MCU Catch-Up (Part 3): NO WAY HOME, MOON KNIGHT, and MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS

Welcome back, y’all!

I was actually working on this one prior to my Elden Ring review but, of course, it ended up on the back burner for a year or so as I became obsessed with FromSoft’s latest Soulsborne title. Nonetheless, as the title of this series does suggest, I do want to catch up on talking about the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a series of mini-reviews. However, I was originally going by the release date of each installment but, as indicated by the end of this piece, I’ll be deviating from it.

Anyway: hope you enjoy it and, even if you don’t, thanks for bothering to read it whatsoever!

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Spider-Man: No Way Home

I was expecting to hate this movie – or, perhaps, wanted to hate it.

As critical as I may be, I usually never want to hate something before I experience it first-hand. There was a reason for that: unlike many, many others, I don’t like any of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies and the same applies to the Andrew Garfield-era Amazing Spider-Man and its atrocious sequel. So, of course, press releases claiming the third and final Tom Holland Spidey movie would involve characters from those films made me hesitant, at first, but it soon turned into an intense bitterness. Why? I’m so fucking sick of all the nostalgia-pandering, the fan service now more nauseating than ever before, and oh-so-self-aware meta-commentary being used to replace proper storytelling and characterization.

Still, as someone who – much like Batman – is still fond enough of Spider-Man as a character and their supporting cast, I was going to watch it eventually. Even if begrudgingly. After finally getting around to it, I…actually liked it. Not a ton, mind you, but – unlike Eternals – my low expectations helped and the fan service (i.e. the bane of my existence) wasn’t anywhere near as tone-deaf as the trailers and advertisements made them out to be.

In fact, I think the cast members of the previous films are better here than they were in those past installments. As much as people liked the hamminess of the Rami films – I just found it to be pure cringe (except for J.K. Simmons ‘cause…J.K. Simmons). Even consummate professionals like Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina couldn’t make it work for me but, in No Way Home, there’s a mild sense of restraint that makes them feel far more natural and easier to connect with. It’s proven further by Andrew Garfield’s performance as, far from being unfit in the role for the Amazing Spider-Man films, his poor performance there was more a product of the directing and the writing (or, more accurately, lack thereof). Jon Watt’s direction is very workmanlike, which has its limitations, but along with that and the script written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, it makes everything feel verisimilitudinous enough than needlessly over-the-top or adlibbed in the most annoyingly twee fashion imaginable. Just about every interaction, especially between the three Spideys, is rife with fantastic character moments.

Unfortunately, besides the deft use of extended cameos and the character moments that come with them, there’s not much else that I like about the film. The premise and plot are nakedly contrived, especially in how much it has in common with Into the Spider-Verse (i.e. the best Spidey movie) and borrows from, much to my chagrin, the largely maligned comicbook storyline “One More Day.” You could chalk that up to Tom Holland’s Spidey being a teenager who, understandably, will make mistakes – but it also contradicts the point of Far From Home (i.e. the second-best Spidey movie). If this is the same kid who quickly realized that he shouldn’t control a fleet of killer drones, then why would he be willing to use a reality-altering spell that’s more dangerous? Even Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), who is known for bending the rules for the best result, feels out-of-character in being too willing to use that reality-altering spell just so some kid can un-doxx himself. I mean, yeah, we also get a neat fight where Dr. Strange goes all X/1999 and brings back M.C. Escher World – but everything that incites it just feels…wrong. It’s hard to watch and not be reminded that this is basically glorified cross-promotional material between Sony and Disney first and foremost, with narrative and characterization being no more than an afterthought. Thankfully, they were decently done afterthoughts, in this case.

By the end, I was happy enough with it but not enthusiastically so. It’s weird to me how many people spoke so reverently (“It’s an event!” is easily the most meaningless phrase I hear in film criticism next to “It does what it intended to do!”) about this film when it’s just okay, like the majority of the MCU, and isn’t really doing anything all that new or revolutionary with the material. It doesn’t have to but, again, I think Disney could afford to take some risks, and No Way Home felt like business as usual.

Speaking of business as usual, but with more disappointment…

Moon Knight

Y’know what I was hoping for? Horror-style storytelling. Did I get such? Not really.

There are elements of horror in there but like so many MCU installments, the showrunners seem hesitant to go all in and it largely ends up as another action-comedy. It’s not obnoxiously comedic, thankfully, but what little action there is to be had is poorly done, save for one sequence at the very end, and that was too little too late – not to mention occurring so quickly that you can blink and completely miss it. So…what else is there to this show? Not much, unfortunately.

Unlike No Way Home, I was looking forward to this series as someone who is particularly fond of the fairly obscure (until now, anyway) comicbook character and, again, framing it more as horror than a superhero story when advertised piqued my interest further. It does have moments thanks to Oscar Isaac’s versatility as an actor, making Jeremy Irons’ performance in Dead Ringers look lame in comparison, I’m also happy to see May Calamawy get more work what with being fantastic in Ramy (WATCH IT – WATCH IT NOW, YOUSE!!!), and F. Murray Abraham is just fuckin’ hilarious as Khonshu. There’re neat details too, like how the titular character’s (“characters’”?) outfit is a magical mummy wrap, reflecting the (dissociative) personality of the individual wielding it at the moment, as well as taking notes from the Jeff Lemire run on the comic – specifically the supernatural prison in the form of a psychiatric ward.

However, those are moments and they’re overshadowed by a heavily-padded plot that is essentially an elongated videogame fetch-quest (as if it isn’t an awful way to frame a non-interactive story). A lot of these Disney+ series feel like they’re taking material that might work for two or three episodes but decompressing them to be twice or thrice as long, which was a problem the Netflix series had as well but, back then, it was the new hotness ‘cause Game of Thrones and no one else saw it as an issue then. I mean, I did, obviously. It’s kind of weird to have a series like Jessica Jones be about a private investigator but, due to these dull season-long stories focusing on a singular primary antagonist (who’re all boring as shit except Zebediah Killgrave…who they make the mistake of killing off), barely has her doing any actual investigation the way a case-of-the-week show like Murder, She Wrote would have done. With Moon Knight, there’s just too much dead air between the sparse events that manage to be partially interesting or exciting and it makes every episode feel like a chore to sit through.

Y’know what wasn’t a chore to sit through, though? The next entry!

Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

I spoke too soon when I said Shang-Chi was as close to perfection as you could get with an MCU film – after Infinity War and Winter Soldier – because Multiverse of Madness just blows it out of the motherfuckin’ water.

It might seem weird, after bringing up how I disliked Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, to praise another film directed by him, but I don’t dislike all of Sam Raimi’s work. Multiverse of Madness isn’t anything like that trilogy and has more in common with Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and – best of all – Darkman. I love how Raimi does horror-comedy and, unlike Moon Knight, his predilection towards the genre carries over into Multiverse of Madness, which makes it so much more satisfying as an experience. You can also tell that Raimi was given a deal of creative freedom a lot of others just simply aren’t given, and the level of visual style and atmosphere he brings is unlike that of (say) Ant-Man & The Wasp or Captain Marvel, to the point it’s actually rather startling.

There’s this notion of “superhero fatigue” and…I think it’s bullshit. Imagine if people started talking about “comedy fatigue” or “drama fatigue” – as if each and every entry in those genres were exactly alike – you’d probably find it absurd (at least, I hope you would). To me, films like Multiverse of Madness as well as Into the Spider-Verse and the second Suicide Squad prove that the issue isn’t superheroes as a genre, but that many superhero movies are too similar to each other. It’s formula fatigue, not genre fatigue. For all the problems Multiverse of Madness may have – there are contrivances aplenty and some baffling lines of dialogue (are all dreams glimpses into alternate realities?) – its presentation more than makes up for it and maintains interest throughout its runtime. There’s enough breathing room between scenes, to absorb what’s happened, but never lingers enough to become a lull. I’d even go as far as to say the pacing is almost immaculate.

A point of contention I’ve seen, from some, is the use of Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) as the primary antagonist due to how much it contradicts the purpose of WandaVision. It’s understandable having written about the mini-series myself but, at the same time, she’s used so well in Multiverse of Madness that I just didn’t care about that whatsoever. Not to mention WandaVision was a creative mess full of compromises, and contradictions, and makes all the personal development Wanda Maximova went through moot at the last minute. She is, appropriately, a supernatural slasher villain that feels more like an unstoppable force of nature than a single powerful person – where literally no barrier can contain her. Well, not for long, anyway. It’s unfortunate they had to use a doomsday prophesy and partial mind-control by an evil grimoire because, given the losses she’s been through in her life and the events of WandaVision, she already had enough motivation to act that way. Because, much like how Dormammu was defeated in the previous film, Wanda’s downfall doesn’t take the form of just hitting her continuously until she falls over – like far too many climactic MCU confrontations – because, as established, she is far too powerful to be beaten by brute force. Once again, Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is required to conceive of a clever solution that leaves his adversary practically yielding to him.

I won’t say exactly how, for the sake of surprise, but it makes me yearn for more of it elsewhere. It’s certainly more fulfilling than the final fight between T’Challa and Killmonger in Black Panther. Y’know, where it ends up looking like a match from Killer Instinct in which both players chose the same character, having a skin/palette swap for one to differentiate them, with no sense of weight, force, or impact. Honestly, them resolving the conflict with a heated Shakespearean debate would’ve been more exciting than all that goofy-lookin’ shit – like watching the verbal sparring between Ajay Devgn and Prakash Raj in Singham (WATCH IT – WATCH IT NOW, YOUSE!!!). At least, when there are fight scenes in Multiverse of Madness, it involves Dr. Strange and a corrupted doppelganger slinging musical notes at one another as if they’re magic missiles from Dungeons & Dragons – all that echoes the film’s soundtrack.

Seriously, I could’ve made a full-length review of this movie about each element I liked and why but, given the format here, I’ve gone on long enough. Some of what I left unmentioned – specifically Xochitl Gomez as America Chavez and Rachel McAdams as Christine Palmer – is actually going to be more relevant in my future mini-review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 than it would here, as little more than a quick afterthought. If you know me well enough, that I wasn’t that fond of the first two installments, your mind is definitely gonna be blown…

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The fourth part of MCU Catch-Up, which will be about Guardians of the Galaxy: Holiday Special and Vol. 3, isn’t going to come out next week (or the one after, if only due to circumstance) – it’s going to be about the sixth season of Black Mirror. I was quite surprised by it because, along with Netflix being terrible at promoting its own content, it has been so many years since the last one. I wasn’t expecting the series to ever actually come back, regardless of whatever the press releases suggested but, now that it has, I can’t help but comment on it.

Until then…