or ineffectual, and it’s not afraid to dip into some think-piece-friendly tropes for the sake of efficient storytelling. Oh, and folks who were especially invested in Wanda’s “It’s about trauma!” narrative on the Disney+ show (or folks displeased by the notion of a female villain wreaking havoc over their inability to be a mother) will find themselves as annoyed by Multiverse of Madness as Game of Thrones fans who named their daughters Daenerys. Again, by coincidence or design, much of this film seems a response to a fandom that views the MCU as a kind of progressive moral arbiter and/or makes their fandom a defining part of their personality. The rest of the film features Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Wong (Benedict Wong) and American Chavez doing their best to hold off a relentless, superpowered murder witch, an adventure that sends them to different universes and occasionally sees them interacting with alternate versions of themselves and/or other established MCU characters. That’s neither compliment nor criticism, but it underlines how Multiverse of Madness is “just a movie.” Multiverse-hopping aside, it’s still a stand-alone adventure with little overall impact on the overall MCU. This Doctor Strange sequel feels like an intentional throwback to when the MCU was just another big-budget Hollywood franchise, one that wasn’t expected to make the world a better place or be the one-stop-shop for blockbuster thrills and/or onscreen representation. It’s a good thing the spectacle delivers, because the story is pretty one-note, and the characters are mostly there for exposition and action sequences. The violence is as brutal and cruel as it’s been since the bad guys in Iron Man led a terrified family into a cave and machine gun-massacred them just offscreen. Yes, the film expects you to be familiar with the events of Doctor Strange and the last two Avengers films, but even explicit references to WandaVision are mostly there for those in the know. The top-secret cameos, which sadly are not Winnie the Pooh or Statler and Waldorf, are mostly confined to a mid-film sequence whereby Strange and Chavez travel to a rather idealistic version of Earth that looks like Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland. I’m guessing this is a version of Earth where Al Gore rightfully won the 2000 presidential election, but this universe’s Stephen Strange is A) dead and B) not exactly anyone’s favorite superhero. Yes, as revealed twenty minutes into the 126-minute picture, the big bad is the Scarlett Witch herself. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is a mostly stand-alone horror-fantasy adventure.

There have been complaints about MCU properties that feel like they exist merely to get people interested in the next movie or TV show, but it's never felt ...

By the time that “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was pulling out the universe-bending scenes that will probably be spoiled by Friday afternoon, I started to wonder if there’s a breaking point to these CGI orgies that serve so many other properties they forget to be interesting on their own. It’s sad to see her and the character take a step back instead of exploring the ideas in the show that bore her name. It’s got a plot that could have creatively surprised viewers over and over with new variations on the very concept of a world with heroes in it and a director willing to go there. It’s very much a sequel to “WandaVision,” the show that expanded the Marvel Cinematic Universe into television. Think about how many properties are being sequel-ed in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” It’s a sequel to “ Doctor Strange,” although just barely in that you probably need to have seen that film less than the Strange adventures that followed. It’s a sequel to “ Avengers: Endgame” and “ Spider-Man: No Way Home” in that it references action in both films and extrapolates somewhat on the universe-saving decision that the title character made in the former.

This month's LGBTQ-inclusive watchlist includes a buzzy new Marvel movie, a "Downton Abbey" film spinoff and an abundance of drag queens.

In “Bob’s Burgers: The Movie,” it’s high season for the mom-and-pop burger joint, but, as usual, something disastrous stands in the way of commercial success: a giant sinkhole that opens up right in front of the restaurant. The new series, “Ten Percent,” features a London agency, Nightingale Hart, modeled after its Parisian equivalent, Agence Samuel Kerr. In addition to the host of assistants, talent and other agents, the British office boasts its very own Andréa, the impossibly cool lesbian heartbreaker who’s known for staging hostile takeovers. “On the Count of Three” is a black comedy about best friends Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott), who make a suicide pact and then spend their final day together, getting their affairs in order. The deadpan comedy series “Hacks” was somewhat of a sleeper hit when it premiered in May 2021. Since it began airing on Fox in 2011, the offbeat series has been one of the most LGBTQ-friendly shows on mainstream television. The cast of already crowned queens includes: Jaida Essence Hall, Jinkx Monsoon and Monét X Change. Helping RuPaul and the veteran co-panelists decide who takes home the title of “Queen of All Queens” is a buzzy collection of guest stars, including Cameron Diaz, Naomi Campbell, Ronan Farrow and Nancy Pelosi. And back at the estate in England, Mary (Michelle Dockery) supervises a film crew that’s shooting on location in exchange for funds to repair the house. And this month, “On the Count of Three,” his directorial debut, is released in theaters. It is the second showdown between Disney and the Saudi government in a year, after “Eternals” was banned across the Persian Gulf states for featuring the MCU’s first gay superhero and his husband. His third stand-up special for HBO, “Rothaniel,” was an immediate success when it premiered April 1 — in no small part because he used it as an opportunity to come out to the world. In addition to the female leads, the campy series features a host of hilarious actors playing people you’d expect to find at a QVC-like network. In a stroke of luck, Joanna lands her dream job as a TV personality on the home shopping channel SVN and comes face to face with her hero, the network’s most beloved host, Jackie Stilton (Molly Shannon). While Jackie instantaneously takes to the newbie, the rest of Joanna’s co-workers and her new boss, Patricia (Jenifer Lewis), prove harder to win over.