The Multiverse of Nonsense

“That’s not how quantum physics works” Tony Stark

Since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) the multiverse seems to be the latest trend in sci-fi/fantasy.  Despite Avengers: Endgame telling us there was no such thing as the multiverse, it has become an important part of the MCU first on TV in Loki and What If…? But now on the big screen Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, despite the fact the multiverse makes no sense, at least in the way depicted in this movie. 

As much a Sam Raimi movie as an MCU movie.  It has been suggested he was given more creative freedom than on the Spider-Man movies, and it shows.  While it fits within the franchise the tone is closer to Rami horror than his previous foray into superhero movies.  The idea of possession and reanimation are straight out of Evil Dead as is the Darkhold, that they may as well have called the Necronomicon.  To top it all off there is a great Bruce Campbell cameo.  The fulcrum on which Phase Four is placed, and probably the introduction to phase five as it opens the door for characters who weren’t previously available in the MCU due to complicated rights issues. 

The MCU is beginning to feel like a comic book, not just something based on a comic book.  It is common in comic books for larger stories to be told across multiple titles.  As well as Endgame and the previous Doctor Strange, this movie references Spider-Man: No Way Home, WandaVision and What If…?  The latter most significantly despite being the least seen.  At the centre of the film we have a new character America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) a character with the ability to travel the multiverse.  A fun character that works well playing off Strange.  If they don’t find a way of using her, she could be reduced to a human MacGuffin a little like Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in Ant-Man and the Wasp.  This would be a shame.  Just to make those of us who have been with the MCU from the start feel old, Gomez is younger than the franchise.  Born in April 2006, the same month Jon Favreau was hired to direct Iron Man some months after the franchise was conceived. 

Ultimately as you can probably gather from what I have said, that I enjoyed the movie.  However, there is an issue, it makes absolutely no sense.  I am not talking about the fantastical side of the story, you have to suspend disbelief to what any movie, I am saying the multiverse as seen here doesn’t make sense.  There are far too many theories on how a Multiverse works, but within the MCU the suggestion seems to be that they are Quantum.  A quantum multiverse creates a new universe every time a diversion in events occurs.  This is similar to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  In these theories the alternate universes are endless as each decision, each flap of a butterfly’s wings will create a new branch.  Therefore, in theory, it is possible that in some universes a character could have a doppelganger.  However, this could only happen if the changes that made the new branch happened after the character was conceived.  Given that on average, each time men ejaculate they release nearly 100 million sperm, and each sperm would result in a different person, or no pregnancy at all!

 If we concentrate on what they call Earth-838, we know that there are certain characters that exist (or existed) in both this universe and the MCU Earth-616 (did I get those the right way around?): Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen).  The first deviation we know happened is that Peggy Carter became The First Avenger, possibly in the way seen in What If…?.  This one would imagine would have a different outcome to the war and Hydra.  What we do know is that it appears that the creation of Shield didn’t happen.  The power in this world is The Illuminati. (Forget Dan Browns conspiracy fiction, there really was an Illuminati.  The Bavarian Illuminati, founded on 1 May 1776 in Bavaria.  An Enlightenment-era secret society, their goals were to oppose superstition, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power) Given that this major diversion from the timeline happened somewhere around 1941it is likely that a lot of these characters would have been born.  That’s before we get to Wanda’s children.  How did a variant of Wanda have the same children as the ones created by Wanda in the fantasy in WandaVision? 

Shortly after Doctor Strange came another multiverse movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once.  Written and directed by Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert based on the Modal realism theory.  The title refers to the “villain” of the movie, who has the power to see and feel everything everywhere all at once.  This results in the belief that nothing really matters, in any universe and the plan to suck all of the multiverse into an infinite void of nothingness.  This is an interesting point, as it has often been a criticism of the use of time travel and multiverses within stories.  It reduces the stakes.  As is often said, No one stays dead except Uncle Ben. In this movie our hero (Michelle Yeoh) doesn’t exactly travel between universes, the way it is used is a little different to anything.  Receiving universal critical praise and doing exceptionally well at the box-office, it is a better and more fun movie than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Around the same time as seeing these two movies I read a book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.  This gives a more believable multiverse within its own fantasy.  The protagonist, Nora chooses to take her own life.  She wakes up in the library of the title, where she is given the choice to live a different life, the life she would be living had she made a different decision in the past.  As she steps into the different lives it becomes clear that the decisions she makes effect not just her, but all the people around her.  The promise, when she finds the life in which she’s the most content, she will remain and live out that that life.  There is no great surprise, the message and the outcome are clear from very early on.  If we are not to multiversed out by then, there will be a movie adaptation, StudioCanal and Blueprint Pictures optioned the film rights a week before the book was published in 2020. 

The presence of Reed Richards/ Mister Fantastic (John Krasinski) and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) suggest this is the door that will bring The Fantastic Four and The X-Men into the MCU.  But, it is a door they cannot close!  This is going to require some creative storytelling so we don’t end up with all MCU stories being multiverse movies, as much fun as they have been they could get very boring very quicky.  The more we explore it the less sense it will make, and lets not forget, we no longer have Tony Stark to tell us “That’s not how quantum physics works”. 

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2018 Comic-Book Movies ranked (by me) from best to worst:

1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – Not an MCU movie, but part of Sony’s own ever more confusing cinematic universe. Like Peter Parker before him, Miles Morales is bitten by a radioactive spider and becomes a new Spider-Man. At the same time Kingpin opens a portal to other alternate realities, bringing multiple Spider people into Miles’ world.  Using an ever changing array of animation styles to create a bizarre and bonkers movie that is also amazing fun, and very funny, as well as being full of heart.   The freshest and funniest comic book movie for a very long time.  The voice cast is amazing, Shameik Moore is joined by: Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Zoë Kravitz, Nicolas Cage, Liev Schreiber, and Chris Pine.
2. Black Panther – So much has been said about Black Panther, possibly the most significant is the quality of the villains, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klae, the over the top moustache twirling comic villain and Michael B. Jordan as the more interesting and nuanced Erik Killmonger (with a name like that, he was never going to be a hero!).  The supporting cast is fantastic, all the characters played by Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, and Daniel Kaluuya were interesting enough that they could have had their own movie. Angela Bassett is sadly underused. Not as original or as fun as Thor Ragnarok, but it certainly has enough going on to please Marvel fans and for those who are new to the series. Importantly, It also works as a standalone film.
3. Avengers: Infinity War – Ten years of Marvel movies have been leading up to this point, the arrival of Thanos, the franchises chosen big, bad. The series so far has introduced so many characters, it would be impossible to service them all. Amazingly the film manages to give everyone (except a few characters left on the sidelines for future use) reasonable screen time without slowing the narrative. The action scenes are fantastic and the character interactions are often devastatingly funny. The problems are with the narrative; I can’t expand on this and keep this spoiler free, beyond saying that it is most likely part of the setup for the next film, a setup that could be satisfying or infuriating.
4. Deadpool 2 – If you have seen the first film, you will know what to expect. By definition it lacks the originality, but is as funny as the original. The greatest revelation is Zazie Beetz who is excellent as Domino. I wouldn’t mind seeing a third instalment, but also wouldn’t be bothered if this is the last one.
5. Aquaman – Aquaman should have been the Justice League’s equivalent to Thor, the preposterous but fun member of the team, the character played totally staight the more silly things get.  In a way it achieves this, but it lacked the fun and charisma of Thor.  But given his own movie he fares better.  The silliest movie on the list, but the most fun (after Spider-Verse).  The visuals are spectacular, Jason Momoa has fun with the part, and is well supported by Amber Heard, and Willem Dafoe.
6. Ant-Man and the Wasp – Lighter and more comedic than the rest of the MCU, Ant man is never going to be the best of the franchise but it is always fun.  Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are both excellent in their own right, but have little to no chemistry together.  Walton Goggins is as great as ever, but seems to be in a different movie to everyone else.  Michelle Pfeiffer is underused.  Michael Peña offers his usual comic relief.  Rising star, Hannah John-Kamen provides an interesting and compelling antagonist.  Great comic relief that was much needed after Infinity war.  Marvel Movies tend to come in trilogies, let’s hope the final instalment nails it.
7. Venom – Venom was poorly served in the terrible Spider-Man 3, in a post Deadpool world, this is the chance to make a funny and fun super(anti)hero movie, it fails.  The plot is a little plodding, the action isn’t a patch on anything Marvel has done in the past decade.  It does however have an ace up its sleeve, Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, and Riz Ahmed, all of whom are always worth watching.  A mid credit scene suggests a sequel, with the origin out of the way, hopefully a second film will live up to the promise.  It failed to live up to its potential and is bottom of this list, but is far from terrible; don’t bother paying for it, but if it crops up on TV watch it.

I promised this year’s comic-book movies ranked from best to worst, as you can see from my comments, none of them are actually bad films, not even Venom.  Before anybody asks where Teen Titans Go! To the Movies, and Incredibles 2 are on my list.  I didn’t see them. 

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Movie of the Month: August 2018

I have been a little selective with my movie going this month, I could have seen a lot more.  On the whole I chose well with three fantastic films that will be in contention for my year end top ten.  A couple of really solid and enjoyable films.  One disappointing but still not bad sequel.  The weakest film was the one I expected least from, the latest YA dystopian yarn, that provides further proof that the genre ran out of ideas a long time ago.  Here are the contenders:

Ant-Man and the Wasp – Lighter and more comedic than the rest of the MCU, Ant man is never going to be the best of the franchise but it is always fun.  Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are both excellent in their own right, but have little to no chemistry together.  Walton Goggins is as great as ever, but seems to be in a different movie to everyone else.  Michelle Pfeiffer is underused.  Michael Peña offers his usual comic relief.  Rising star, Hannah John-Kamen provides an interesting and compelling antagonist. 

Pandora’s Box – Seminal Louise Brooks movie, the masterpiece of director G W Pabst.  Screened thanks to the BFI in what they call a “New 2K DCP of the 2009 restoration of Munich Film Museum’s definitive cut, with score by Peer Raben”.  Telling of the rise and fall of desirable and seductive but naive young dancer Lulu (Brooks).  It still stands up as a mesmerising film nearly 90 years on with simple modern storytelling, you soon forget you are watching a silent film and just appreciate it as a film. 

The Equalizer 2 – Denzel Washington’s first ever sequel see’s him returning as Robert McCall, the character inspired by the 1980’s Edward Woodward TV show.  The set pieces are all excellent, but the story that links them is disjointed and inconsistent.  Not as good as the first film, but not without enjoyable moments. 

In The Fade – If you exclude Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, this is Diane Kruger’s first German-language film.  I went into it having read a synopsis and heard a brief review; this is too much information, as it gave me an impression of what to expect, a false impression. A stunning film largely thanks to Diane Kruger amazing performance.

A Prayer Before Dawn – The true story of Billy Moore based on his book A Prayer Before Dawn: A Nightmare in Thailand; a British boxer who finds himself in a brutal prison in Thailand. Much of the dialogue is in Thai without subtitles leaving the audience only understanding as much as Billy, a disconcerting but effective choice.  Often hard to watch, it is an unforgettable film that will haunt your mind for days after seeing it, Joe Cole, best known for Peaky Blinders is exceptional.  

Unfriended: Dark Web – A sequel to Unfriended (2014) dips its toe into the burky world of the dark web.  As before, all the action takes place on a computer screen.  Effective but unoriginal horror. An interesting idea, I understand there are two different endings. 

The Darkest Minds – The latest in endless stream of YA dystopian future set movies.  Totally derivative of everything that has gone before particularly Divergent and the Maze Runner.  Amandla Stenberg (who was in the first Hunger Games movie when she was 13) makes a likeable lead. 

BlacKkKlansman – Spike Lee is back on form with the true story of a African-American policeman who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970’s.  John David Washington has all the charisma of his famous farther and is well supported by the always excellent Adam Driver.  Lee’s attempt to juxtapose the narrative with recent events isn’t subtle, but it is extremely effective. 

The Children Act – This is the second film the year with a screenplay from Ian McEwan based on on his own book.  Despite excellent performances the inner monologue of On Chesil Beach failed to translate to the screen.  The Children Act centres around Emma Thompson as a family court judge forced to make life changing decisions for other people while seemingly oblivious to the crumbing state of her own marriage.  Thompson is outstanding in the lead elevating the film way above what it could have been, she works best when playing against Stanley Tucci as her husband, who is also brilliant in a smaller supporting role.

I don’t include re-releases in contention for movie of the month, that rules out Pandora’s Box leaving a straight fight between: In The Fade, A Prayer Before Dawn, and BlacKkKlansman.  As well as being the best films of the month, they are also the hardest hitting and most memorable, films that you will still be thinking about days or weeks later.  The movie of the month is:

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