09AggieJC said:

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Why couldn't Wanda just find a universe where her kids lost their version of her?

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Read through the whole thread to see if anyone else said this. That was my first reaction. "Hey uh, instead of murdering other-Wanda, there has to be a universe where she died and her kids are alive."

Overall I thought this movie was fine, but I just have some beefs.

- The spirits. So they attack strange because he reanimated a corpse (sure, that's fine). But like, where are they from? They're just hovering around? And then he can just like... lasso them and throw them at someone else and then they start attacking that person even if that's not the person they were originally attacking? A lot of this movie is absolutely wild, and fine, but that was just bizarre to me.

- I didn't love that Wanda ended WandaVision as like "maybe good again but tampering with some dark stuff" to just straight up murdering good guys at the beginning of this. Seems like a jump that we should have seen on screen where she slides that direction. I know it makes logical sense that she went that far, but I don't love that she got there basically off screen when this is one of our core characters.

- Where the hell is White Vision?

I didn't love this movie, but didn't hate it, it had some fun parts to be sure. Just didn't quite stick it for me.

Madmarttigan said:

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It's like Daenerys in GoT where the explanation is basically b****** be crazy. Love the irony of woke Hollywood sometimes making women crazy as hell at the flip of a switch for no reason.

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You mean the same Hollywood that has had so many creeps like Weinstien and Woody Allen? I think y'all play up the idea of Hollywood being woke way too much as its filled with just as much sexism as anywhere else.

EXTREMELY similar. I even typed that in there and then deleted it.

We needed either some more WandaVision, or more to start this movie, where we see her continue the slide. A doesn't work, she tries B, B doesn't work, so C, each decision further from who she wants to be but she deems it necessary.

Instead, at the end of WandaVision she's reading a bad book as her kids are screaming "help me" from somewhere and then this starts and she's sending monsters to kill a child. That's a big off screen jump.

texasaggie04 said:

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This movie is bottom tier for me, no desire to watch again. Maybe because I'm not a horror fan or can't name a single movie by Raimi, but I couldn't figure out what was the point. One minute it's a bad 80s slasher film, the next minute it's a zombie movie. Maybe that was the point, to fit the theme of a multiverse...?

Various trailers and speculation about the Illuminati were all but pointless, as it seems to have been no more than a cameo to appease the masses.

For me, this felt the kind of movie that would have been a Netflix exclusive with poor reviews except it featured marvel characters so it'll make a billion dollars.

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You didn't know that he directed the Tobey Maguire Spiderman Trilogy?

In that possessed body she just crushed several high powered characters including Captain Marvel and freakin' Professor X, I'm not sure that's a good reason.

But yeah, I agree, it's just supposed to be a creepy scene, of all the things to nitpick in this movie that one seems fine?

For all those hating on this - at least it wasn't Shang-Chi!

jeffk said:

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Just got out. I have a ton of thoughts. First is that I'm not sure if I liked it or not.

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This is where I was at.

One of the first times in a Marvel movie, certainly one I saw in theaters, where even during the movie I found myself thinking "do I like this?"

Long, but it'll help some of y'all understand the Darkhold a little bit better as well.

bobinator said:

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If it worked for you fine, it just didn't work for me. I know it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of time on it in this movie, but for such a big character to swing ALL THE WAY to the other side off screen, I just didn't care for it.

I think the greatness of the MCU has been largely due to careful character development of the major players, and Wanda is certainly one of the major players of this phase and she just goes absolutely off the deep end off screen. Strange does end up using the darkhold in this movie, if the next movie started with him just straight up dusting good guys it would be odd right?

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But I didn't take it as her swinging "ALL THE WAY to the other side" because it's not like she's in a happy place at the end of WandaVision to start with. She's *better*, sure, but still damaged and guilt-ridden, deeply misses her kids, etc. So it just didn't seem like that big of a leap for her to put herself in a position to get possessed by The Darkhold or whatever.

Maybe her "getting posessed by the darkhold" is what I wanted to see. WandaVision ends with her astral plan self or whatever reading the darkhold, and we hear her kids screaming "help us." Yes she's guilt-ridden, but it seems like she's trying to find them somewhere out there and help them.

And then at the beginning of this movie she's using a giant monster to try and kidnap a child so she can kill her and steal her powers.

I'd have just liked to see one plan a that went wrong first. Maybe her first plan could have been to find America and just try to talk her into sending her to another universe where her kids exist, america refuses, wanda gets desperate and tries to grab her, scares America, activating her powers, and she's zapped to another universe which makes Wanda more desperate.

Again, if that didn't bother you then fine, but for me it was just kinda jarring that she went from like a semi-sympathetic character to "oh she's like super bad now."

I do think this movie would've maybe played slightly better BEFORE No Way Home, for several reasons.

1. Currently it feels like that whole movie ends up not mattering to the larger MCU and is basically tossed aside in this one without consequences.

2. If you set this before NWH, you can even tease that movie by having Strange+America end up in one of the Tobey/Andrew universes, or maybe travel through it for just a split second. (Or a post-credits?)

3. Doing the above, you could get a Bruce Campbell cameo of him playing the same usher he played in Spider-Man 2.

4. This movie in a lot of ways felt smaller than NWH, so you get even more build-up to the craziness that was NWH.

She's pretty clearly the protagonist and the character the viewer is meant to empathize with, though.

But I do think that conflict within the character is very much meant to conflict the viewers.

I don't think they at all intend for people to think of her as a villain at the end of that show. (At least not until the post-credits scene.)

I didn't mind her being a villain from the jump, but I do think that change happens in the time BETWEEN Wandavision and this movie, when she's studying the Darkhold.

But I could go with it because they laid all the necessary groundwork.

It's sort of like Anakin going from 0-100 in ROTS when he kills younglings. It is definitely abrupt at first, but all the groundwork is there going back to TPM.

And totally agree on White Vision. Thought they really teed him up for a big return in this movie.

I mean the Anakin one is a tough analogy because a) they spent basically two whole movies and most of the third one setting this up and b) we knew it was going to happen because we already know the future of the character. They did the groundwork and showed the slide to the dark side. He slightly broke the rules, then he really broke the rules, then he killed a jedi master to protect his only hope of save his family, then pledged allegiance to the evil guy, knowing he was evil but thinking it was his only choice...

Like, we saw all of that happen. So yes, the killing of younglings was a big next step, but we still saw all the previous steps (varying degrees of emotional impact due the movies themselves not being all that good, but still.)

We didn't see any Wanda steps between "let's crack open this book" and "kill America and steal her powers."

We can assume they happened, but I just would have liked to see it. But I can at least see how other people are fine without seeing that. I just would have liked to because I think that would have been a great show/movie opportunity because of how good Olsen is at this character.

You're not wrong. I guess I'm just referring to the emotional groundwork, where I bought into her motivation for the abrupt heel turn.

I will say that I would be so down for a Wandavision S2, if they have her live.

Granted the whole conceit of the show wouldn't work anymore, so it would probably have a whole other name, but at this point Wanda is one of my favorite characters in the MCU.

Hell, you could even throw in flashbacks that fill in the gaps we are talking about.

Yeah she's super alive IMO.

I did like that this movie threw in a classic Star Wars move with Wong, nobody has ever died by getting thrown off a cliff/other high place.

I mean its hard to argue that the story in this movie is a really tight one or that this movie doesn't lack for plot. I think its totally reasonable for people to have issues on that front and if thats why you watch Marvel movies then you probably won't like this one.

That is NOT why I watch Marvel movies. There are but a handful that have good stories overall, IMO, and saying a handful is being really generous. But yeah, this one is even weaker than most. For me that didn't matter, cause there was just a lot of cool **** that goes on regardless.

Especially after all the other WandaVision/What If tie-ins.

I was expecting him to show up at some kind of crucial juncture to try and talk Wanda back from the brink.

lol. i was just thinking, Strange was able to open a portal from Titan to Earth. We have not been able to see Wanda achieve teleportation. The closest is using the mirror reflections to get out of the trap at Kamar Taj. Strange could have literally portaled America to another planet, roll credits.

Also, Strange managed to get his sling ring pick pocketed 2 movies in a row by a teenager.