MOVIE: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

by benmweilertNo Comments
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of MadnessYear: 2022Rating: PG-13Length: 126 minutes / 2.10 hours It's a sobering thought that Spider-Man (2002) came out 20 years ago, cementing the age of the superhero movie in a time before the Marvel Cinematic Universe even existed. Sam Raimi's distinctive visual style worked for that movie and its two sequels (Spider-Man 2 (2004) of course being one of the best ever made). This is what makes Raimi's return to the superhero genre exciting in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Nostalgia is a heck of a drug, after all. What was interesting with this Doctor Strange (2016) sequel was how Marvel allowed Raimi to connect to more of his roots in the horror genre. The scariest scene in the original Spider-Man trilogy was in the operating room with Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina). In contrast, the amount of horrific things shown in this movie creeps closer to his Evil Dead trilogy. Nothing so bad as...
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MOVIE: Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

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Everything Everywhere All at OnceYear: 2022Rating: RLength: 139 minutes / 2.32 hours Multiverse stories are all the rage right now. While most of them seem to be relegated to comic book adaptations (like Loki, Spider-man: No Way Home (2021), and Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022)), by far the best one to emerge from this pile of parallel universes is Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). It is the most bizarrely funny movie I've seen in some time, which just goes to show how films released by A24 are of a higher caliber than anything else. Most multiverse movies play it pretty safe when exploring branching paths of the known universe. Everything Everywhere All at Once throws literally everything at the audience, and the result is hilarious. Office equipment mechas, Human Ratatouilles, Rocks, Bagels. I honestly can't come close to describing the rapid-fire series of absurdist realities. Some moments were straight laugh-out-loud funny to me, and others were...a bit more adult...
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MOVIE: Spider-Man – No Way Home (2021)

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Spider-Man: No Way Home Year: 2021 Rating: PG-13 Length: 148 minutes / 2.47 hours First off, if you haven't seen this movie yet, I want to warn you that there are spoilers in this review. There's no way I can talk about this movie freely without divulging key plot points. With this out of the way, I want to recognize that nostalgia played a big part in the hype for this third entry in the Tom Holland Spider-Man series. No Way Home is the kind of film that I figured could never be made due to all the different rights needed (much like Ready Player One (2018) and all its nerdy references). That Marvel and Sony pulled this off is testament to their ability to make the impossible happen. I was glad that this latest reboot of the Spider-Man franchise forewent the "origin story" in Homecoming (2017). Little did I know, they'd pull the same trick that Skyfall (2012) did with the James Bond franchise...
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BOOK: The Long Mars (2014)

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The Long Mars Year: 2014 Author: Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter Length: 723 minutes / 12.05 hours While the previous two entries in this series seemed to be disjointed in their writing styles, The Long Mars seemed to iron out some of these discrepancies . . . finally. In The Long Earth and The Long War, you could almost pinpoint the sections that Terry Pratchett wrote and the sections primarily written by Stephen Baxter. By The Long Mars, there are still a few moments of Terry Pratchett’s goofiness, but they are few and far between. Consequently, the narrative of The Long Mars seemed a lot more consistent than its predecessors. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that The Long Mars is absent of problems. While there was plenty of exploration of these parallel universes, the ones that were deemed necessary enough to describe didn’t add anything to the plot. In fact, I felt like this book could have been much shorter if these thought experiments that explored how parallel universes would function were cut out entirely....
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BOOK: The Long Earth (2012)

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The Long Earth Year: 2012 Author: Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter Length: 691 minutes / 11.52 hours Having read a few of Sir Terry Pratchett’s books before, I am no stranger to the randomness of his writing style. Usually, he has some character or object that just doesn’t fit in a normal narrative, but he manages to work it in with an explanation that’s both natural and makes sense. However, this only works if Pratchett has control over the entire story. Unfortunately, as is the case in The Long Earth, the randomness that Pratchett brings to the table sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the mostly sci-fi story. For instance, does an artificial intelligence have to be a reincarnated Tibetan motorcycle repairman? If you want to take the story seriously, probably not. In the end, this book seems to be mostly written by Stephen Baxter, with only a smattering of Pratchett’s charm thrown in occasionally for levity. I haven’t read any of...
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BOOK: Dark Matter (2016)

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Dark Matter Year: 2016 Author: Blake Crouch Length: 608 minutes / 10.13 hours It seems to me that the multiverse is a popular topic in fiction today. Sure, there have been plenty of stories about parallel universes and the fractal branching of our decisions, but for some reason, there’s been an uptick in the number of these stories lately. Perhaps these stories are trying to find a better universe in which to live, or perhaps they’re trying to show us that the world we have could be much worse. Either way, Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter nails the multiverse plot by exploring all the different connotations of the ability to travel between parallel universes. Presented in a traditional, three-act narrative, Dark Matter thrusts its protagonist into another version of his reality, ripping him away from his idyllic life. Using quantum physics as a form of magical hand-waving, the narrative then turns to the main character’s relentless search for his original universe. While the result of this exploration fits nicely...
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BOOK: The Infinity of You & Me (2016)

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The Infinity of You & Me Year: 2016 Author: J.Q. Coyle Length: 246 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** Unlike Practical Applications for Multiverse Theory, The Infinity of You & Me really nails the complex and unique challenges of dealing with multiple universes. Far more serious than its comedic counterpart, Infinity takes the reader on a journey through the multiple lives of a teenage girl. The descriptive writing used for this task was quite adept at conveying the transition between worlds, as well as the numerous dystopian scenarios present within them. Clearly, the Sylvia Plath poems the main character holds dear also influenced the author's writing style. As I've said before, I'm not a fan of the young adult genre, especially when it devolves to cliches. This book managed to reside in that young adult genre, but successfully told a story that didn't make me roll my eyes in annoyance. Sure, the elements were there, but they were handled much more subtly, almost in the...
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