‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ Does ‘WandaVision’ Dirty

For diehard fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was supposed to provide a new kind of thrill. The film, billed as a Doctor Strange / Scarlet Witch team-up movie, was supposed to be the first of its kind as continuity-minded fans marveled at a storyline continuing from a streaming service (Disney+) to the big screen. Audiences fell head over heels for Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) in 2021’s Emmy-winning series WandaVision, and now we’d all get to see the next chapter in her story in a feature film. What a marvel!

Instead, Wanda’s role in Multiverse of Madness is more of a whole monkey’s paw debacle, eerily appropriate considering that the Sam Raimi film is as close as Marvel Studios will likely ever get to pure horror. The film doesn’t feel like a continuation of a story or even a celebration of this weird and otherwise wonderful shared cinematic universe. It is, in actually, a portent of how this hyper interconnectedness can go horribly wrong. We were so naive, so excited about seeing stories drift from screens small to big that we never once thought to ask ourselves, “Wait — what if the movies ruin the TV shows?”

SPOILERS — Wanda Maximoff is not the co-lead of this film, not in the way we all expected. She is not Dr. Strange’s unlikely ally. Wanda Maximoff is the villain of this film.

She is a witch by every traditional definition of the pop culture archetype. She deceives, she schemes, she murders, she comes so close to saying “I’ll get you, my pretty!” Wanda’s mission: steal the multiverse-hopping powers of a defenseless teen named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). Then, using those stolen powers, Wanda can permanently relocate to a reality where her sons exist. Oh — Wanda will have to kill that reality’s Wanda, but whatever. She’ll do anything for her babies! This is a neck-breaking twist from the Wanda we saw on tv — especially because we saw Wanda be pretty evil on her own show.

And therein lies the major problem with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It is a feature film that’s been sold to audiences eager for more WandaVision, but made by people that never actually watched WandaVision. I went into this film excited to see Wanda Maximoff move forward — excited to see her claw her way out of depression and find purpose. Instead what I got was, well, to make a reference that I know the gays will get…

I do not understand how I, a normal-ass person with a Disney+ account, understood more about Wanda Maximoff’s storyline than Marvel Studios. And I do not care what Sam Raimi had to say about not even knowing WandaVision was a thing until filming on this movie was well underway. WandaVision completely wrapped filming, with COVID delays and everything, before a single frame of Multiverse of Madness was shot.

The Wanda we get in Multiverse of Madness is completely the villain — and she’s unfortunately more like Iron Monger than Killmonger. The best Marvel movie villains are the ones you can sympathize with, like Killmonger, Loki, or Vulture. Elizabeth Olsen gives the best performance in the film by far, a feat made even more impressive considering she has practically nothing to work with outside of maternalistic madness. And that’s a shame, because Wanda has a point to make — a fascinating point, even! She points out that she did the right thing and killed her lover in order to keep his Mind Stone from being taken by Thanos. But Dr. Strange? He just handed the Time Stone over to the genocidal Grimace, which Thanos then used to undo Wanda’s deed and kill Vision anyway. And she wouldn’t have even had to kill Vision the first time if Strange had just not given Thanos the Time Stone to begin with!

From Wanda’s point of view, she did the impossible thing that she had to do while Strange just gave up. And now, Wanda’s been branded a bit of a baddie for taking over a small town in New Jersey — unintentionally, mind you! — while Strange is a hero even though his actions caused half of the universe’s population to die. Oh, and when Wanda realized that she’d entangled an entire town of innocents in her depression, she gave up her children and let her lover die again in order to set things right. There’s so much to unpack here. Strange did what he did because it was the only scenario wherein everyone would ultimately live, but why does the world take his word for it? And does Wanda believe him? And why should she care? Wanda’s lost her parents, her brother, her soulmate, her life, her reality, her kids, her soulmate again, and her identity. She has a right to be mad!

Instead of getting into any of the morally complex issues that are right there, especially when you take into account all of the WandaVision footage that absolutely could have been inserted into this feature film to provide any sort of context, Multiverse of Madness hammers Wanda’s trauma into a blunt weapon and just starts swinging. The film does WandaVision — one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons of the past few years — a massive disservice by completely ignoring it.

Multiverse of Madness thinks that a couple of blandly “cute” moments between Wanda, Billy, and Tommy (note the inexplicable and inexcusable lack of Vision here?) is enough to sell Wanda being a complete maniac. Just going off of what we see in the film, you’re liable to side with Strange when he tells Wanda that the kids weren’t real. If only there was a whole season of television out there filled with scenes that could have given any of Wanda’s arc any semblance of emotional weight!

But there’s a real damned if you do/don’t vibe here, because including too much WandaVision in an attempt to enrichen Wanda’s arc could have shown how narratively shallow Multiverse of Madness is. This movie doesn’t have much interest in the fact that Wanda’s Westview was an involuntary response to very justified trauma. It doesn’t want to think about how the plot takes Marvel’s best depiction of grief and depression and dumbs it down into a very generic villain origin story. The movie doesn’t even want to grapple with the very clear justification that it gives for having Wanda go full Wicked Witch: the Darkhold, the Book of the Damned, corrupts absolutely!

This is made explicitly clear whenver Dr. Strange (or a Dr. Strange) even looks at the book. But in Wanda’s case? Eh. Every hero knows the Darkhold is doing this to her (because the movie tells us this), but no one acts like it. No one tries to reach out to Wanda. There is zero internal struggle on Wanda’s part. Everyone acts as though Wanda’s complete corruption is a foregone conclusion. Making matters more frustrating, the movie dangles the possibility of redemption when an alternate universe’s Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) says that just because a person loses their way doesn’t mean they are lost forever. Of course he’s actually talking about Dr. Strange and definitely not Wanda Maximoff. She’s clearly a goner!

Remember how all of this was actually a major plot point in the last few episodes of WandaVision? How S.W.O.R.D. was ready to just kill her but our heroes tried to reach out with compassion — and it worked? Multiverse of Madness is a film that is stacked with Tyler Hawards and has precisely zero Monica Rambeaus. If this is how the movies are going to interact with the TV shows, then maybe it’s best to keep them separated

The MCU succeeds because it’s managed to somehow juggle a hundred emotionally complex and resonant character arcs across dozens of films, with different directors and screenwriters all working in tandem to make this shit work. Look at the arcs of Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Thor. Look at how Black Widow and Nebula evolved in a string of films where they were not the star. Look at Wanda Maximoff’s journey and what Elizabeth Olsen was able to establish in the smallest of roles ahead of getting her own TV show. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness does not continue WandaVision’s story. It buries it under a mountain, literally. Even if Wanda Maximoff is not dead (which, come on), the damage is done. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness takes Marvel Studios’ most cathartic and honest examination of mental illness and twists Wanda’s depression into addiction, corruption, and ultimately annihilation.