In the wake of Marvel’s Sam Raimi-directed Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, most fans were elated.
The latest Doctor Strange flick was received well by the majority of audiences, who praised it for its horror-adjacent themes and fresh approach to MCU storytelling. In recent months, however, the shine has started to wear, and criticism has seen a major uptick.
Like that from Redditor LoasNo111, who recently posted to the Marvel Studios subreddit that “Raimi doesn’t understand the character of Doctor Strange.” The title of the post might rile some Raimi fans up, but LoasNo111’s criticism is too grounded in well-phrased Doctor Strange knowledge to deny.
LoasNo111 begins his post by noting that his major issue with Raimi’s take on Strange is his misunderstanding of the massive responsibility shouldered by Strange, and his feelings about this towering burden. “The misunderstanding,” according to LoasNo111, regards Strange “holding the knife,” and they believe that “Raimi just doesn’t understand Strange in this regard.”
The Redditor goes on to explain that the first Doctor Strange does a good job of setting up Strange’s perspective on the knife, but Raimi’s follow-up film largely undoes the growth experienced by the character between 2016’s Doctor Strange and 2022’s Multiverse of Madness. Raimi, according to the post, “thinks of Strange as a selfish guy who holds the knife for his own desires and good, because it helps him cope with his trauma. He doesn’t do that. He holds it because nobody else can.”
LoasNo111’s main criticism is rooted in the fact that Raimi’s film ignores “the pain Strange gets from holding the knife,” as well as his growth over a range of films, including Infinity War and Endgame. They also feel the inclusion of Christine, a character Strange moved on from in the first film, is nothing but a crutch for Raimi. The reliance on a failed romance serves as “an easy out,” allowing Strange to focus on surface-level strife rather than anything of real depth.
The criticism is a welcome one for some viewers, who found the film to be lackluster but didn’t have LoasNo111’s knowledge base—or well-phrased words—to explain why. Their post gives voice to those irritating issues a number of viewers had with the film, and paints a harsh light on Raimi’s less-then-stellar contribution to this new era of superhero storytelling.
