“Another classic Thor adventure!”

It’s an early quip from Chris Hemsworth’s hulking supe, an attempt to wrestle an ever-transmogrifying character with something approaching a… catchphrase? Later in this, his fourth solo outing (a Marvel first, incidentally), Hemsworth’s God of Thunder and King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) take a couple of cheeky jabs at Natalie Portman’s newly-returned Jane Foster, for her hokey attempts at forging a catchphrase of her own. Talk about potshot calling the kettle black.

It’s indicative of the at-times almost chaotic tonal freefall that besets much of Thor: Love and Thunder. Taika Waititi waded in with 2017’s Ragnarok and injected perhaps the most stoic and sullen of the MCU alum with a flippant 80s punk vibe that, for the most part, worked to great effect. Hemsworth was already establishing himself elsewhere as having the comedy chops to go alongside the rippling physique, and paired with Waititi’s penchant for irreverence, Thor, it seems, was reborn.

Thunder, alas, does not seem to strike twice.

Perhaps most surprising is that, when you scrub off the Waititi silliness (which remains mostly enjoyable in a dismissive, inconsequential sort of fashion), the core bones of Love and Thunder are remarkably similar to 2013’s first Thor sequel, Alan Taylor’s placid and formulaic The Dark World (generally regarded as something of a low ebb amongst early MCU offerings). Thor and friends set out on a galaxy-trotting adventure to stop an embittered super villain from getting his vengeful claws on an apocalyptic McMuffin, all under the umbrella of impending doom for do-gooding love interest Foster.

True, there is a lot of Waititi nonsense/fun (delete as applicable) here. For some, this will make Love and Thunder a more buoyant jaunt, but even ardent fans of the distinctive Kiwi director will likely feel the recurrent undercutting of tension. There’s an overall breeziness and fleeting sensation to much of what transpires here, a little discombobulating when it covers things as heady as parental bereavement and terminal cancer.

Portman’s much-hyped return as Jane Foster, newly imbued with the powers of her godly ex (hammer included) is at least underpinned with some poignancy, but it’s often rather sped through. Christian Bale’s Gorr the God Butcher begins strong, but then gets relatively sidelined to glorified child snatcher for much of the rest of the film. The vast majority of his god-slewing atrocities are completely bypassed. There’s a niggling sense that Waititi wants to get all this heavier, comic-booky stuff out of the way so he can get back to cracking puns and being goofy.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the main man himself. Russel Crowe pops up and injects some genuine laughs into a second reel pitstop to a City of Gods that really, surely should have had something to say about that Thanos chap. But the biggest goofball is supreme ‘himbo’, Thor himself. There’s an undeniable sense that Hemsworth is enjoying himself in this Mk II Odinson, and there’s some gleeful silliness in concepts such as the anthropomorphic jealousy between his iconic two weapons, which offers classic rom-com vibes with a goofy Marvel/Waititi twist. But still, looking at the character over the course of his early Avengers days, the brooding ‘dadbod’ of Endgame, to this almost parodic figure, and you can’t help but wonder if the joke is starting to wear a bit thin.

“There’s an undeniable sense that Hemsworth is enjoying himself in this Mk II Odinson… but you can’t help wonder if the joke is starting to wear a bit thin.”

In fact, that’s true of Waititi’s handling of the franchise as a whole. There’s enough here that works, that is funny, that is entertaining. It generally avoids integrating itself into any wider MCU shenanigans, though this could be partly because post-Endgame, the MCU as a whole seems to be flailing around aimlessly as Kevin Feige stretches himself out to Reed Richards-defying proportions. It saves some heftier emotive thwacks for its third reel. There’s no multi-verse ‘madness’ at play (thank Zeus), and fans of the character will likely appreciate the full circle feeling that the handling of the Thor and Jane relationship evokes here, ABBA-abetted flashback sequences included. A giggle-worthy duo of scene-stealing, screaming giant goats are quintessential Waititi fare, even if they end up being over-applied.

But where Ragnarok felt fresh and invigorating, Thunder feels familiar, trodden. We’ve seen it all before, including elsewhere in the Waititi oeuvre. A late-game beat involving kidnapped Asgardian kids, for instance, feels ripped straight from the finale of his 2019 Oscar-winning JoJo Rabbit. And whilst Ragnarok had Waititi stepping in, sprucing up and having fun with a screenplay not of his penning, Love and Thunder is his output from page to screen.

It’s difficult to dislike Thor: Love and Thunder, it’s just how firmly it lands in the category of being solid but unspectacular. In a world of laden, three-hour slogs (The Batman, anyone?), getting back to a relatively lean 120 minutes is no bad thing. It’s just a shame that it routinely bypasses much in the way of substance to grand-slam yet more style and silliness.

Ultimately, we’re eight visits in for Hemsworth, and Odin-knows how many more for Marvel releases as a whole. Fatigue is, perhaps, inevitable. But it is a little surprising that, only two outings in, the Waititi magic has already become rote. That it is sprinkled on a film that, much like Multiverse of Madness before it, hung on a painfully atypical Marvel structure, only compounds the beige.

It proves to be, after all ‘another classic Thor adventure’, but precious little more.

It would be easy, by now, to autopilot an appraisal of Everything Everywhere All At Once as being ‘the film that Multiverse of Madness should have been’. ‘What Doctor Stranges wishes it was’. Or words to such effect.

In truth, pushing A24’s latest curio through the filter of Marvel is insultingly reductive. Even in its wildest or most bonkers moments (Alligator Loki, anyone?), it’s nigh-impossible to imagine even a Strange outing featuring anything as off-the-wall as a security guard being brutally bludgeoned to death by two uber-sized, blood-soaked dildos.

There is invention, silliness and absurdity in abundance adorned in practically every frame of the Daniels’ reality-warping romp. Even the film’s opening sequences, establishing Michelle Yeoh’s Evelyn, overwhelmed by the chaotic mundanity of life, taxes, people-pleasing and teenager-raising, bristle with a kinetic fury of incident, plot and character.

Her laundromat business is on the rocks, relationship with recently-out daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu, a revelation) is equally bumpy, and are those divorce papers for husband Waymond (Temple of Doom’s Ke Huy Quan in a triumphant returns to screens) bumping around frame?

Throw in a padded, hilariously bothered Jamie Lee Curtis as the IRS inspector ready to drop the hammer on the family’s business enterprise, and a borderline-senile father (the legendary James Hong) yet-to-be-impressed by his middle-aged daughter’s life choices, and you have the recipe for an immediately engaging indy drama.

Or so one would be forgiven for expecting (and in truth, we’re completely down for watching). But this is Daniels territory and, from the creatives that brought the inspired, batshit insanity of Swiss Army Man, there is real strange-ness that needs introducing, and a multi-verse of actual madness to explore.

To say Everything Everywhere plays with its dimension-hopping antics, as Evelyn is drawn in to a cross-existential crisis to fight an unstoppable evil, would again undersell the outrageous fun and at-times breathless genius that the Daniels’ have with the infinitesimal toolbox at their disposal. At a conceptual level, having Yeoh tap into the skills and experiences of a myriad different Evelyns allows for, amongst other things, jaw-dropping martial arts and fight choreography that play as a hyperactive blend of The Raid meets Drunken Master. Everything is not short of action, and it is directed, performed and generally executed to a calibre few Western releases can boast.

Widening the lens, the places we go creatively, emotionally and visually with Yeoh and friends is rarely anything less than breathtaking in its invention, and frequently hilarious to boot. The concept of ‘pathfinding’, a cheeky dig at modern day algorithmic logic, offers up endless giggles, whilst one particular sequence, which sees both a formerly friendly face weaponise their pet and a ‘you have to see it to believe it’ tussle with a pair of security guards, may be, beat for beat, the most uproarious, bonkers and brilliant fight sequence of the decade thus far.

Yet perhaps most amazingly, for all of its technical and visual audaciousness, it’s a film that says as much as it shows. Its emotional clout and resonance are reminiscent of some of Pixar’s finest outings – films such as Inside Out, where an interesting premise and concept are actually in service of a deeply human and intimate study. The Daniels deserve a lot of the credit here, as does Paul Rogers, whose remarkable editing both clarifies and enhances in equal measure.

“It’s a dream of a role, multi-faceted in every possible sense, and Yeoh traverses her own multiverse of madness like the absolute pro she is”

But it is Yeoh who steers and steadies this potentially unwieldy ship with absolute grace and aplomb. Unsurprisingly, she absolutely eats up the action and fight sequences, but it’s the trajectory she takes her world-weary, brow-beaten Evelyn on that rises up above even the googly-eyes and hot-dog fingers. It’s a dream of a role, multi-faceted in every possible sense, and Yeoh traverses her own multiverse of madness like the absolute pro she is. She may need to clear the shelf of buttplug-shaped awards to make room for some alternatives.

The supporting cast are equally wonderful, too. Hsu, as mentioned, is superlative, whilst Ke Huy Quan gets a similarly fractured, eclectic turn as kindly Waymond and his trans-dimensional alternates. The scenes between the core family unit – Hong’s ‘Gong Gong’ included – are the film’s beating heart, and you won’t find a weak link (or, by the denouement, likely a dry eye).

In supporting turns, Jamie Lee Curtis is great fun, and tremendously game, as she switches from despondent administrator to wounded and lovelorn, to – perhaps most entertaining of all – brutish, hulking pursuer not a million miles from her Halloween nemesis Michael Myers. Harry Shum Jr., Jenny Slate and Biff Wiff are amongst other bit parts that pop up throughout to sprinkle some extra madness on proceedings.

Everything Everywhere All At Once erupts with vision and vibrancy. It is the very essence of cinema, an experience almost impossible to imagine in any other medium or environment. It’s clearly made with a lot of love and reverence, too, managing to pack into its runtime nods and gags to the likes of Ratatouille, 2001: A Space Odyssey and even some Wong Kar-Wai and Buster Keaton, for good measure. It looks, plays and feels very much like a tentpole outing, in much the same vein as, say, The Matrix.

Jamie Lee Curtis recently got into a spot of online fan boiling when she claimed Everything Everywhere All At Once ‘out-marvels Marvel’. Landing at the same time as the latest juggernaut of the MCU colossus, it’s easy to see why she – and many others – seized upon the comparison. But really, to say this is a cinemagoing experience more marvellous than fairly formulaic superhero fare is to bat too narrow; here is a masterclass in cinema that is ‘All At Once ‘better than pretty much ‘Everything’ Hollywood has cooked up in recent memory.

The colossus of the Marvel engine has finally, it would appear, been capsized by its own hype carriage. The Studio that made a cultural staple of mid-credits surprises, internet-breaking cameos and monolithic crossovers a la Avengers: Infinity War and Spiderman: No Way Home seems, when presented with the most obvious opportunity yet to completely freewheel on its smorgasbord of intertextual goodness, to have opted to spin its wheels with formula instead.

There’s probably a fair argument to be made that the relative restraint of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is worth celebrating. This is no kaleidoscope of fan service or flurry of cross-franchise scuttling. Indeed, outside of a second reel vignette that clusters a few twists, turns and surprise faces within itself, Sam Raimi’s long-awaited venture into the MCU is a mostly focused and linear affair.

Still, it seems a trifle anticlimactic given months (years?) of fan hypothesising and Studio hyperbole, that the long-awaited venture into the mythical multiverse of endless opportunities settles on delivering a fairly typical Marvel follow-up. And it’s a flatness only amplified by those hands guiding the project. In Evil Dead and Spider-man supremo Raimi, the sheer creative possibilities for Benedict Cumberbatch’s sophomore adventure as the reality-warping Stephen Strange seemed, much like the multiverse itself, endless.

Let’s be clear, cameos and narrative detours shoehorned in for their own sake add nothing. That Multiverse isn’t the name checking bombardment some expected and hoped for doesn’t, in and of itself, constitute a critique. What does, however, is Raimi and screenwriters Michael Waldron and Jade Bartlett’s seeming reluctance and timidity to explore the dramatic and creative possibilities of their infinitesimal McMuffin. The spectre of No Way Home looms large here, as does the joyously barnstorming trailer (and first reactions) for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once, both of which seem to offer more fun, impact and invention with their reality-hopping antics.

Instead, Multiverse of Madness is a pretty rote exercise in typical MCU shenanigans, as Strange and Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding newcomer Xochitl Gomez, whose America Chavez appears to be jumping through realities, pursued by sinister forces. Cumberbatch is on reliable form here, even if the character gets little to do beyond pining for his yesteryear love in Rachel McAdams’ Christine. Olsen, buoyed by the heavier arcs Marvel flung her way in Infinity War and Wandavision, is perhaps served best by a script that nonetheless mostly undercooks both its characters and, as mentioned, its premise, but even Wanda’s journey is immediately predictable and akin to what we’ve seen from, say, X-Men several times over.

And with Raimi, Marvel look to be trying to have their auteur cake whilst avoiding eating it too much of it, too. Being the director who delivered one of the finest superhero sequels ever in Spider-man 2, Multiverse is an altogether less impressive and consistent beast. Some of the best sequences here are where Raimi leans on his pulp horror sensibilities – an increasingly violent escape from a fortified complex, or a late-game ‘if needs must’ that could have been pulled straight from Army of Darkness or Drag Me To Hell. It’s sprinkled with both fun and fright, and yet under the palpable shackles of the MCU family-friendly totem – and doubtless a PG-13-at-worst edict – these more extreme moments end up feel jarring and even in places a touch silly, embedded as they are within the more neutral and measured Marvel filmmaking around them.

Multiverse of Madness is not a bad film. Nor is it a bad sequel. Throw it on a ranking board of the MCU releases so far, and you’re likely looking somewhere middle of the pack. The problem is, following on from recent juggernauts in the film’s own studio backyard, and some decidedly more original offerings elsewhere, middling feels even more underwhelming than usual. Doubly so given the narrative potential at play, and treble for having one of cinema’s most distinctive and vibrant visionaries at its helm.

Raimi’s long-time collaborator Danny Elfman does a serviceable job of trying to elevate things with a solid score, and visually and aesthetically it’s all bold and dynamic enough – even with some genuinely wobbly CG peppered throughout. Not to mention some fairly trademark Raimi-esque prosthetics that, again, end up feeling downright hammy and out of place amidst the polish and cleanness of Marveldom.

“…the Marvel magic may finally be itself beginning to wear off, or at the very least, thin.”

Spider-man aside, Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to have struggled to gain much of its former traction. Accusations of formula fatigue were levied at Black Widow, Eternals and even (unfairly), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings pretty much instantly. And, whilst there remain strong contenders coming up to hopefully jolt some life back into Kevin Feige’s own multiverse of possibility and profit (see: Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, James Gunn’s third Guardians outing), to have flubbed with Raimi suggests perhaps that, after a fairly uncontested reign and an unprecedented surge of consistency and creativity, the Marvel magic may finally be itself beginning to wear off or, at the very least, thin.

The ardent fans will doubtless flock to it in their droves, and it’s by no means a bad time at the cinema, but one can only hope that somewhere out there in the multiverse exists a version of Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange that offers up a little more to, well, marvel at.