In the Films of Sam Raimi, the Camera is the Enemy

This week on In the Frame, Darren explores the cinematography techniques employed by Director Sam Raimi.
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[@Daemonworks]

So... I went into MoM having entirely forgotten Sam Raimi was directing it. And it was a glorious moment indeed when it his style really started taking over and it hit me that I was watching a Sam Raimi movie, and what's more a /very/ Sam Raimi movie.

[@Darren_Mooney]

It is. I had great fun with it.

[@gizzy.modo.and.the.mogwai]

I did not know Raimi had lost a brother.... That really does make THAT particular moment in MoM so much more resonant.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yep. I’ve been a fan of Raimi’s films for years, and I didn’t know about it until quite recently.

[@raydhen8840]

This makes me wonder... in an alternate reality, when Raimi GOT to direct Dr. Strange since the beginning, maybe he would implement these & put more emphasize to it. Imagine, Donna's death is what push him into field of medic, but after he found his talent in surgeon, it steer away from his initial goal, which is to save lives, made him cocky & arrogant not unlike how he was in beginning of 1st movie, until the eventual accident. This way, his visit to Kamar Taj not only humbled him, but also to reminded him why he became doctor in the first place. This could expand to the villain side as well! Comic Mordo backstory already doesn't feels out of place to Raimi's archetypal character since it's also motivated by loss, in this case, the need to avenge his death father.

[@kadosho02]

Sam Raimi's vision and imagination are fascinating, dark, and deep. It sometimes takes multiple viewings to find answers to those puzzles. From Evil Dead to Doctor Strange: Multiverse of Madness, it is a rollercoaster ride of feels. I love what he's brought to life Spider-Man trilogy set the bar pretty high. Took risks, but also found a rhythm different from other comic book based films. Plus the villain's journey was just as deep as Peter's. Doctor Strange, that was on another level, as Raimi wanted to take on the film for many years. But that message, and inspiration from a lost loved one. His stories come from his heart

[@Darren_Mooney]

I do wonder if Raimi would laugh at the analysis of his work here, like John Ford would famously mock the idea that he had a distinct vision. I suspect Raimi sees himself as “just” an entertainer - which he is! - but I do think there’s depth there as well.

[@conceptualization101]

I know I said this last week but this is the best In the Frame to date. Really outstanding work.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks William. It was great fun to work on it.

[@nix2939]

I'm a big fan of the Jurassic World Dominion videos

[@Smumbo]

Darren always outdoes himself. He makes my favorite content on The Escapist, especially written articles.

[@FranciscoAreasGuimaraes]

Another brilliant work. You put into words the arguments I had in favor of MoM and couldn't articulate.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! I’m very proud of this one! The two episodes either side of it can be quite heavy, so it was nice to have an episode which was just, “Here’s something I love, let’s talk about what I love about it!”

[@YouFightLikeACow]

Incredible video. You deserve your own channel. Also, completely agree with everything. DS2 felt like a product of Marvel but also had the strongest "VISUAL" directorial stamp on a movie. And you make good points about Waititi and Gunn. Although they are strong in themes, they are not as strong visually as Raimi.

[@Darren_Mooney]

And, to be clear, nothing wrong with that! I think Gunn is one of the best superhero directors working today, and has found his sweet spot in how to tell stories that matter to him in these frameworks. (And thanks!)

[@TheLyricalCleric]

Knocking it out of the park. I’ve always loved Raimi flicks for just these reasons and I was giggling and jumping in my seat to see him go full-bore in MoM. Only Sam Raimi can take a film-comic-streaming show crossover from a corporate behemoth and make it into an Evil Dead film, and I love it. I’m so glad that the studios let him do his thing and make MoM one of the most interesting and visually appealing Marvel movies in a while. Love and Thunder was okay whenever Gorr was onscreen, but every frame of MoM is a roller coaster. Also, pizza balls sound amazing.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks. I'm really chuffed with how this turned out. Fantastic work from Omar, too.

[@CM-ux9yh]

That’s a very insightful take on how directorial style can both clash and harmonize within the larger context of a “Franchise House Style.” Raimi is as good of a case study on that discussion as one could ask for, and you did a tremendous job analyzing it. Overall, I think that you’re spot-on with it, noting how Raimi is both distinct in his personal style but flexible in his work in a manner that allows him to collaborate effectively (and work within a larger framework). The multiple-authorship point that you bring up when discussing *For the Love of the Game* is also very thoughtful, and I quite liked your take on how a single work can express different ideas important to different creative forces collaborating on it. It’s a paradigm for viewing films that I’ve never been able to articulate as well as you have here. Thank you for it! :)

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yep. One of the things I love about working with Nick and Omar on a project like this is the freedom to do something like spend a solid minute on perhaps the most often overlooked film in the director’s filmography, and what that says about them as an artist.

[@MrJCMasterman]

Stellar work, Mr. Mooney! I was introduced to Sam Raimi through the original Spider Man films, but I had no idea his directorial influence stretched to so many other films. I remember being genuinely pleased to see him directing another Hollywood blockbuster, and this episode is a wonderful showcase of his talents and filmmaking style.

[@Darren_Mooney]

His "Evil Dead" films are great, and I love both "Darkman" and "The Quick and the Dead." If you want something a bit weightier, I was blown away by "A Simple Plan" on recent rewatch.

[@_gamma.]

Thank you for this, I appreciate the camerawork from Multiverse now. Also, that zombie wink right into the camera

[@Darren_Mooney]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@fizzletwist7759]

More In The Frame please

[@Darren_Mooney]

There’s a backlog of them at the old “Escapist Movie Channel” as well. I am very proud of the “Promising Young Woman” one, and the “Black Panther” one.

[@evraght]

I like the way your brain works Mr. Mooney. Pieces like that are why I come to the Internet. To get inspired. I don't even watch that many movies nowadays (especially compared to 8-10, maybe 12 a week I used to watch when studying) and i sure was tired with Marvel movies, but I might just watch that Raimi movie now and with a fresh look.

[@Darren_Mooney]

12 a week is a lot, even for me. I probably average about 8, and that's because it's my job! :) But thank you!

[@evraght]

@@Darren_Mooney I was studying and I didn't have a job. Also: in Poland it was the time when all that popculture stuff was new, we only were allowed it for like 12-13 years after the communism ended. It was all so fresh and fascinating then. One gets (have to look a word for it in a dictionary) jaded. What a nice word. Not a good state to be in :) Also: when I think about it not 12 every week for sure, that's crazy. But there were weeks when I watched that many. And I liked it.

[@snixelpig]

Thanks Darren . Glad to see you given Sam a whole episode. Dark Man ,and A Simple Plan are movies people should check out. I Grew up on The Evil Dead movies, and I think most of his tricks are in those Films. I like his analog look better for his films though. Great episode!

[@Darren_Mooney]

I did basically “call my shot” on this one, to be fair - which may be the cheekiest thing I’ve done in these videos. But thrilled to get the chance to dig in, and hope I did the subject justice.

[@MarcDize]

When asked if MoM was good or bad, I was really thorned... it's a quintessential Sam Raimi movie, with flares and homages to his work, but bad as in Marvel Studio just punched through a sequel because it wanted to meet money deadlines instead of waiting; so I said: I love everything about it, related to Sam Raimi directing. No, I didn't like that the Strange's Sister story appeared out of nowhere as it felt like telling a friend about that time you stole money from your moms purse, when they asked you if you had money to lend them, but Zombie Strange was just so freaking AWESOME that i started smiling like 6 year old for the rest of the movie. ... and now that story makes total sense.

[@Darren_Mooney]

It’s an oddly personal inclusion, which I liked about it.

[@Rain-King]

I am so glad to see the In the Frame videos make a return after a little break. I've been reading Darren's written work for a while now (starting on the Movie Blog way back when) and will be the first to decry a decrease in written journalism in the internet age, but I do also think that videos are a great asset in film criticism, as you can actually SHOW what you are talking about, and Darren's do that to great effect. It also helps that I adore Sam Raimi's Spider-Man films and his dynamic camerawork in general. Does he have a habit of collaborating with the same cinematographer?

[@MrSplic3r]

Never change, Darren.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I can’t promise to try. But I’ll try to try.

[@nathannlatimore7863]

Incredible work from start to finish. So many interesting talking points covered in a seamless way. Thank you for this video!

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed this!

[@danielbenitezperez6264]

Amazing video, my friend! It's good to see many of your great ideas about cinema and auteurs been recombinated DNA-like to keep producing videos that feel so innovative and yet coherent with everything you have being saying in The Escapist. This viewing was a treat.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! I'm really proud of this one, actually.

[@paradoxicalsg3522]

It really is a shame how the production issues involving the release schedules of this and Wanda Vision hampered her character development that people attached to in the show, then got reversed here. It clouds how great and unique the title is in the MCU, holding it a bit back from being my favorite so far.

[@shawklan27]

Preach

[@vidarthorsby2052]

You do right and efficient work Mr. Escapist.

[@Darren_Mooney]

They do! Glad to be a part of it!

[@MariaVosa]

Interesitng comparison you made of Rami with the Coens. I never thought about it before, but despite the fact that the Coens are considered the "serious" directors (though with a comedic bent), and Raimi is often seen as a more comedic "pop culture" director, it is Raimi that consistently has this focus on broken, traumatised individuals.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Also, Raimi seems to have a much bleaker view of human nature. When “Multiverse of Madness” reveals the *statistical impossibility* that there’s no universe where Strange and Christine make it work, I thought to myself, “That tracks.” Whereas I think the Coens’ most bleakly nihilistic works are “No Country”, which is an adaptation, and “Burn After Reading”, which was written at the same time as “No Country.”

[@CopticKalnor]

Outstanding work Mr Mooney

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed!

[@wolvesevolve]

Outstanding. Late to comment, probably because I was juggling a lot of thing when seeing this ep originally. I really should rewatch 90s Raimi movies...

[@RavenLotz]

“Preoccupation with feet” lol

[@Darren_Mooney]

Oh, we could have gone longer on that. I give Omar a few suggested shots for lines like that, and I think it was about thirty seconds of me naming shots and films, ending with the monologue about foot massage from "Pulp Fiction."

[@mysterb7600]

I’m a big Raimi fan and this great to watch!

[@margotperez7162]

Most excellent once again, Mr. Mooney. Now I want to revisit For Love of the Game and A Simple Plan, on top of everything else in my watch queue...

[@Darren_Mooney]

Ha! You can maybe skip “For the Love of the Game.” It’s not great. But “A Simple Plan” blew my socks off on rewatch. I think it’s maybe his third best film, behind “Spider-Man II” and “Evil Dead 2”, which I wasn’t expecting.

[@margotperez7162]

@@Darren_Mooney Apropos of nothing really, but there's a video on the Double Toasted YT channel titled "Spiderman 3 is Better Than Spiderman 2" that you might find fascinating...

[@VICTORZITOSS]

I can't whatch these in the summer but here's a comment to appease to the algorythm because i know it's going to be a good vid, anyway Thanks for the work

[@Darren_Mooney]

Ah, I hope you enhoy it when you get a chance!

[@Rebar77_real]

That was a nice 16 minutes.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! It was a long-ish one, but it was fun, I think!

[@nigelgreen9369]

One wonders what Raimi would have made of the project if he was the lead from the beginning rather than the 'Go to Fixit Guy' and could operate without Marvel's obvious constraints.

[@kclink1579]

That's some Luna thinking

[@Darren_Mooney]

I'm over the Moon about how that turned out.

[@HUNbullseye]

Damn this was good! Especially to shake me up from my Marvel lethargy.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed. This was a joy to put together. I occasionally get accused of being a little bit cynical, but it's most often because I end up talking about things that I think merit little bit of cynicism. This was a really fun process. And Omar's work was phenomenal here.

[@galenapex7235]

Excellent.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Cheers! I'm glad you liked this one. Phenomenal work from Omar on the edit as well.

[@mukkywater]

It's ironic, the Marvel studio influences actually feel like they weigh the film down, with the inclusion of the illumati and specifically Reed Richards, and the off-screen development of Wanda's character. In stark contrast, I want to see Sam Raimi return for Doctor Strange 3. Zombie Strange as a moment of resolution was just pure genius. The overlaying exposition in one of my favorite sequences in the film.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yep. As I said, more exposition sequences should look like that, be that visually interesting.

[@Triforceman1]

1:15 mans has good taste I see

[@umjackd]

The more I pick up about how visual effects work in terms of making a movie, the more I can pretty much accept that it's a big part of the pipeline. I think good CG visual effects take way longer than people expect them to, so it kind of even makes sense to have them being worked on before a director is even signed on, because that would affect the pace of releasing films. I'm curious where you stand on this point Darren. Does it seem worth it? Financially it certainly seems to, but maybe it limits what's possible for the director to decide upon.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I don’t know if it is financially worth it, given the stories you hear about the VFX houses. I suspect the way we use VFX at the moment is only cost effective because studios aren’t paying what they’re worth. (I suspect that if studios had to pay fair compensation for VFX, they’d use a lot less of it, what they’d get would be higher quality, and more intricately woven into the fabric of the movie than treaded as a hammer for every nail.)

[@umjackd]

@@Darren_Mooney huzzah for ethically payment for services and not overworking the poor digital artists in entertainment industries! Hopefully. One day.

[@seanw1783]

Can't say I care about the Marvel cinematic universe at all, but I'm a long time fan of Sam's (and his brilliant Spidey trilogy). I feel like I would need so much context to try out a film like this though, and I don't have the time or patience to watch hours of other Marvel films to get it

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, my parents follow along easily enough, dipping in and out. My mum watched “Endgame”, having completely forgotten “Infinity War.”

[@seanw1783]

@@Darren_Mooney I've only seen Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy because they had an almost "stand-alone" feel to them. Perhaps I could dip in to a few more like those...

[@TheCreepypro]

love raimi this video was great

[@Apocolypse88]

this video is GOLD. 😍💛🤓🎬🎭

[@Darren_Mooney]

I'm really proud of how this one turned out.

[@AllInTheGame01]

Great video, the MCU could seriously do with a slight scaling back to deal with both overall storytelling & VFX quality control! Wonder what Darren's thoughts on the Wakanda Forever trailer are? And what his expectations of the movie before & after watching the trailer are?

[@Darren_Mooney]

I am very cautious about “Wakanda Forever.” I think “Black Panther” is great, even if I have very specific quibbles with it. (Everett Ross is the big one. I don’t like him in the comics, but I understand what he does there. The film uses him in ways that… I think undermine it.) I’ve also been following the production news on “Wakanda Forever”, and involving Wright, so I am anxious about that too. It’s an impossible situation for a movie like that, even more difficult that the famed “write and rewrite” situation here. But I like Coogler a lot. If anyone can pull it off, it’s him. And I honestly thought the trailer was phenomenal. It was stunningly emotional, it hit me like a tonne of bricks in a way that few finished films do. Bassett yelling about the loss of her family broke my heart. (And a lot of that is Boseman, but it’s also… look, these past four years have been very hard for everybody. Everybody I know has lost something, even if there’s been little room for grief.)

[@AllInTheGame01]

@@Darren_Mooney Appreciate the response Darren, are you able to expand on the Everett Ross dislike pls?

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@AllInTheGame01 Well, this is a movie about an African nation that was never a victim of colonialism, and about the suffering that Killmonger experiences in the United States, where he is turned into a weapon by the state, specifically to destabilize resource-rich foreign countries. So having Ross as a “good” CIA operative undercuts that for me, particularly given his role here is to help stabilize Wakanda. It feels like a character choice that assumes white audiences need a heroic white character to connect with a blockbuster like this. (I don’t like Priest’s approach to the character in the comics either, but at least there it’s explicit how much of a joke Ross is, and how patronising his inclusion is.)

[@AllInTheGame01]

​@@Darren_Mooney Had those thoughts as well when his CIA links were established! Should he have been completely excluded from the movie? Or could that character still have worked if he had zero CIA links and instead had been part of a different organisation like the UN for example?

[@Darren_Mooney]

@@AllInTheGame01 Yep. I think the character would have worked better as he was introduced in Priest's run, as a low-level diplomatic attache.

[@jimramos2613]

Sam Raimi is best director one of my favorite directors since evil Dead and Spider-Man like I love what he does like of his style of his knows how to do like superhero to comedy to horror. so much anything when it comes to him and Doctor Strange 2 was like amazing movie it is and you know what I say like he deserves nominated or best awards for filmmaker director that he deserves even he doesn't get it 👈🙏

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, I'm not sure I'd argue that "Multiverse of Madness" is his best work, as much as I love it. I'd probably be more likely to credit "Evil Dead 2" or "Spider-Man 2" as that. But it is very Raimi, and I had an amazing time with it.

[@TheKaptainKombat]

I have to say I really didn’t enjoy multiverse of madness as a movie, I found myself a little baffled at how underwhelmed I was by it, as I felt Sam Raimi’s influence seemed to have been blotted out to a pretty significant degree. I appreciate this piece for bringing attention to the successes Sam was able to achieve even under such a particular brand, and the little call outs that can be attributed to his previous work or life, but I don’t think I’ll be in the mood to rewatch it again as I’m already quite critical of the mcu. However, this piece has peaked my interest in making an effort to work through Raimi’s filmography as in retrospect I realize I’ve only really seen a handful of “his” films. I love the level of consideration and effort put into these works and I hope they remain in production for a long time!

[@Darren_Mooney]

I hope you enjoy the journey. In particular, I think "The Quick and the Dead" has been ripe for a cinematic reappraisal. It's a suger-rush of a movie, and a loving homage to a long-gone genre.

[@phantomfire8228]

1:33

[@phantomfire8228]

4:40

[@bird3713]

I rather liked Multiverse of Madness - Elizabeth Olsen’ acting really carried the day, and I loved that Benedict Cumberbatch lived out the finale as a CG zombie

[@Darren_Mooney]

Benedict Cumberbatch is very much channelling Bruce Campbell there, and it's lovely.

[@phantomfire8228]

0:05

[@phantomfire8228]

0:30

[@phantomfire8228]

14:40

[@xenoliving3951]

While I appreciate this as a study of a Raimi movie, I still mourn the lost potential of a Dr.Strange movie.

[@phantomfire8228]

8:40

[@cjkalandek996]

See, I found Raimi's kinetic and corny style with his _Spider-Man_ trilogy way too overdone for me. However, when I heard he was directing _Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness,_ I felt this was more up his alley; because his style would be best suited for the bizarre magic these characters can use and the fact that the movie felt more like a horror film at times. And because of that, _Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness_ is arguably the most visually distinctive MCU film we've had in a long time. And it's a sign Marvel MUST allow directors to put their own visual spin on their films if they want people to continue liking them.

[@phantomfire8228]

12:00

[@AlvarVraal]

Cheers Darren! Any particular drink you would like me to pour in your honor?

[@Darren_Mooney]

Ha! A Coke with ice, and lemon, on a hot day.

[@AlvarVraal]

@@Darren_Mooney Will be done, all the way from Hong Kong. Where it is also hot.

[@phantomfire8228]

7:10

[@julianaalcantara3595]

Make it popular not monopolized

[@D0pam1n]

Well unfortunately, the individual handwriting of directors and writers always gets swept aside by the Marvel machine. Nevermind auteurs - in this franchise, everybody's just a hired hand. Waititi, Branagh and Raimi are no exceptions here. While I also like to search for the gems of their styles in their Marvel movies, they often feel like the few things they were able to sneak by Marvel's Quality Control. Which is really just a euphemism for the great equalizer of the marketing department to mold the movie into their, admittedly financially successful, formula.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I don’t know. I think there are directors who did get crushed by Marvel, to be clear. But I do think you could screen Waititi’s “Thor” movies in a season of his films and they would make sense. (Branagh, who I love, is also very good at balancing these sorts of demands - I don’t consider “Thor” any more or less anonymous than his Poirot films, for example.)

[@EfrainMan]

I feel like you definitely lose something that made serialized comics unique when you try to homogenize their appearance and such. You never knew what artist/penciler you were gonna get in this month's issue of whatever long running series you were reading, and it was always interesting to see your favorite characters drawn in a style you never saw before. Yea there were misses occasionally (subjective, of course) but overall it was at least intriguing, if not cool. I'd love to see something like that in the movies to keep things from getting stale, even if it means getting the occasional "miss".

[@luedriver]

subtitles

[@CJWproductions]

I feel more disoriented watching this than I ever have watching a multiverse story.

[@solwilkinson8551]

ok

[@Darren_Mooney]

Cheers!

[@xalener]

I wish they'd give these movies to more guys like Raimi. Visionary directors feel like they're kinda being bred out.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Yep. I also suspect that directors like Zhao or Cretton could also do with a “training” mid-budget film before doing something on this scale, like Coogler had “Creed” or Nolan had “Insomnia” before their big budget superhero films.

[@jhandcockful]

Sam Raimi invented shakey cam?? He ruined Kenobi for me!

[@Darren_Mooney]

To be fair, I'd be more likely to credit the "Bourne" films for its modern ubiquity. But Raimi "invented" a similar mechanism that he gave the same name in the late seventies and early eighties.

[@xbox1445]

MoM has such a unique visual language, even more so than the first movie which was already unique but a bit... Less so? MoM achieves a unique balance that feels unique, you catch the visual references to earlier Raimi films it was a delight to watch. It also felt as one of the most emotionally satisfactory since the downfall of Wanda as an antagonist is brutal and raw; you understand all the things that brought her there but all the evil choices she takes... Hopefully they give all this a proper payback when she is returned to hero status, but I want to see how difficult that can be and that maybe it is just impossible at the end of the day, just as the variant Dr. Strange on What If...? Hopefully Marvel has the guts.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I quite like Derrickson as a director. I also think "The Black Phone", the project he made instead of "Multiverse of Madness", was quite good as well. But Derrickson isn't a visual stylist in the way that Raimi is, and I'm not sure that Derrickson has a set of recurring thematic preoccupations - beyond a fascination with crashing the supernatural into genres where you don't expect it (a courtroom drama, a gritty urban documentary, a child abduction thriller). That said, I have a great deal of fondness for him, but I'd be hardpressed to put a video like this together on him. (That said, it would be a nice excuse for a rewatch.)

[@Fuck_whoever_took_my_name]

I have the exact opposite opinion on this. The biggest disappointment of Multiverse of Madness was that it was just another Sam Raimi movie. Just as formulaic as a Marvel movie with everything you listed, dutch angles, zooms, dollies, a combo of all of them, camera perspective, blah blah blah, boring.

[@Darren_Mooney]

This is kinda the thing for me: a film from a particular director that is actually saying something is inherently more interesting than one with all of that shorn out. I think “Multiverse of Madness” actually has a perspective and things that interest it, which gives it an advantage over the factory-assembled alternative. (Say, “Black Widow”, “Shang-Chi”, etc.) And even if it is fair to write it off as “just another Sam Raimi movie”, the last Sam Raimi film was (the pretty depressing) “Oz the Great and Powerful” from almost a decade ago. That is a considerable stretch of time, particularly in the context of a franchise producing fifty-odd hours of content in a year.

[@TheFlash-rh2el]

Brilliant video. It’s all well and good Marvel having the nerve (in this day and age?!) to make a film that actually tries to actively comment on America, as opposed to the films that passively comment on the country I.e 99% of Marvel films, but at least get the commentary right. The film views Doctor Strange from 616 as a Biden-esque figure, which would be fine, but it doesn’t take a stringless muppet to know that Joe Biden was always viewed as a stand-in politician and not the hope America needs during this time. It just reads as propaganda. As I write this, news has recently broke about Biden helping fill in the gaps in Trump’s border wall. I find the fact that they tried to include some active political commentary commentary insulting at this point. The only one that seemed to correctly have its ear to the ground was Guardians 2, which framed Ego as a Trump-like figure and the Guardians as regretful voters who were not happy with the man in whom they put their trust.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I mean, I’ve argued elsewhere that I think that “Multiverse of Madness” has a fairly timely thematic preoccupations: the idea that the tendency of people to lose themselves in fantasies - which can divorce them from consensus reality and even drove them to violence, some of which involve doing horrific things to save imaginary children and preserve an imaginary ideal while also torturing immigrants to preserve that fantasy - can lead to the breakdown of reality and the collapse of our understanding of each other. (I mean, that’s a lot - but it’s all there.)

[@TheFlash-rh2el]

@@Darren_Mooney That’s true, which is a nice way of leading to my personal issue with the movie. You don’t include subtext like that without wanting the audience to engage with it. If the commentary is more than just my personal coding, if the writers wanted me to hear what they wanted to say, then it is ironic that it is framed within a narrative that can only be seen as propaganda from a person or company wanting you to hear a specific message, or a passionate-yet delusional commentary on the state of America today. (Pardon the grammar and structure, I’m watching the video with me tea.)

[@chasehedges6775]

Marvel/MCU has been kinda hit and miss for me.

[@Darren_Mooney]

Fair. I attract some controversy on here for like some movies and disliking others. I think the quality varies on a case-by-case basis. I think the MCU hasn't made a movie as bad as Joss Whedon's "Justice League", but I also don't think it's made a movie as good as "Logan", for example. But there are a bunch of them I genuinely adore - "Guardians", "Guardians 2", "Iron Man 3", "Thor", "Thor: Ragnarok", "Black Panther", "The Avengers", etc.

[@owodesuwuwu4113]

OK, but multiverse of madness isn't an MCU film, it's too much of a tropey horror movie that doesn't do anything new. My biggest issues with MoM are how Scarlet Witch ends herself (which doesn't happen in the comics AFAIK, also WTF I thought she was an important character!?), the Illuminati are _entirely_ too weak, Strange's powers don't increase in any meaningful way, and the entire premise of "multiverse" was shoehorned into essentially one character's gimmick. Strange, despite being intelligent, NEVER mentions that the only reason Stark's time travel worked in Endgame is BECAUSE of multiversal theory, but considering Strange NEVER mentions previous character interactions AT ALL in this movie (aside from Strange 1 characters), it's quite clear Raimi never watched any of the recent MCU movies. My theory is that Fiege gave up when assigning directors to movies for a lot of phase 4 projects. I have the same criticism of Eternals, although for slightly different reasons. My personal theory is that Chloe Zhao was given Eternals essentially as a Chinese CCP kickback because her dad is the head of some CCP/Chinese state steel giant. Again, the ONLY tie in to the rest of the MCU is the snap, and then considering that three MCU movies take place canonically chronologically after Eternals AND NOBODY EVER MENTIONS THE CELESTIAL ARM COMING OUT OF THE PACIFIC, this lends credence to my theory that Fiege gave up. Another bit of evidence to this theory is Moon Knight - it's quite clear from the Wonder Woman 2 style ending of the introduction of the female protagonist (fine, but like give her powers earlier?), and the blatant "I am an Egyptian superhero" theme that they went for that they're trying to get Egypt to unblock their movies. Egypt and China both then went on to block Lightyear and Strange 2, both for same sex displays of affection/some other BS reason. Doesn't help that Moon Knight was another by the numbers tropey AF crapstorm that couldn't decide if it was comic Deadpool or whiny british complaint simulator.

[@Darren_Mooney]

I mean, “Multiverse of Madness” is what it looks like when you give a director with an actual viewpoint and perspective one of these projects, which makes it quite different from (and frankly better than) a lot of them. But obviously mileage varies and doctors differ.

[@owodesuwuwu4113]

@@Darren_Mooney grind on Raimi's lap harder, plz