Kevin Smith Reviews Doctor Strange 2: “Not the Movie I Thought It was Going to Be”

Full Spoiler Warning for ! Having sounded off on the film immediately after watching it, filmmaker and professional fanboy Kevin Smith has returned with fully formed thoughts on the latest Marvel Studios release, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Among the things that Smith noted was that he was surprised Vision didn’t appear in the movie and that John Krasinski’s Reed Richards was the worst kept secret on the internet. On the whole though, while Smith clearly enjoyed it, he seemed to think that the film may not have delivered on the promise that its title made. Speaking on his latest FatMan Beyond podcast, Smith said as much.

“I guess the ‘Multiverse of Madness’ implied to me before I saw the movie: ‘You’re gonna see so many iterations of these characters,’” the director said “And this is not a complaint, it just felt like they promised Disney World and gave you Six Flags…In terms of a ‘Multiverse of Madness it; was like ‘Well, I guess we went to more than one universe but we didn’t really spend a ton of time doing (it).’”

He added, “That was not enough to make me be like ‘I didn’t like this,’ I loved the movie I had a great time. I do think I did go in with…when I read ‘Multiverse of Madness,’ I’m like this is just gonna be a funhouse of like Marvel characters galore…This, it felt like Spider-Man: No Way Home 1.5 and that’s okay for me I love this….It was thinner than I imagined it to be and you know again that has everything to do with reading the internet and believing gossip sites. I was positive that Tom Cruise as Superior Iron Man was going to be in this movie. Again it’s not like ‘And I hated it because he wasn’t,” but that was the level of expectation that was being presented, like ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ and we have seen something similar.”

Smith went on to say that he hopes Marvel Studios continues to work with Raimi and he he thinks Raimi and James Gunn are “the perfect Marvel filmmakers.” He does note that with the title for the sequel and the addition of Raimi behind the camera that he thought it would blow away the 2016 movie, when in truth it didn’t.

“I was like oh like,’ Well this is gonna blow the original Doctor Strange out of the water,’ but at the end of the day it doesn’t. It’s a nice companion piece but the original Doctor Strange is still a really wonderful flick that absolutely works incredibly well and this is just like the fun amusement park version of it or something. Like if Doctor Strange was Raiders of the Lost Ark, this was definitely Temple of Doom…Again, I liked it, i don’t want to give anyone the impression that I (didn’t). I really loved it actually but it was not the movie I thought it was going to be and that didn’t ruin it for me one iota, but i do want to go see it again…I liked it enough to want to go see it again …I had a lot of fun with it.”

You can see Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in theaters now.