Wednesday, May 18, 2022 — 3
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
‘Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness’ just feels like one big
step backwards
When I walked into my
hometown movie theater
for a late Friday night
screening
of
“Doctor
Strange in the Multiverse
of Madness,” I was already
in a pretty bad mood. My
friend and I were running
about 10 minutes late. Our
lateness was exacerbated
by the ridiculously long
line for overpriced movie
theater
snacks
(that
I
was paying for), which of
course gave me a terrible
stomachache. So, as I sat
and waited for the infamous
Marvel opening credits to
roll for “Doctor Strange in
the Multiverse of Madness”
with stomach pains and a
freshly burned hole in my
wallet, I could only expect
the worst. I was prepared
to
suffer
through
two
hours and six minutes of
confusing and headache-
inducing
special
effects,
not-that-funny jokes and
references to other Marvel
movies I had long forgotten.
I was prepared to write a
less-than-gushing
review,
maybe fall asleep in the
theater and, okay, maybe
even stoop so low as to
crack an MSU-related joke
at director Sam Raimi’s
expense. What I was not
prepared for was a Marvel
rollercoaster of emotions
that took me from intrigued,
to excited, to enthralled,
only to ultimately leave
me stranded and feeling
disappointed.
For those of us who
haven’t been keeping up
with the Avengers since
the beginning of time, or
who maybe haven’t had
the free hours (or weeks)
to
watch
every
Marvel
movie
in
chronological
order, here’s a little back
story. Dr. Stephen Strange
(Benedict
Cumberbatch,
“Sherlock”) is a powerful,
magic-wielding
sorcerer
whose role in Marvel films
has been building since
Cumberbatch’s
Marvel
debut in the first “Doctor
Strange.” As one of the
very few actual Avengers-
adjacent superheroes still
around, his character has
been
integral
to
many
recent Marvel films where
he’s showcased his ability to
completely rewrite reality
— an ability that becomes
extremely
important
as
Marvel begins to explore
the lore of multiple realities
and
interdimensional
travel.
So
yes,
“Doctor
Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness” is as complicated
and insane as its title, and
for better or worse, it is
definitely a wild ride.
The
plot
of
“Doctor
Strange in the Multiverse of
Madness” hinges, as always,
on the fate of the universe
as we know it — but this
time,
it’s
thousands
of
different universes that rest
in the hands of Strange and
America Chavez (Xochitl
Gomez, “The Baby-Sitters
Club”), a teenage girl with
the ability to travel to
alternate
universes.
The
film’s roots stretch all the
way back to Cumberbatch’s
Marvel debut in the first
“Doctor
Strange,”
tying
together key plotlines from
recent
Marvel
projects
such as “Avengers: Infinity
War” and most notably
“WandaVision,”
the
miniseries in which Wanda
Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen,
“Sorry for Your Loss”) loses
her marbles and transforms
into the villainous version
of the Scarlet Witch who
appears in “Multiverse of
Madness.” Maximoff seeks
to covet America’s powers
for herself in order to find
a universe where she can be
reunited with the children
she lost in “WandaVision,”
and
uses
dark
and
disturbing forbidden magic
to
follow
America
and
company across dimensions
in a plot twist that we kind
of all saw coming.
ANNABEL CURRAN
Daily Arts Writer
Leon Bridges performs a moving set for a crowd of millennials
who don’t know how to have a good time
When
Leon
Bridges
approached the stage of the
sold-out Michigan Theater on
Saturday, May 7, he probably
expected to see the faces
of at least a few University
of Michigan students. And
that would have been a fair
assumption: Ann Arbor is, after
all, a college town, and Leon
Bridges is, after all, a bit of a star,
with six Grammy nominations,
including one for each of his
albums.
So why were my buddy and
I some of the only U-M faces
I recognized in the crowd?
Maybe students listen to some
of Bridges’ songs, and generally
like his music, but not enough to
justify the $84.95 tickets. Maybe
everyone and their moms were
down the block at Skeeps,
downing pitchers of vodka-cran.
Maybe
the
button-downed,
bearded, white millennials were
positively bursting at any chance
to watch Bridges perform and
bought up all the tickets before
any students could. Maybe I
should stop my wild theorizing.
The first bunch of songs
Bridges played were pulled
from his two latest albums,
Good Thing (2018) and Gold-
Diggers Sound (2021), both of
which exhibit Bridges’ amazing
genre-bending, genre-blending
repertoire. With elements of
soul, R&B, country, pop and
singer-songwriter
indie-rock,
Bridges and his band produce a
unified and profoundly groovy
sound. He’s boosted all the more
by the sweet songwriting and
vocals that first earned Bridges
acclaim all the way back in 2015
with his first album, Coming
Home.
Throughout
these
first
songs, my friend and I scouted
out seats, bouncing closer and
closer to the stage until we were
touching it in the front row.
Finally securing what might
have been the best seats in the
house, we stood up to move and
groove, bob and weave, sway
and stir or whatever you want
to call my attempt at dancing.
But when I looked behind me,
I was overcome with an almost
overwhelming wave of self-
consciousness: We were the only
ones on our feet!
JOSHUA MEDINTZ
Daily Arts Writer
Photo by Joshua Medintz
‘Sea of Tranquility’ finds humanity in the fantastical
“Sea of Tranquility,” Emily St.
John Mandel’s new novel, demanded
that I read it all in one day. There are
few things more exhilarating (to me,
at least) than tearing through a book
because it’s just that good. Nothing
quite compares to getting to the end of a
book and feeling compelled to read the
“Acknowledgements” section and even
the information about the typeface
(Sabon, if anyone was wondering) just
so the book isn’t over, not quite yet.
Luckily, this is not a book that ends
when you read the last word on the last
page, because it sticks with you and
refuses to let you go.
“Sea of Tranquility” follows several
characters whose lives intersect for
a brief moment — a sort of “glitch”
that brings a displaced Englishman,
renowned
author,
videographer,
violinist and time traveler together. The
novel spans from the early 20th century
to the late 25th century, jumping from
our Englishman, Edwin, in 1912, to time
traveler, Gaspery, in 2401. The worlds
Mandel describes are alien in more
ways than one: Edwin lives in a pre-
WWI Vancouver Island while Olive,
the 23rd-century author character,
lives in an equally unfathomable future
where moon colonies populate the
lunar surface. Mandel dives straight
into a complex web of timelines that
reveal themselves over the course of
the book, and does it in a way that feels
utterly natural. Any time-hopping
disorientation reads as purposeful.
Time travel and the glitch it creates
in this novel provide possible evidence
that life is a simulation, supporting the
so-called “simulation hypothesis.” The
trouble with exploring the possibility
of living in a simulation is the ease
with which you can fall into a kind of
helpless nihilism — if the world isn’t
real, then none of this matters. Mandel
sums up the way her novel deals with
this question fairly succinctly towards
the end: “If definitive proof emerges
that we’re living in a simulation the
correct response to that news will
always be So what. A life lived in a
simulation is still a life.” The characters
in “Sea of Tranquility” live and die and
love and mourn, they ponder and care,
they think beautiful and mundane
things. The 225 pages you, the reader,
just read are also a simulation of sorts,
a world Mandel created. So you are left
to wonder: does that make the feelings
you experienced while reading it any
less real?
EMILIA FERRANTE
Senior Arts Editor
Cover art for “Sea of Tranquility” owned by Alfred A. Knopf
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