This movie tried to be too many things at the same time: superhero, horror, supernatural thriller and on. Instead, it falls flat and is dead on arrival (yes, I used the phrase DOA deliberately here in re: the first 10 minutes).
I'm familiar with Sam Raimi's style even outside his great Spider-Man movies, but I don't think that his style was this movie's only drawback. What we have here is a movie that struggles to decide what it wants to be and then never fully commits to any one thing, so you're left miffed in a middling mess of mediocre meandering.
The struggle Wanda goes through is revisited after the uneven Wandavision series we all watched on Disney+, but to me the conflict is tiresome. We get it, you will do anything to get to your boys, even if they exist in another universe, which is never really explained as to whether the father in that universe (presumably Vision) is a biological male capable of procreating offspring. Well, for that matter dads don't matter in the movie, because Billy and Tommy don't have a dad and America doesn't have one either. Sheesh.
The big reveals of some major characters' (one Fantastic character and the other is Uncanny) stunt casting make you go: Yes! This is why I came and then Sam undoes it all in less than 20 minutes telling you that in the multiverse, nothing really matters.
Lots allusions to child sacrifice and the occult. At one point literal demons from Hell show up to actually "help" our hero. Da fuq???
I still give it the mediocre grade it deserves because some of the acting is quite good, though I sensed the Fantastic cameo was phoning it in...strangely. I also love ironic endings and when Stephen gets out of the way and lets the real protagonist shine (yes, Dr. Strange is sidelined "multi"ple times in his own movie), which is the charisma-less America Chavez, we get a weirdly ironic ending that leads to Wanda's long, irrational quest to save her boys coming to a close.
I'm familiar with Sam Raimi's style even outside his great Spider-Man movies, but I don't think that his style was this movie's only drawback. What we have here is a movie that struggles to decide what it wants to be and then never fully commits to any one thing, so you're left miffed in a middling mess of mediocre meandering.
The struggle Wanda goes through is revisited after the uneven Wandavision series we all watched on Disney+, but to me the conflict is tiresome. We get it, you will do anything to get to your boys, even if they exist in another universe, which is never really explained as to whether the father in that universe (presumably Vision) is a biological male capable of procreating offspring. Well, for that matter dads don't matter in the movie, because Billy and Tommy don't have a dad and America doesn't have one either. Sheesh.
The big reveals of some major characters' (one Fantastic character and the other is Uncanny) stunt casting make you go: Yes! This is why I came and then Sam undoes it all in less than 20 minutes telling you that in the multiverse, nothing really matters.
Lots allusions to child sacrifice and the occult. At one point literal demons from Hell show up to actually "help" our hero. Da fuq???
I still give it the mediocre grade it deserves because some of the acting is quite good, though I sensed the Fantastic cameo was phoning it in...strangely. I also love ironic endings and when Stephen gets out of the way and lets the real protagonist shine (yes, Dr. Strange is sidelined "multi"ple times in his own movie), which is the charisma-less America Chavez, we get a weirdly ironic ending that leads to Wanda's long, irrational quest to save her boys coming to a close.